29, December 2022
At 17, Pele conquered the world 0
Pele burst onto the global stage at just 17 with dazzling goals as Brazil won the World Cup for the first time in Sweden in 1958.
“I have good and bad stories from World Cups. The ’58 World Cup was a dream. I was a kid. Nobody was expecting it. Nobody believed in us. I remember some reporters saying: ‘how can they take a 17-year-old kid to the World Cup finals,” Pele recalled in an interview with FIFA.
As ever on the football field, Pele’s timing was impeccable.
While the 1954 World Cup had been broadcast live to a small European audience, 1958 was shown more widely and far more people owned television sets.
Pele, who crowned his career 12 years later in Mexico in the first World Cup broadcast in colour, was the first football star to play his entire career in the TV era.
In 1958, Brazil under coach Vicente Feola were also innovating.
They embraced the 4-2-4 formation and adopted a detailed approach to every aspect of preparation and planning.
The federation assigned a psychologist, Joao Carvalhaes, to the squad. He tested the players and pronounced Pele “too infantile”.
“You may be right,” Feola replied. “But you know nothing about football and I’ve seen Pele play.”
Pele, nursing a knee injury, missed the first two group games, a 3-0 win over Austria and the first goalless draw at a World Cup against England.
He made his debut against the USSR in the final group match.
The brilliant and unpredictable winger Garrincha was also recalled after being left out of the first two group matches.
Veteran defender Nilton Santos is said to have led a delegation of players to see Feola demanding he change the team.
Their recall altered the complexion of a side which had only contained one black player in the opening game.
Youngest scorer
In the first three minutes, Pele and Garrincha hit the woodwork and Vava scored. Vava added a second after the break as Brazil won 2-0 and secured first place in the group.
Pele made history in the 66th minute of the quarter-final scoring the only goal against Wales to become, at 17 years and 239 days, the youngest scorer in a World Cup.
He controlled the ball with his back to goal and Mel Charles marking him closely, flicked the ball toward goal with his right foot, spun and poked a shot through a challenge by Stuart Williams and in off the far post.
It was a goal fit to win a World Cup quarter-final, but because all the quarter-finals kicked off at the same time and the technology meant only one game could be shown live, it was not seen at the time by the global audience.
Pele hit the last three goals as Brazil beat France 5-2 in the semi-finals, pouncing on two loose balls in the goalmouth for a pair of well-taken poacher’s goals and completing his hat-trick with a stinging volley.
Just Fontaine scored for the losers and went on to finish the tournament with 13 goals.
“When I saw Pele play, it made me feel I should hang up my boots,” Fontaine said later.
Pele made his mark in the final on a Rasunda Stadium pitch made slippery by rain.
Although his play, behind centre forward Vava, epitomised the all-round attacking role associated with the modern number 10, he had that shirt only by accident. Despite their careful planning, the Brazilians had neglected to submit squad numbers and were assigned them at random. Goalkeeper Gilmar, for example, wore three.
Sweden took a fourth minute lead. Pele struck the woodwork. Then Garrincha twice beat his men on the right and hit low crosses for Vava to tap in.
In the 55th minute, Pele scored the third with a memorable flourish.
With the hulking Sigge Parling at his back, Pele leaped and twisted to control a ball into the penalty area. By the time he landed Parling was behind him.
‘Quick thinking’
As Bengt Gustavsson lunged in, Pele opted not to shoot, instead flicking the ball over the defender’s head.
Shrugging off a bootful of studs in his thigh, Pele composed himself as the ball dropped, from a height of 3.2 metres, FIFA have calculated, leant forward and bounced a volley under goalkeeper Kalle Svensson.
“If I said I thought about it, I’d be lying,” Pele told FIFA. “It was a spur-of-the moment reaction, quick thinking. When I controlled it I was going to hit it first time but then I thought quickly and adjusted. One of the strengths in my life and in my football was my improvisation, to change at the last second.”
In the final minute, Pele rounded off another 5-2 win, with a looping header that finished a one-two he had started with a backheel.
At the final whistle, Pele wept as teammates hoisted him in the air.
“After the fifth goal, even I wanted to cheer for him,” said Parling.
Fans watching round the world cheered too. King Gustav VI Adolf of Sweden came down to the pitch to shake Pele’s hand. Football’s king had been crowned.
Source: AFP
30, December 2022
Brazil starts three days of mourning for legendary footballer Pelé 0
Brazil starts three days of national mourning on Friday for football legend Pele, the three-time World Cup winner widely regarded as the greatest player of all time, who has died at age 82.
The death of “The King” who transcended football triggered a wave of tributes around the globe from the sports world and also from political and cultural leaders.
