The five lives of Pelé
How The King changed football—again and again.
Drawing by Sammy Moody
Thore Haugstad
1 Feb 2023
In the 1950s, a bunch of rowdy kids met up in Bauru, a town in Brazil, to start a football team. They were used to playing on dirt and rocks, using balls made of socks or newspapers tied with string. Now they named the team Sete de Setembro, a tribute to the day Brazil won independence from Portugal in 1822, and listed what they had to buy: shirts, shorts, socks, boots and a proper ball. But they had no money. One of the poorest was Pelé, who had arrived there from Três Corações when his dad, Dondinho, a semipro striker, had been given a deal at Bauru Athletic Club and a job at the council, only to have the job offer withdrawn. Now Dondinho was providing for his wife, three kids, uncle and mother—and Pelé had helped out by shining shoes at the train station. Pelé had no cash for gear and boots. But he had an idea.
He wanted to collect enough football sticker cards to fill an album, then sell it for big money. His friends doubted this plan, so Pelé went solo, scrapping and selling until he had enough to buy a real ball. As for the gear, one of them had another idea. There was a factory near the train station that stored huge bags of peanuts. They could steal some and sell it at the circus and the cinema. The idea of thievery made Pelé uncomfortable, and the feeling got worse when the group chose him to carry out the mission. One day Pelé found a bucket and sneaked into the factory, his heart pounding. He found a bag and slit a hole so that peanuts flowed out. Filling the bucket and his pocket, he sprinted out with the goods. One of his friends returned to the factory to steal more, only to get busted and flee. Since the gig was up, they sold the nuts and counted the cash—enough to buy gear, but not boots. Sete de Setembro started up fully kitted with bare feet.
Pelé, born 23 October 1940 as Edson Arantes do Nascimento, had not dreamt of being a footballer. He wanted to be a pilot. The wish lasted until he and his friends saw the corpse of a pilot who had crashed in his glider near their school, a sight so morbid that it put him off flying for good. His mother wanted him to become a teacher, but Pelé was chatty and restless; a nightmare to his teachers, who made him face a corner with his arms held out, or kneel on a pile of dry beans. He’d finish school two years late. Outside, he nearly drowned when swimming in a river, and was saved by a passerby who fished him up with a stick. His real education came from his father, who had once scored five headers in one game. Dondinho taught him how to cushion the ball on your chest, how to head it with your eyes open, how to keep control by shortening your strides. When Brazil lost the decisive game to Uruguay at the 1950 World Cup, Pelé saw him cry for the first time. “Don’t worry dad,” Pelé claimed to have said. “One day I’ll win it.”
When Bauru Athletic Club set up a youth team, Pelé joined and found a mentor in the coach, Waldemar de Brito, who’d been a striker for Brazil at the 1934 World Cup. When De Brito realised how good Pelé was, he told Santos that he had a kid who could become the best in the world. In 1956, Pelé travelled to Santos, who had just won the São Paulo state championship for the first time in twenty years. He was dreaming of seeing the sea. De Brito told him to never read the papers or listen to the radio, advice Pelé would heed. De Brito also warned about cigarettes, alcohol, gangs and women.
When Pelé turned up, he was put in dorms under the concrete stands of Vila Belmiro, where the players lived eight to a room. In June he signed his first contract. He was fifteen years old and weighted less than sixty kilos. The coach, Lula, told him to bulk up. Soon Pelé was training with the seniors, playing for the U20s and eating “like a horse”.
One day Pelé skied a penalty for the U16s. They lost, the crowd booed and he began to cry. The next morning he got up early, packed his bag and snuck out the door to go home for good. But a guard caught him and stopped his escape; minors could not leave the premises without approval in writing. When Pelé eventually went home to Bauru and said he had signed a deal, his mum broke down in tears over the thought of ‘losing’ her son. Pelé began to cry too, and vowed to tear up his contract and come home. A horrified De Brito had to persuade Pelé to give Santos one more shot.
