Pelé was already the King, but in terms of the World Cup, as a matter of fact, there was only one, in 1958, when the kid entered the third game and painted and embroidered in Sweden.
Four years later, in Chile, he was injured in the second game and was replaced by Amarildo. In 1966, he played a supporting role in the national fiasco, in the World Cup that England won and in which Eusébio shone.
In 1970, at the age of 29, the best in the world had the chance to – goes the cliché – close his career with the yellow jersey with a golden key. And that’s what happened.
Decisive in the Qualifiers, Pelé went through a troubled moment with coach João Saldanha. He expressed his dissatisfaction with the formation of the team, a 4-2-4, with just Piazza and Gerson in the middle. The coach said he was “blind”, based on an examination that had detected slight myopia.
Saldanha left, Zagallo took over, the scheme changed, but the team left Brazil under boos. Soon they would be exchanged for screams of goal and celebration in the streets.
Already in the debut against Czechoslovakia, after taking a worrying 1-0, the team turned to 4-1.
Pelé scored an ace goal, killing a long throw by Gerson in the chest. And he left the world awestruck when he tried to score a goal from midfield, catching the goalkeeper in advance – a move that other less inspired players would later manage to successfully complete.
It was the first of four unforgettable “almost goals” by the King in that Cup.
Another two came in the match against Uruguay, when he first hit a ball that was poorly answered by Mazurkiewicz. Afterwards, he still applied that disconcerting feint on the great Celeste goalkeeper and kicked it out, close to the crossbar.
The fourth was the incredible header from top to bottom in the very tough confrontation with the English, then world champions, which provided goalkeeper Gordon Banks with an anthological defense.
If he failed to score in those four wonderful moments, the eternal number 10 of Brazil also put the ball on the string on four occasions — the most notable of them in the fulminating header in the final against Italy, which opened the score from 4 to 1.
From the feet of the ace also came two precious assists for teammates: in the exquisite play that resulted in Jairzinho’s goal against England, in which Tostão gave us a disconcerting dribble over a rival; and in Carlos Alberto’s goal that ended the Italian pretensions.
In that team that many consider the best of all time, Pelé was the big star. If he was already a myth, he left the lawns of Mexico as a football god.
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