Pele landed himself in hot water with football fans last week after he said Lionel Messi "only shoots with one leg, only has one skill and doesn't head the ball well".

It came after Luka Modric won the 2018 Ballon d'Or and Messi finished fifth, which led many people to question how arguably the greatest player of all time could come so low.

Pele then responded by asking how Messi can possibly be compared to himself and Diego Maradona, who according to the Brazilian could shoot with both feet and score with their head.

But his claim backfired as football fans far and wide slammed Pele and even brought up his own dubious goalscoring record.

One Barcelona fan went as far as writing a lengthy Twitter thread explaining why Pele is the "biggest fraud in football history", which you can check out here.

Several of Messi's teammates at Barcelona have since come out in support of the Argentine, with Jordi Alba stating that he's the "best in the world by some distance".

“Pele must not be able to see very well if he says what he says about Leo," Alba added, per Sport. "It seems like a lie that someone in the world of football could speak like that."

Andres Iniesta has now reacted to Pele's comments, too, and even though the Spaniard didn't directly respond to him, he couldn't help but give his opinion on the debate.

"I do not want to answer what Pele said," said Iniesta during a recent promotional event, per Marca, "but he (Messi) is the best player in history.

"He's got all the records: headers, skills, right-footed shots, left-footed shots - I have not seen anyone do what he does and every year he exceeds my expectations.

"[Being] fifth [in the Ballon d'Or voting] is not an insult, but for me he is the best. It would be bad to say that it was unfair for Modric to win, he had a great season."

Well said, Andres. Pele probably feels quite silly right now after all the backlash he's received, so don't expect to hear anything else from him for a while.