Pelé rose quickly. He scored on his debut in September, putting the ball past Zaluar, who’d print up business cards saying, “The goalkeeper who let in Pelé’s first goal”. Soon Pelé was scoring every week. In summer 1957 he shone in a Rio de Janeiro cup, and in July he made his senior debut for Brazil at sixteen years and nine months. They were playing Argentina in the Roca Cup at the Maracanã, and Pelé came on as a sub and scored. At Santos he became top scorer in the 1957 state championship. By now he was training judo and karate. His balance was superb, his speed raw, and his thighs as thick as his waist. When Brazil named their squad for the 1958 World Cup, Pelé was easily the best seventeen-year-old in the country. His dad listened to the call-up on the radio, but was unsure if they said ‘Pelé’ or ‘Telê’. He rang Pelé saying, “I think you are in the team, son.” Luckily for Brazil, he was right.
I — SENSATION
Brazil had a lot to avenge in Sweden. The ghost of 1950 still hung in the air, and in 1954 Brazil had crashed out to Hungary in a violent quarterfinal. With financial backing from Brazil president Juscelino Kubitschek, the new federation boss, João Havelange, hand-picked a technical commission to run the mission in Sweden. Headed by Paulo Machado de Carvalho, a media mogul from São Paulo, the commission had a doctor, a fitness coach, a psychologist, a dentist, a treasurer and a spy. The coach was Vicente Feola, an affable tactician prone to nodding off on the bench. Searching for the best team base, the commission dispatched a crew to scout twenty-five locations in Sweden.
Only a few from the 1954 squad survived, such as the midfield general Didi and the rampaging fullback Nílton Santos. A new face was Garrincha, a hurricane winger from Botafogo. The squad trained in Minas Gerais and were playing Corinthians when a player caught Pelé’s right knee and forced him off. The doctors doubted whether he’d go to Sweden. One story says his teammates demanded he be included, fit or not. Pelé ran with a limp. He struck the ball weakly. But when Brazil flew to Italy, he was on board.
As Brazil played more warmup games in Florence and Milan, the doctor, Hilton Gosling, told Pelé he’d need a painful recovery regime to have any hope of playing the World Cup. This plan involved putting hot towels on his knee. The squad landed in Gothenburg six days before their first game. They travelled to Hindås, a town east of the city, where the commission insisted that the hotel’s twenty-five female staff members be replaced with males. They also tried to close a nearby nudist beach.
The squad visited the Liseberg amusement park, threw darts and went to a dance hall. Pelé loved Sweden. He enjoyed the hills and mountains, the fresh air and the locals, who he found lovely. He also hung out with Garrincha. Once Pelé saw a battery-powered radio and told Garrincha he wanted to buy one. Garrincha didn’t get why Pelé wanted something in a language he didn’t understand.
Not everyone wanted Pelé to get fit. The team psychologist, João Carvalhaes, had done tests on the players and found that Pelé “lacks the necessary fighting spirit”. He also advised against picking Garrincha, whose IQ score was too low to work as a São Paulo bus driver. Pelé was injured anyway, while one story says Garrincha was benched due to showboating in a warmup game against Fiorentina, where he had dribbled the keeper, stopped the ball on the line, waited for the keeper and beaten him again. In any case Brazil crushed Austria 3–0 at Rimnersvallen in Udevalla. When they faced England at Ullevi, Pelé and Garrincha were dropped again. The game ended 0–0. Ahead of the final group game, against the Soviet Union, Pelé was going mad.
By now Dr Gosling had declared him fit. He and Garrincha and run circles around the starters in training. One story says some of the senior players confronted Feola and demanded that the two be included. Dr Carvalhaes still told Feola to keep the two on the bench. “You may be right,” Feola replied. “The thing is, you don’t know anything about football.”
Pelé and Garrincha started against the Soviets. Did gave the ball straight to Garrincha, who flew down the right and smashed the ball into the post. Seconds later Pelé struck the woodwork too. He even shouted “Goal!”
“Relax!” said Didi. “The goal will come.”
Then Didi set up Vavá with an audacious killer pass, and he scored. Three minutes had gone. The editor of L’Équipe, Gabriel Hanot, called them the best three minutes of football ever played. When Pelé found Vavá for 2–0, Brazil were out of sight—and ready for the quarters.
