Opinion – Tostão: Before the ball arrived, by looking at Pelé he was already telling me what he intended to do

When I want to feel proud and important, I say that I played with Pelé. The first time I saw him on the field, for Santos, it was at the Independência stadium, in Belo Horizonte, before the 1958 World Cup. He must have been 17 years old, and I was ten. I was delighted with his tables with Coutinho.

In 1966, at the World Cup in England, I was his substitute. On the day of the presentation, in Lambari, in the south of Minas, I met him off the pitch for the first time. He welcomed me with joy and a broad smile. Cruzeiro played a training game against the Selection, in Caxambu, and I played for the Selection, in place of Pelé, who didn’t play in the match. After the game, my father, who was there, asked me to meet the King. Pelé talked and played with him. My father, moved, wept, like a subject in love with royalty.

Pelé was always cheerful, smiling. She treated everyone with kindness. At the time, there was not the distance that there is today between the great stars, the press and the public. Pelé gave me the impression that the genius and the human being were one and the same. It didn’t seem to have the frequent conflict that there is in celebrities, between the human being and the character, the creator and the creature.

Pelé was the best of all time because he had, at the highest level, all the qualities of a superstar. Then, as an analyst, I looked in my memories for some deficiency of Pelé and I didn’t find it. What was most strange to me is that Pelé had a masterful physical condition, a speed and an impulsion greater than everyone else, even though he was a poor boy, who never went to a good gym, who never had access to modern nutritional technology and who trained very little. , because, from a very young age, he played for Santos three times a week, for Brazil and the world.

Emotionally, Pelé was also very strong, aware that he was superior to everyone and that he depended on the group to shine. When the game was difficult and he was very well marked, he was restless, possessed. Sometimes he would play as a center forward, among the defenders. He asked for the ball and, with speed and physical strength, took the defenders out of the play to finish and score the goal.

Before the 1970 World Cup, there was a lot of talk that he was decaying, slower and that he didn’t have the same regularity as before. Pelé prepared a lot for the World Cup, ending his career as the greatest of all time.

As soon as I started playing alongside him, I noticed that, before the ball arrived, he would become agitated and look at me with bulging eyes, as if saying what he intended. I tried to keep up with him, by the movements of his body. It is analog communication. If I had played for Santos or he for Cruzeiro, we would have made a much better duo. In addition, at the time, the team played much less than today.

It is impressive how Pelé, even having ended his career 50 years ago, maintained the worldwide prestige of a King. He continued to be a star, a poster child, a celebrity the world over. After all the people who saw Pelé play live, on the pitch and on television, die, how will Pelé be seen by new and future generations?

Kings also die. It is the finitude of life, the only absolute certainty. I already miss Pelé, seeing him on the pitch, in concentration, with his happy and simple way of being King. To paraphrase João Guimarães Rosa, Pelé did not die, he was enchanted.