Adekeye Adebajo | Pelé – The greatest footballer of all time

The recently deceased Brazilian footballer, Pelé – Edson Arantes do Nascimento – was born in October 1940 to Dondinho and Celeste. He grew up in a shack in the poverty-stricken Brazilian town of Três Corações, playing football barefoot on the streets. From the age of seven, he worked as a shoeshine boy and sold stolen peanuts for the family to make ends meet. Dondinho had moved his family to São Paulo to pursue a football career, but an injury had put paid to his ambitions.

Pelé was a prodigy who joined Santos football club at the age of 15 and made his debut for Brazil a year later. He was lightening quick; had mesmerising dribbling skills; incredible acceleration; performed magical feints, nutmegs, and acrobatic bicycle kicks; shot equally well with both feet; was a powerful header of the ball; and ghosted past defenders like a ballerina. He went on to become the only footballer to have won three World cups, scoring a record 1,283 career goals in 1,367 games.

Despite this incredible rags-to-riches story, Pelé’s social environment made his success even more remarkable. During the Transatlantic slave trade, Portuguese-ruled Brazil imported 5.1 million enslaved and exploited workers from Africa who produced sugar and coffee on dreary plantations. The country abolished slavery only in 1888. African cultures have, however, greatly influenced Brazilian arts, literature, music, and sports, with Yoruba deities fused with Catholic saints to create the religion of Candomblé. But, despite the prominence of black Brazilian footballers, military police still routinely gun down black youths in impoverished favelas (slums): a constant reminder of the deep racism and structural inequalities that continue in this mythical “racial democracy”.

THREE WORLD CUPS

Pelé’s three World Cup triumphs are elegantly captured in the 2021 Netflix documentary bearing his name. He was only 17 when he went to Sweden in 1958 as part of Brazil’s team of superstars including Vavá, Didi, and Garrincha. The teenager exploded on to the world stage, scoring a quarterfinal winner against Wales, a semi-final hat-trick against France, and two spectacular goals – one controlled on his chest before lobbing it over a defender and volleying home - in the final against Sweden. He had finally fulfilled his promise to his father to win a World Cup for him after Dondinho wept following Uruguay’s defeat of Brazil at its home World Cup in 1950. This event resulted in a collective national mental breakdown, with Afro-Brazilian players particularly scapegoated for the defeat.

Pelé played only two matches during the 1962 World Cup in Chile, having sustained a groin injury. Magical winger Garrincha stepped in and almost single-handedly drove the country to victory. Pelé suffered further disappointment four years later at the World Cup in England as Bulgarian and Portuguese defenders ferociously fouled him out of the tournament with tackles that would be banned in today’s game. The experience so frustrated the Brazilian superstar that he vowed never again to play in a World Cup.

Pressured by Brazil’s military junta, Pelé fortunately changed his mind, and agreed to play in Mexico in 1970. After shambolic preparations, the team regrouped to achieve sporting immortality. A 29-year old Pelé – widely written off as past his prime – became the grand conductor of a perfectly tuned orchestra starring artistes like Jairzinho (who scored in every game), Tostão, Rivelino, Gérson, and Carlos Alberto. This was the first World Cup to be televised in glorious technicolour, and Brazil’s golden shirts and blue shorts glistened in the Mexican sun as the Seleção delivered virtuoso performances of futebol arte. They won all seven matches, including beating defending champions England 1-0, Uruguay 3-1 in the semi-final, and Italy 4-1 in an enthralling final. Pelé played a part in 14 of the team’s 19 goals. He eventually ended his international career in 1971, having scored 77 goals in 92 games: a record only equalled by Neymar during the recent World Cup in Qatar.

SANTOS: CLUB CAREER

Joining Santos as a 15-year old in 1956, Pelé scored 59 goals in the 1958 season, a record that still stands. By the 1960s, the Santásticos were one of the best teams in the world, winning six Brazilian championships, two Copa Libertadores, and two Inter-continental cups. In order to pay Pelé’s salary, Santos had to embark on a relentless series of world tours, globalising the club game before the era of globalisation. Santos thus put a team from a small Brazilian port city firmly on the world map. The club provided eight players for the Brazilian national squad in 1963. Throughout his many successes, Pelé’s humility and devout Catholicism shone through. He fervently believed that his talent was God-given.

POLITICS, PROFITS AND PHILANDERING

Pelé’s World Cup exploits in 1958 restored national pride to a country that was rapidly industrialising, and shaking off its stereotypical image as a mono-crop coffee exporter. The attractive footballing style that Pelé dubbed o jogo bonito (the beautiful game) coincided with a period of socio-economic renaissance. Musicians, poets, and documentary-makers lyrically narrated Pelé’s tale. But things soon turned ugly. An American-backed coup d’état brought to power in 1964 a brutal 21-year military regime that oversaw torture, disappearances, deaths, and a curb on freedom of expression and movement. Pelé and football provided temporary succour to a schizophrenic nation, imprisoned by its own rulers.

With Pelé attracting attention from European clubs, the military junta declared him a “non-exportable national treasure”. The generals sought to use him for regime propaganda. The young superstar, however, adopted an apolitical stance, refusing to condemn the military, while arguing that his job was to play football. He did, though, campaign passionately for Brazil’s children to be given better educational opportunities.

Even in late retirement, Pelé lucratively endorsed Mastercard, Pepsi, and Viagra, and was an ambassador for the United Nations and FIFA. Too trusting, he had engaged incompetent business managers and had twice lost and had to rebuild his fortune. He married three times, with his first two marriages collapsing in divorce amid reports of adultery. He had six children but scandalously refused to acknowledge a daughter who had successfully passed a paternity test.

LEGACY: LATE AFTERNOON LIFE

Pelé came out of retirement to play for the New York Cosmos between 1975 and 1978. The Brazilian popularised “soccer” in America, while earning $7 million in three years: more than he had earned in two decades with Santos. Between 1995 and 1998, Pelé served as his country’s sports minister, enacting reforms that facilitated the free movement of Brazilian footballers.

Over 230,000 mourners filed past Pelé’s coffin, including the country’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Sadly, scarcely any of the recent generation of Brazilian superstars showed up to honour their country’s greatest ambassador. Particularly irksome was the absence of Neymar, who had played for Pelé’s Santos. Neymar embodies many of the current generation of brattish, narcissistic football superstars. He had earlier endorsed the fascist right-wing Jair Bolsonaro – the “Trump of the Tropics” – for reelection as Brazilian president.

Pelé was named athlete of the century by the International Olympic Committee in 1999, and a year later, FIFA joint player of the century (with Diego Maradona). He symbolised, in a real sense, the golden age of the “beautiful game” before the loss of innocence that followed the commercialisation of FIFA in 1974 and the financial scandals over the subsequent five decades under the corrupt reigns of João Havelange and Sepp Blatter (well captured in Netflix’s 2022 FIFA Uncovered). Pelé was a timeless figure, the brightest star in the footballing galaxy, a pioneer of global celebrity, and undoubtedly the greatest footballer of all time.

Professor Adekeye Adebajo is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Pretoria’s Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship in South Africa. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com