Now the lineup was set. Brazil played 4-4-2 with fullbacks bombing forward, Didi bossing the midfield next to Zito, and Garrincha and Mário Zagallo out wide. Nobody could handle Garrincha, whose left leg bent outwards and his right leg inwards, and who played cat-and-mouse with dizzy left-backs. Often he’d trick them, wait for them to recover and do it all again. This also drove the strikers crazy, since Pelé never knew whether he’d cross the ball or drag it back. Just behind, Didi would pretend to pass to one side only to send it the opposite way, a trick so good it fooled Pelé and Garrincha too. “No, you idiots!” Didi would say. “I’m trying to confuse the other team!”
In the quarters, a Pelé winner sank Wales. When Brazil met France in the semis, Vavá broke Robert Jonquet’s fibula. With no subs allowed, Jonquet was left limping out on the wing, Pelé hit a hattrick and Brazil won 5–2. The crowd responded with wild applause. “By the end of the France game,” wrote Pelé, “I think everyone in the world had become a Brazil supporter.”
Sweden awaited in the final. Brazil changed into blue shirts. When the anthems were played, Pelé remembered his dad crying by the radio. Nils Liedholm scored first as hats and papers went flying in the stands. Brazil were behind for the first time and Pelé feared they would panic. But Vavá struck twice to turn it around. Then a high ball from the left came to Pelé, who beat Sigge Parling to it, chested it up, lobbed it over Bengt Gustavsson and fired a volley into the corner—one of the finest World Cup final goals ever scored. Zagallo added a fourth, Tore Klas Simonsson pulled one back, before Pelé made it 5–2. Brazil were world champions.
Once the final whistle went, Pelé passed out in front of goal. He was revived by Garrincha, who lifted his legs to slush blood to his head. As his teammates went on a lap of honour, Pelé cried into their arms. When the captain, Hilderaldo Bellini, got the trophy, the Brazilian photographers couldn’t see him and asked him to lift it higher. Bellini raised it over his head, the cameras snapped, and the trophy gesture was born.
The next day Pelé was on covers across the world. Paris Match called him ‘King Pelé’. Friends of Pelé told him that hewas a real king, because he had been chosen by the people.
The players were now so drained that they just wanted to get home. There was little chance of that. In Rio, fighter jets flew next to their plane. A fire engine drove them through the crowds and to the presidential palace, where they were promised jobs and houses. Pelé met Dondinho, who was close to tears, and his mother, who was crying. After another party in São Paulo, Pelé returned to Bauru, where people were pressed up against the runway fences as his plane landed. A parade commenced downtown. The mayor had set up a stand, where Pelé was showered with gifts and medals. A street was named after him. He was even given a car: a three-wheel Romisetta.
At some point, when the dust had settled, Pelé walked past one of the streets where he had used to play with Sete de Setembro. He saw some kids kicking a ball around and asked if he could play. They said yes. Pelé went home, put on a shirt, and joined the game with bare feet.
II — ARTIST ON TOUR
The Swedes were not alone in being terrorised by Pelé. Back in the league he scored fifty-eight goals in the 1958 season, thirty more than anyone else, as Santos won the title. Near the end of the year the influential writer Nelson Rodrigues wrote that Pelé “is undoubtedly a genius. I say it and repeat it—a genius. Pelé can turn to Michelangelo, Homer or Dante and greet them with the effusive intimacy of ‘How are you, mate?’”
As the new king, Pelé might have expected to be treated like one. Instead he was sent to the army. Service was compulsory, but he didn’t want to go. So he went to two Santos officials who had served and, with reference to the World Cup, he said, “I’ve already fought for my country.” The officials laughed. They said he needed a medical excuse not to go, and reminded him that he had just won the World Cup. They said, “If there is any eighteen-year-old Brazilian who has to do military service, then it’s you.” So he joined the army and kept playing for Santos. In 1959 he clocked up one hundred and three games for club, country and army. Once, he played three in forty-eight hours. He also got his first red card, kicking an opponent’s shin when playing for a Brazil Army XI against Argentina in the South American Military Championships in Rio. The next day he had a game with Santos.
The punishing schedule was not just down to the army, but the Santos tours. Realising they had a gem, they went on long trips abroad, playing hyped-up friendlies for cash. The European tour of 1959 featured twenty-two games in six weeks across nine countries. They lost 5–3 to Real Madrid, but hammered Barça 5–1 and Inter 7–1. Pelé tried to relax off the pitch, though he was prone to walking and talking in his sleep. According to Pepe, his room mate, Pelé once got up in the middle of the night, shouted “Goal!” and went back to bed.
