“Soccer has arrived in the United States. They can spread it around,” said Pelé in his appearance at the New York Cosmos, in 1975, the only professional club he played for besides Santos.
It was the beginning of almost three years of a partnership that put football on the US sports scene and earned the player millions of dollars and friends like musician Mick Jagger, former German midfielder Franz Beckenbauer and boxer Muhammad Ali.
Pelé retired in 1974, after 18 years with Santos. But football was not yet ready to live without the King.
Several proposals emerged. But Cosmos was so committed to signing the player that it even involved the US Secretary of State at the time, Henry Kissinger, in the transaction.
Clive Toye, director of Cosmos, saw in Pelé the chance to make football take off in the country and had been trying to sign him since the club’s founding, in 1970. When the King stopped, he took advantage of the opportunity.
“I said: ‘If you go to Real Madrid or Juventus, all you can win is another championship. If you come to Cosmos, we can win a country,'” said Toye, who referred to Pelé as “a big crocodile ” during negotiations, so as not to let the news leak out.
When the negotiation became public, the idea of Pelé playing abroad was not well received in Brazil. Enter Kissinger then.
“In my contacts with the Brazilian government, I tried to convince them that having Pelé play in the US was a tremendous asset for Brazil,” reports Kissinger in the 2006 documentary “Once in a Lifetime” about the Cosmos. He also called the player.
Attracted by a contract worth US$ 3 million (US$ 16.6 million in current values, or about R$ 86 million) to play and by the idea of spreading football in North American territory, Pelé accepted.
With the signings of the German Franz Beckenbauer, the Italian Giorgio Chinaglia and the also Brazilian Carlos Alberto Torres, the Cosmos became the first team of galacticos in football.
Athletes were celebrities in New York. They had parties at the trendy Studio 54 nightclub, washed down with champagne and with celebrities such as Mick Jagger, Elton John and Rod Stewart. Beckenbauer, world champion in 1974, describes this period as “the best of his life”.
The Cosmos boosted the average NASL (North American Football League) attendance from 7,597 people per game in 1975 to 13,584 in 1977. League games returned to TV. In 1977, Pelé’s last year on the team, Cosmos was champion.
The King’s last game was a friendly against Santos, in 1977. Pelé played the first half for the New York team and the second for the Brazilian team — he only scored for Cosmos.
Excited, at the end of the match, he asked the young people: “Please, repeat after me: ‘Love, love, love’ [amor, amor, amor].” The phrase in English was immortalized by Caetano Veloso, in the song “Love, love, love”, from the album “Tudo”, from 1978.
Cosmos closed in 1985 and returned to activity in 2010. Pelé was honorary president.
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