Pele died Thursday at the Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo after a long battle with cancer.
“We love you infinitely. Rest in peace,” daughter Kely Nascimento wrote on Instagram.
The football world — from his former teammates to current stars — came together to honor “O Rei”, who transformed the sport during a long professional career that began when he was still a teenager.
Brazil star Neymar said Pele “transformed football into an art.” France’s Kylian Mbappe said his legacy “will never be forgotten,” and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo called him an “inspiration to millions.”
Argentina’s World Cup-winning captain Lionel Messi simply wrote: “Rest in peace.”
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who declared three days of national mourning, paid tribute to a man who “transformed football into art and joy”, while president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is due to take office Sunday, tweeted: “There had never been a number 10 like him.”
Pele is the only footballer in history to have won three World Cups — in 1958, 1962 and 1970.
He scored a world record 1,281 goals in 1,363 matches during a 21-year career.
He had been in increasingly fragile health, battling kidney problems and colon cancer — undergoing surgery for the latter in September 2021, followed by chemotherapy.
A wake will take place on Monday, followed by a funeral on Tuesday in Santos, the southeastern city where he played most of his career, his former club said.
The city declared seven days of mourning as fans flocked to the team’s stadium to leave flowers.
In front of the Sao Paulo hospital where he died, fans held up a banner which read: “Eternal King Pele.”
In Rio de Janeiro, the Christ the Redeemer statue which overlooks the city was illuminated in homage to Pele, as was the legendary Maracana stadium.
For the Brazilian daily O Globo, whose front page was packed with stories about the sporting legend, Pele remained the “immortal king of football”.
In a testament to Pele’s influence, international figures including US President Joe Biden and former leader Barack Obama, Brazilian music legends Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, and International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach also paid tribute.
“As one of the most recognizable athletes in the world, he understood the power of sports to bring people together,” Obama wrote.
‘Samba football’
Born on October 23, 1940, in the southeastern city of Tres Coracoes, Edson Arantes do Nascimento — named for American inventor Thomas Edison — grew up selling peanuts on the street to help his impoverished family get by.
He was soon given the nickname Pele, for his mispronunciation of Bile, the name of a goalkeeper at Vasco de Sao Lourenco, where his footballer father once played.
Pele dazzled from the age of 15, when he started playing professionally with Santos. He led the club to a flurry of titles, including back-to-back Intercontinental Cups in 1962-1963.
He epitomized the Brazil national team’s sublime style of play, called “samba football.”
Pele set his scoring records playing for Santos (1956-74), the Brazilian national team, and the New York Cosmos (1975-77).
But beyond the many benchmarks he set, he will be remembered for revolutionizing the sport, his ever-present number 10 on his back as he tapped into his preternatural athleticism.
The first global football star, he played a lead role in making the game a sporting and commercial powerhouse.
He also played with heart, visible in the black-and-white footage of the 17-year-old bursting into tears after helping Brazil to its first World Cup title, in 1958.
Eight years earlier, seeing his father cry when Brazil lost the 1950 World Cup final on home soil to Uruguay, Pele had promised to bring the trophy home one day.
Sports royalty
Pele reached the pinnacle of his greatness at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, the first broadcast in color, where he starred on what many consider the greatest team of all time, with talents such as Rivellino, Tostao and Jairzinho.
He was often welcomed like royalty when traveling abroad with Santos or the national team. Legend has it that his arrival in Nigeria in 1969 prompted a 48-hour truce in the bloody Biafra war.
Pele declined offers to play in Europe but signed for a brief, lucrative swansong with the New York Cosmos at the end of his career, bringing his star power to the land of “soccer.”
His influence extended beyond the pitch, with gigs as a movie star, singer and sports minister (1995-1998) — he was one of the first black cabinet members in Brazil.
But he faced criticism at times in Brazil for remaining quiet on social issues and racism, and for what some saw as his haughty, vain personality.
Unlike Argentine rebel Diego Maradona, one of his rivals for the title of greatest of all time, Pele was seen as close to those in power — including Brazil’s 1964-1985 military regime.
‘Eternal, unforgettable’
Pele’s health began to fail in the last decade. His public appearances grew increasingly rare, and he frequently used a walker or wheelchair.
He was hospitalized several times for urinary infections, then again in 2021 and 2022 for the colon cancer that marked the beginning of the end.
He met his health problems with typical humor.
“I will face this match with a smile on my face,” he posted on Instagram in September 2021, after surgery to remove his colon tumor.
Mario Zagallo, who won the World Cup alongside Pele in 1958 and 1962, said the King had “stopped the world several times” with his talent.
“He leaves an eternal, unforgettable legacy,” the 91-year-old Zagallo said.
Source: AFP