In March 1961, Pelé was playing for Santos against Fluminense at the Maracanã. He got the ball outside his own box, dribbled past half the team and scored. Nelson Rodrigues declared it “the most beautiful goal scored in the history of the Maracanã” and deemed it “worthy of a plaque”. That created the expression gol the placa, and a plaque was indeed hung up at the Maracanã to commemorate the goal. Since the game was not televised, only a few saw Pelé score it. In any case, it wasn’t the only beautiful goal he pulled off. Playing Guarani in the state championship, he lobbed two defenders, beat a third and unleashed a shot that cannoned down off the crossbar. The referee awarded the goal. When Guarani insisted that the ball hadn’t crossed the line, the referee replied that he didn’t care: The goal was so good that he was going to give it regardless.
Around this time Pele was one of the first players to get an agent. His name was Pepe Gordo and he made heavy investments for Pelé, who wanted to make his money work, aware that an injury could end his career at any time. There was interest from clubs such as Madrid, Inter and Manchester United, and when Santos played a friendly tournament in Italy in 1961, Juventus president Umberto Agnelli began negotiations at one million dollars. But Pelé stayed in Brazil.
By the time Brazil flew to Chile in 1962 to defend their World Cup title, Pelé was, at twenty-one, the best player in the world. He was also struggling with a groin strain, a result of the brutal schedule. The head of the commission was still Machado de Carvalho, who had worn only brown suits since 1958 for luck. He insisted on flying the same airline with the same pilot as they had to Sweden. The staff and squad were largely unchanged. Only the coach was new, Aymoré Moreira coming in for the ill Feola. Luckily for Pelé, Dr Gosling deemed him fit for the opener against Mexico. Pelé scored one and assisted Zagallo for another in a 2–1 win. The Mexico defender Guillermo Sepúlveda was asked what it had been like to face Pelé, and said, “He was a devil!”
In the next game against Czechoslovakia, Pelé hit the post. He reached for the rebound and went down screaming. The groin was done. There were still no subs, so Pelé limped around to see the game end 0–0. The doctors worked on him for days, but Dr Gosling ruled him out of the World Cup. When Pelé offered to take injections, Dr Gosling refused. Up stepped Amarildo, who struck twice in a 2–1 win over Spain. But the star was Garrincha, who tormented defenders even more than he had in Sweden. He scored twice in the 3–1 win over England in the quarters, then another brace in a 4–2 demolition of Chile, where the only thing to break his rhythm was a black dog invading the pitch. Chris Freddi wrote that “only Maradona has ever left such a mark on a World Cup quarter-final and semi.” Yet the Chileans also provoked Garrincha so much that he kicked Eladio Rojas and was sent off. On his way out he was hit in the head by a bottle and needed stitches. With Czechoslovakia awaiting in the final, Brazil had lost their star.
The Brazil commission lobbied hard to get the suspension lifted. The linesman who saw the incident left Chile the morning after the game, and a Brazil member of FIFA’s board had apparently persuaded him to head to Montevideo. Somehow the suspension was rescinded. Pelé was trying to get fit, only to damage his groin when taking a corner in training. He broke down in tears and swore he’d go home. Dr Gosling asked him to stay, so that their rivals would think he might play. Brazil started the final without Pelé but with Garrincha, who had a fever and was running on aspirin. Even though he was quiet, Brazil won 3–1 and were champions for a second time.
If Pelé was disappointed not to have played more, he soon got a consolation. In 1959 the federation had created Taça Brasil, a national cup to provide entrants to the newly formed Copa Libertadores. Santos won the Taça in 1961 and reached the Libertadores final a year later, where they met holders Peñarol. Out for the first two legs, Pelé returned for the playoff in Buenos Aires and scored twice in a 3–0 win. That set up an Intercontinental Cup clash with Benfica, who had beaten Madrid 5–3 in the European Cup final. In the first leg at the Maracanã, Pelé scored twice and Santos won 3–2. Back in Lisbon, Benfica fans held up a banner saying, “Benfica, World Champions.” A furious Santos stormed into a 5–0 lead and won 5–2, Pelé getting a hattrick. After his career, Pelé would call it the best game he ever played.
