World football collectively cringed when Pele unleashed a bizarre rant on Lionel Messi in 2018.

While Pele has openly praised the Barcelona superstar at times over the years, he was clearly in no mood for compliments three years ago when he essentially branded Messi as a one-trick pony. 

According to Goal, the Brazilian icon sensationally told Folha de Sao Paulo: "How can you make a comparison between a guy who heads the ball well, shoots with the left, shoots with the right and another who only shoots with one leg, only has one skill and doesn’t head the ball well?

Pele's rant about Messi

"How can you compare? To compare with Pele, it has to be someone who shoots well with the left, shoots well with the right, and scores headers."

Now, anybody who's ever watched Messi play football will be well aware that Pele's remarkable ramblings were miles wide of the mark.

While, sure, Messi might not be a colossus in the air like Cristiano Ronaldo or ambidextrous dribbler like Santi Cazorla, there's no denying that his heading and weak foot skills are still world-class.

Messi's staggering 2014/15 season

And we think one particular Messi masterclass illustrates that point perfectly and it transpired during one of his most lucrative seasons of all: the 2014/15 treble-winning campaign.

Leading the line with Luis Suarez and Neymar by his side and with Luis Enrique pulling the strings in the dugout, Messi inspired the Blaugrana to their latest Champions League triumph in Berlin.

And he preemptively raised two fingers to Pele in the group stages when he remarkably smashed home a hat-trick of weak-footed goals during the 4-0 win at APOEL Nicosia.

Once Suarez had opened the scoring with his first goal for the Catalans, Messi reminded the world that he's more than capable of producing the goods with his right foot in the form of a cool treble.

Messi's weak foot hat-trick

Messi opened the scoring with a great show of poacher's instincts in front of the goalkeeper, before producing one of his classic chipped one-on-one finishes for his second, albeit on his right peg.

But Messi left the best to last, proving that the synapses of his footballing brain fire at the speed of sound by putting APOEL's offside trap on his puppet strings and using it to score his third.

Intrigued? Of course you are, so be sure to check out Messi's weak-footed masterclass down below:

Clearly, Pele had forgotten about this particular performance when he started ranting away.

Put respect on Messi's right foot

And ok, sure, I can already hear the skeptics critiquing the fact it's APOEL - though they did reach the quarter-finals in 2011/12 - but come on, this is still the Champions League we're talking about here.

So, even if we go through the stats book with a fine-tooth comb and point out Messi's lower ratio of weak-footed goals compared to Ronaldo, don't think for one minute that it's because he doesn't know how to use it. 

It just happens that when your strongest foot is one of the most lethal weapons in sporting history that you hardly ever need the weaker one to hoover up Ballon d'Or titles. Don't go changing, Leo.