Opinion – The World Is a Ball: An acrostic for Pelé

A blank page could be the most suitable, in order to convey the silence.

Because, when someone important in football dies, before each game there is a “minute of silence”, in deference to the one who died.

I don’t know how many minutes of silence the next matches will have.

There should be at least two, because at most someone played half of what Pelé – who died this Thursday (29), at the age of 82 – played.

Or rather, I hope that every organizer of each upcoming game will display a minute (or two) of Edson Arantes do Nascimento’s goals on the stadium screen, so that those present can appreciate the minimum of his work.

Is there no screen in the stadium? That the loudspeakers emit the narration of Pelé’s goals – if not worldwide, due to language limitations, at least in some countries.

I thought about silence, thoughts took the opposite direction: talking. Not verbalizing, but writing, because that’s what I know how to do.

After all, how to remain silent before the match –perhaps it was football, with him in top form, but the meaning here is different– of the best footballer of all time?

Almost fifty years ago, in a long career in sports, I haven’t seen Pelé live, on or off the pitch. I never met or spoke to him. It wasn’t meant to be.

But since I was little I saw him a lot on TV, once or twice in the cinema (missing Canal 100). I invariably gaped. Of astonishment, of joy, of admiration.

There are so many nouns, and so many adjectives, to personify Pelé (perhaps “immortal” is best) that my homage will come in an acrostic.

Which, in the Priberam dictionary definition, is “text in which the first letters of each line or paragraph vertically form one or more words”.

R ei: for two decades, the ball was its main subject; very faithful.

AND suit: the body is gone; his story is alive and will live on forever.

I incomparable: anyone trying to find a better one certainly hasn’t seen him play.

D dominant: no one was more preponderant in his time; more than 1,280 goals in his career, three titles and 12 goals in World Cups, twice champion of Libertadores, twice world champion, Brazilian champion five times in a row, champion of São Paulo eight times in the ten-year interval, 11 times top scorer of Paulista, more than one hundred goals scored in one year on three occasions… and so on.

O original: the first to punch the air, the first to score a home goal, the first to celebrate the milestone of a thousand goals.

F ominha: a defect? Do not. An excellent finisher, he could be the “owner” of the ball.

U universal: the Pelé name, the Pelé brand, the image of Pelé; who doesn’t know?

T emido: nightmare of scorers, few managed to stop him (many only on the stroke).

AND nshine: To help his family, who were poor, he shined shoes as a boy.

B Brazilian: the best in history, the greatest, is ours; no one works.

O omnipotent: within the four lines, he could do everything; there, he was god.

L enda: in sports, there are a few (few in football); he is the greatest of all.

Many people will say goodbye to Pelé. I refuse.

While thousands will cry with sadness and longing, and say words of regret, I will review on the internet the goals, the famous non-goals (in the 1970 World Cup) and the masterful plays of Pelé for Santos and for Brazil.

By doing this, I may even shed tears. But they will be ones of happiness, expressing a pleasant nostalgia, and, as soon as the small screen goes silent, I will babble, amidst a smile, three words: “This is Pelé”.

In time: “Isto É Pelé” (1974), directed by Eduardo Escorel and Luiz Carlos Barreto, is one of the first films to tell the story of the King. In it, Pelé, who was still active –he retired in 1977, at Cosmos (USA)–, tells the most important goal of his career, points out the essential foundation of football and defines which Brazilian team, the 1958 or that of 1970, would win a hypothetical duel of world champions. The documentary is available on Globoplay and on the Tela Nacional channel on YouTube.