These games stand as the prime argument against those who would later dismiss the Brazilian league in the 60s as weak. The players who had won the two World Cups all played in Brazil. The economy was booming, and people flooded into the cities to watch football. In 1963 a record 177,000 had turned up at the Maracanã to watch Flamengo play Fluminense. That same year Santos won the Copa Libertadores again, beating Boca Juniors after an ill-tempered second leg at the Bombonera. The Intercontinental Cup served up AC Milan. The Italians won 4–2, Pelé scoring twice, before Santos won 4–2 at the Maracanã—this time without Pelé. They met for a playoff in the same ground, and Santos won 1–0, again without their star. Brazil now had the best player, the best national team and the best club team in the world.
The Santos tours in Europe confirmed their level. Pelé would play thirty-eight games against Italian teams alone, scoring against Inter (eight goals), Roma (six), Lazio (three), Milan (two) and Juventus (two). Each game he was hacked down, marked and targeted. Once Pelé went off the pitch to tie his laces, only for a defender to follow him, hands on hips, standing there waiting until he was done. “There used to be this doubt about whether he could do it against European defenders, like he had to prove something,” Léo Júnior, the Brazil international, told The Guardian. “People wondered whether he was really that good. And, yes, he was that good. He was, he was!”
In 1965 Santos wrapped up a fifth straight Taça title, and a fifth state title in six years. But the next year would be a dark one for Pelé. Santos missed out on the Taça and, at the 1966 World Cup, Brazil lacked the kind of discipline that had worked so well in Sweden and Chile. Machado de Carvalho had stepped down, and now the commission was calling up too many years. Feola was back, but had lost his authority. Some older stars were lucky to make the cut, and many were complacent. “We were already starting to lose the title before we even set foot in England,” Pelé wrote.
Brazil played all of their games at Goodison Park. Pelé heard from a journalist that The Beatles wanted to play a tribute concert from them. When he asked the commission if this was okay, they said no, which made him furious. (Ten years on he had lunch in New York with John Lennon, who confirmed the story.) When Brazil played Bulgaria in their opener, Pelé smashed in a free-kick through the wall as if trying to release his anger. He was then chopped down repeatedly. The English referee, Ken Dagnall, did nothing. So violent was the treatment that Feola rested Pelé against Hungary, thinking Brazil would win anyway. They lost 3–1 and Freddi wrote that they missed Pelé “like a lost limb”. In the must-win clash against Portugal, Pelé was scythed down again, at one point getting kicked twice by João Morais. Brazil lost 3–1 after two goals from Eusébio. The champions were out. En route to Brazil, their plane was held due to what was called a technical problem. In reality, they wanted to get home at night to avoid the pitchforks and tomatoes.
The debacle in England crushed Pelé. He had dreamed of playing at Wembley. He was angry at the commission. He was angry at the referees. He swore he’d never play a World Cup again.
That year Pelé also found out that he was broke. Pepe Gordo has invested in a series of failures and Pelé hadn’t paid attention. Now Pelé owed money to creditors. “I had been really stupid,” he said. Too proud to file for bankruptcy, he asked Santos for advice. They offered to pay off his debt if he signed a new deal on favourable terms, which he did.
Over the next four years Santos went on more tours in Europe, Africa and the Far East. People in Africa were thrilled by Pelé, the first Black superstar footballer. In 1969 Santos visited Congo, Nigeria, Mozambique, Ghana and Algeria. In Congo they saw guns and tanks in the streets. They went to Nigeria amid a civil war, played a game and left within forty-eight hours.
Yet the most bizarre occasion came in Bogotá, where Santos faced a Colombian Olympic team. The referee, Guillermo Velázquez, let an illegal goal stand for the Olympic team. Santos were furious, and Lima protested so hard that he was sent off. This enraged Pele, who was sent off too. As he walked off, the crowd refused to accept that the star was leaving, and bombarded the pitch with cushions, paper and rubbish. Chaos ensured near the dugouts. Police wielding batons charged onto the pitch. The fans chanted, “Pelé! Pelé!” Eventually Velázquez was forced to send himself off, an action that somehow sent Pelé back into play. The fans cheered and the game went on. But Velázquez was not done. He reported some of the Santos players to the police, who stormed into the dressing room post-match and arrested them. They were cleared, but not before they had missed their flight.
