Pelé grew closer to his children over the years

While Pelé was a ball peddler, the sought-after poster boy had little time for his children.

He followed their growth from a distance because he was never home or had divorced their mothers. The rapprochement with everyone happened drop by drop and came with maturity. The exception was Sandra Regina Machado, a daughter recognized only in court. She died in 2006, aged 42, from breast cancer. The two had no contact.

Pelé is the father of Edinho, 52, Kely Cristina, 54 and Jennifer, 43, from his marriage to Rosemeri dos Reis Cholbi. The relationship with the gospel singer Assíria Lemos gave birth to the twins Joshua and Celeste, 25. Flavia Cristina, 53, was also admitted as a daughter only when she was an adult (like Sandra), but without a court battle.

“I grew up in New York, raised by my mother, a son of divorced parents. There was rebellion in me. I thought: who made my mother cry? It was that guy. So I was rebellious”, recalls Edinho, currently a coach.

Pelé became involved in his children’s problems only when such intervention became unavoidable. Former employees of the King of Football heard by the report claim that this was due to concern with his own image and what other people might think of him.

In an interview with Sheet in 2021, when Pelé turned 80, Edinho said that the first memory he had of his father was playing football with him in a house they lived in the neighborhood of Ponta da Praia, in Santos. The ball was a pillow. In New York, where the player played for the Cosmos in 1975, there was a departure.

“When my friends asked what my father did, I was ashamed to speak. I wasn’t ashamed of him, but to say that he was a football player, a sport that was seen as a girls’ thing [nos EUA]”, he explained.

With Edinho growing up practically without his father’s presence in the American city, Pelé entered the scene only when he learned that his son was starting to get involved with gangs. He called the team the boy played for in the United States to find out how he was doing on the field.

He made an effort so that, on vacation in Santos, the boy went to train at Vila Belmiro. It was the spark that ignited his goalkeeping career.

“It was an instant rapprochement between us, overnight. I started to realize who my father was and what he stood for. He started calling me every day to ask what I had done, something that had never happened before”, remember.

“I was very needy, like any son who feels the absence of his father. I wanted to please him and make him proud. As he started to pay attention to me and take an interest in my life, there was this connection between us”, complete.

This does not mean that Edinho has started to take everything for granted. Pelé he knew, when necessary, to be tough, using what the Americans call “tough love” (tough love). He wanted to make the children achieve things for themselves.

When he covered Santos for his son, it wasn’t just a gift. In exchange, he made his son hand over the deed to the other apartment he lived in in the city to the family businesses. But he was present, as far as possible, when the former goalkeeper was convicted of association with drug trafficking in 2005. Edinho claims innocence.

When Kely Cristina wanted to buy an apartment in New York with her husband, she had to finance it like any other citizen, without the involvement of her famous father.

“This here is my daughter, they won’t think she’s my girlfriend”, he joked when he arrived with her at the concert of musician Carlos Lyra, in São Paulo, in 2013.

Edinho was the first to realize the need to insist on the relationship with Pelé and he noticed that it was also necessary to offer.

“Playing football broke that barrier [entre pai e filho]. I became aware that I had to fight for the relationship. I had to give in on several things. This made me reflect a lot and try to understand my father, who he was and the reality of his life. It was the trigger for us to get closer. I promised myself I was going to conquer him and it became something of both of us. Each gained from the other the part he lacked. And football was the reason for all of that,” he says.

When Joshua wanted to try his luck as an athlete in the youth teams at Santos, Pelé supported him, but let the boy walk on his own feet to see if that was what he wanted. It wasn’t, and the then teenager gave up.

As the years passed, the father’s old age and stubbornness, the children had to try to assume the role of protectors. Conversations, scoldings and requests for him to take the physiotherapy seriously and take the medicine were constant. The same for attempts to improve his mood, which began to vary.

Pelé was unable to mend his relationship with Sandra Regina, but only because that was his will. The annoyance in recognizing and embracing the daughter who was so physically similar to him (even her voices had the same tone) became the club with which he was most beaten by his critics.

She died on October 17, 2006. Five days later, the King of Football was booed by the public at Interlagos, before the F1 Brazil GP.

According to Samir Abdul-Hak, a lawyer who died in 2016 and who worked for Pelé for many years, his client and friend never believed that Sandra was really his daughter and nothing could convince him otherwise. Not even the positive DNA test requested by the Court, attached to the file.