Pelé arrived punctually at 5 pm. The year was 1992 and the subject, Santos’ Club World Cup, had disappeared.
Santos didn’t know where it was and we went to look for it in the trophy room.
Celso Unzelte arranged the meeting and, incredible, the King agreed: look for the jumble of cups that Santos had at that time —today there is the wonderful Memorial das Achievements.
Pelé arrived at the scheduled time, got out of his Mercedes, walked towards the team at Placar magazine, greeted the reporters and we continued on.
The elevator opens and a middle-aged man comes out with his daughter, no more than five years old. Pelé enters and the man stops him: “Pelé, Pelé… She really wants her autograph”.
The little girl smiles. She doesn’t seem to understand what’s going on. Pelé, she interrupts the closing of the elevator door, bends down, signs the little girl’s shirt, gives her a kiss, a squeeze of her father’s hand, and only then does she go up.
We looked for the cup for over an hour. Was not there. Santos asked São Paulo for the trophy to make the replica that lives in the Memorial today.
Pelé helped win it by delivering the most spectacular performance of his career against Benfica. He did three in Lisbon and had already done two in Maracanã. Before the match at Estádio da Luz, the Lisbon club announced ticket sales for the extra game, necessary if there was a victory for each side. There wasn’t. Pele did not.
He was world champion at the age of 17, the youngest ever, he scored two goals in the decision against Sweden, the youth record, he won twice playing only two games, in 1962, due to a groin muscle injury, he was pursued by the defenders in England , in 1966.
The following year, he declared that he might give up playing in the 1970 World Cup: “I’m not lucky at World Cups, I’ve always been injured.” He was also referring to the beating he took from Ari Clemente before leaving for Sweden, in 1958, which took him out of combat at the start of the tournament.
If anyone had doubts at the end of the 1960s, Pelé erased them all. He scored four goals in winning the Tri and gave the pass to the most beautiful collective work in the history of the Cups, Carlos Alberto’s goal, against Italy.
In all sports, technology and training methods have advanced in ways that say the latest are better than the legends. It’s obvious that Usain Bolt is faster than Jesse Owens, Michael Phelps more impressive than Mark Spitz.
Cristiano Ronaldo is stronger and Messi, perhaps, has more dribbling… But Pelé was the sum of the two geniuses of the 21st century. The power of the Portuguese combined with the art of the Argentine.
Tabled with Coutinho – and with the shin of the opposing defender.
Europeans only consider goals in official matches, which made Cristiano surpass the King in this statistic. Congratulations to the guy. Pelé’s 1,283 goals were worth the points and art.
In a friendly, Pelé stopped a war. How is this game not worth it?
Do you know what it’s like to be King?
To be a King is to spend 64 years of your life hearing that Di Stéfano and Maradona could have been better, that Messi, who knows, could be superior, Cristiano Ronaldo a better scorer, that Cruyff might have been more intelligent… And the comparison is always with Pelé, who still arrived at the appointed time and caressed the girl —and her father— at the elevator door in Vila Belmiro.
That’s being King.
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