Back in Brazil, Pelé kept breaking records. In autumn 1969 the whole country was counting down to his thousandth goal. He scored number nine hundred and ninety-nine away to Botafogo of João Pessoa, a penalty, even though he never took them. The crowd begged for him to get another, but then the Santos goalkeeper, Jair Estevão, collapsed. With no subs, Pelé went in goal. Pelé was a good shot stopper who would often train with the goalkeepers, and he put on the gloves five times in his career. Yet on this occasion, one conspiracy said that Estevão had faked illness so that Pelé would score the thousandth goal in Rio or São Paulo.
Pelé didn’t care, he just wanted it done. In the next game, against Bahia in Salvador, a packed stadium watched him hit the woodwork. He also beat the goalkeeper, only for a defender to clear on the line. The defensive hero was booed by his own fans.
Next up were Vasco at the Maracanã on 19 November. A military band played. Balloons were released. Vasco relished denying Pelé, telling him, “Not today”. Soon a chance fell to Pelé, but the defender Renê to put the ball in his own net. Then Pelé won a penalty. For the first time in his career, he was nervous. Unbelievably, the right-back Rildo stepped up ready to take it, before being chased away by Carlos Alberto. Pelé ran up to the ball and stopped, making the keeper move—a trick he said he learned from Didi in training in 1959. The move became known as La Paradinha, the little stop. Pelé scored, picked the ball up inside the net and was engulfed by players, fans and reporters. The game stopped for twenty minutes. Pelé cried and dedicated the goal to the children of Brazil.
III — GENIUS
In 1964, a military coup forced president João Goulart into exile, paving the way for a dictatorship under general Castelo Branco. By early 1970, now under Emílio Médici, the regime had grown more brutal. They kicked out the Communists, suppressed trade unions, and shut down congress. Political opponents were tortured and killed. Amid the public unrest, Brazil went to the World Cup in Mexico. The Brazilian army had never really used football as propaganda, but Médici was a Flamengo fan and understood its power. He was also offered a gift. In 1968, Pelé had returned to the Seleção, wanting to play a whole World Cup, and refusing to go out as a loser.
The Brazil coach seemed an unlikely ally of the regime. In fact, he was no ally at all. João Saldanha was a journalist and commentator who used to be a member of the Communist Party. He’d been hired as Botafogo coach in 1957 and won the Carioca state championship. After that he spent a decade in the media, lambasting players, coaches and the national team. In 1969, Havelange put in him charge, as if it was the only way to keep him quiet. By now Garrincha had retired and turned into a depressed drunk, so Saldanha built the team around Pelé. He was blunt with the players and joked that, even with one functioning lung, plus a hefty schedule of smoking and drinking, he was fitter than all of them. With virtuosic football Brazil waltzed through the qualifiers, winning six out of six with a goal difference of 23–2.
Yet as the World Cup neared, Saldanha lost his nerve. In winter he went on a scouting trip to Europe and came back with plans to make the team more physical. It didn’t work. When they lost 2–0 at home to Argentina in March, Argentine defender Roberto Perfumo said it was the worst Brazil he’d played. Soon Saldanha criticised Pelé for not tracking back. He dropped Dario, the favourite player of Medici. Once, said Tostão, he also turned up to the team base drunk. It was on a day off, but the story leaked to the press and it didn’t look good. At this point it looked as if Saldanha was losing it altogether. One day the Flamengo coach Yustrich called him a ‘coward’ in a radio interview, after which Saldanha marched into the Rio hotel where Yustrich was staying, carrying a loaded gun.
Three months before the World Cup, Havelange sacked Saldanha and brought in Zagallo. Saldanha fired his final shots, saying the midfielder Gérson had psychological problems and that Pelé would be benched because he was short-sighted. This was untrue, but Pelé’s vision would be debated throughout the tournament. Pelé later joked that if he hadn’t been short-sighted, he’d have scored two thousand goals.
A safer pair of hands, Zagallo kept the core of the team. Brazil had a new shirt designed to remove sweat from the collars. Handmade boots were made to the players. They spent three weeks in Mexico to get used to the heat. The commission brought in Cláudio Coutinho, a fitness coach who had been in the army and who’d spent time with NASA to observe the regime used by astronauts. As in 1958 and 1962, Brazil left nothing to chance.
They first trashed Czechoslovakia (4–1), then fought past England (1–0) and beat Romania (3–2). The system was 4-4-2, with Tostão as the spear and Pelé just behind; Rivelino and Jairzinho created the chances, while Gérson and Clodoaldo ran midfield. Without the ball Pelé retreated to make it 4-5-1. The games would become known for Brazil’s fluent football, and though Pelé was at the heart of it, he’d be remember more for the goals he missed than the ones he scored. The downwards header that Gordon Banks saved entered football lore. The lob from behind the halfway line against Czechoslovakia was a sign of genius—even if Zagallo stood on the sideline thinking, “What on earth is he doing?”
The quarters threw up a reunion with Didi, who was coaching Peru. Brazil won 4–2 in another entertaining duel. Next up were Uruguay. This was the first World Cup meeting since 1950, and the press went wild over the ghosts of the past. Zagallo got so fed up with the talk that he threw a reporter out of the team camp. The Uruguayans played hard, as always, and took the lead through Luis Cubilla. Pelé dummied the goalkeeper Ladislao Mazurkiewicz, only to put the ball wide; another iconic moment, another famous miss. In any case, Brazil won 3–1 after a stirring speech from Zagallo, who could only imagine what kind of hell another Uruguay defeat would unleash.
The final would be played in Mexico City, the first time Brazil had left Guadalajara. They’d meet Italy, who had beaten West Germany 4–3 in extra time. The defender Tarcisio Burgnich said they could feel it in their legs. Brazil were reaping the rewards of their fitness regime: At one point Rivelino had realised that, despite the burning heat, he had not once gone out to drink water—a sign of top condition.
Pelé opened the scoring with an iconic header, rising over Burgnich to nod home, then jumping into the arms of Jairzinho. The game is remembered as a stroll for Brazil, but Roberto Boninsegna pulled one back, and after an hour the score was 1–1. Then Brazil began outrunning the Italians. Gérson scored, Jairzinho added a third, and now Brazil were keeping possession, waiting for gaps to open up. Soon Pelé rolled the ball out to Carlos Alberto, who rumbled down the right like a freight train and buried the ball into the far corner. Brazil won 4–1 and got the Jules Rimet trophy to keep. Pelé won the Golden Ball. The players celebrated on the pitch, some wearing Mexican hats. Later, when Pelé was in the shower, a journalist broke into the dressing room. He’d been one of those who had spread rumours about Pelé’s eye sight. He went into the showers, got soaked, found Pelé, bowed down on the floor and asked him for forgiveness.
Broadcast in colour for the first time, Brazil’s football had thrilled the world. Back home Médici exploited the triumph by inviting the team to the presidential palace in Brasilia. “I identify this victory won in the brotherhood of good sportsmanship with the rise of faith in our fight for national development,” he said. The state PR machine spat out a jingle titled ‘Pra Frente Brasil’—Forward Brazil—that linked the regime to the title. Posters showed Pelé’s header and the slogan, “Nobody can stop this country now”. For his part, Pelé, at twenty-nine, now felt he could go out on top. He had played a whole World Cup. He had won it three times. He had won everything with Santos. What more was there to do?
IV — TRAILBLAZER
Pelé played his last game for Brazil at the Maracanã in July 1971. Come 1974 everyone—Havelange, Zagallo and president Ernesto Geisel—wanted him to play another World Cup. But Pelé did not relent. He later said that he acted on the advice of his father, who’d said that you should never stop when people want you to. If Pelé bowed out on top, Dondinho said, that’s how he’d be remembered.
Pelé kept playing for Santos but, as he got older and saw his friends retire, he enjoyed it less and less. He was tired of planes and hotels. He had a son now, Edinho, and he abhorred the idea of ending up as just another ex pro. So with the help of professor Júlio Mazzei, a cultured fitness coach who had joined Santos years earlier, he began studying and retaking exams. This was a challenge to Pelé, who was often nervous before tests. After a lot of hard work he made it into university, where he took up a three-year course in Physical Education. When he graduated, it was a huge personal triumph.
Santos won the state title in 1973, with Pelé as top scorer once more. After the 1974 season he retired, at thirty-four, having won six national championship, ten state championships, and shattered every goalscoring record. He was convinced he would never play pro football again.
What kind of life did he envisage? He wanted to be involved in sport and business, but without the pressure. He’d like to teach football to kids. Do some PR work. But when he checked up on his investments, he found that he was bleeding money—again. He owned a six percent stake in Fiolax, a company that made parts for cars, and it was failing. Worse, Pelé had signed a guarantee for a bank loan for the company. When they couldn’t repay it, he was liable for more than one million dollars. He needed money, fast, and the only way to get it was to strap on his boots.
Pelé had offers from Juve, Milan and Madrid. He didn’t fancy the pressure of playing in Europe. But there was another deal on the table. In 1972 he had met Clive Toye, the general manager of the New York Cosmos. The North American Soccer League (NASL) had started up in 1968, but it was struggling, and Toye was looking for a star to boost its popularity. Money, he said, was not a problem. Pelé had said no thanks, but now he went back to discuss the deal. This kickstarted six months of calls, meeting and telegrams that involved Pelé, Warner Communications (who owned the Cosmos) and lawyers. There were political ties between the US and Brazil: Henry Kissinger had helped Havelange with his campaign to win the FIFA presidency in 1974, and both men pushed for Pelé to join. In 1975 Pelé signed a deal worth around five million dollars (says ESPN) over three years. He was tempted by New York, he wanted to learn English and hey, the money didn’t hurt.
In June that year, Pelé was presented at a conference packed with reporters jockeying for position. He was more than an hour late, and two photographers were fighting when a black limo pulled up outside. Pelé stepped out, entered the room and signed the contract. With him was Mazzei, who had joined the Cosmos coaching staff as part of the deal. As Pelé put the pen down, he smiled and told the press, “Now you can say to the world soccer has finally arrived in the United States.”
Pelé later spoke to David Hirshey, a reporter with the New York Daily News who was following him to write a book. “When Warner made the invitation for me to come here, I realised that it was a chance for me to do something I have never tried before, to introduce the sport I love to a new country,” he said, according to a Hirshey piece for ESPN. “There were many, many offers after I retired from Santos. But if I go to Italy, Spain, Mexico, what do I get? More money. It’s nice, but nothing new.”
When Hirshey had broken the Pelé transfer story, it was the first time his paper had put soccer on the back page. When the Cosmos had won the NASL in 1972, only 6,000 had turned up to watch it at Hofstra Stadium—and half of them had received free tickets with their Burger King Double Whopper. “American soccer,” wrote Hirshey, “had strapped Pelé to its back like a skin diver’s oxygen tank.”
The Cosmos were not good anymore. They had finished last in the Northern division in 1974. They were playing on Randall’s Island at the tired Downing Stadium, built in the 30s. The coach was Englishman Gordon Bradley, who had marked Pelé for the New York Generals in a 5–3 win over Santos in 1968. Pelé watched his new team lose the next two games. “It was clear there was a lot of work to be done,” he wrote.
His debut was a friendly against the Dallas Tornado. Two hours before kickoff six-dollar tickets were selling for a hundred bucks. The game was televised in twenty-two countries and covered by three hundred journalists. About twenty thousand filled Downing Stadium, more than four times the previous game’s attendance. The pitch was in such bad condition that Toye was spraying patches of dirt with green paint. “Michelangelo had the Sistine Chapel,” he said. “Pelé has Randall’s Island!”
Pelé lived up to the hype by heading in the equaliser. Sitting in the dressing room after the game, he was shocked to see that his feet were green. He was worried he had caught a disease, only for Toye to explain it was merely paint.
Pelé soon realised what he had signed up for. The players were bad and poorly trained. In March, the staff saw that the Latin players were freezing and offered them a dram of whisky before training. This shocked Pelé, who never drank. He was almost regretting the move.
The Cosmos missed out on the playoffs. In August, after the season, they embarked on a tour of Europe and the Caribbean. Pelé was worried that the team’s level would embarrass him, and he seemed to be right when the Cosmos lost 5–1 to Malmö in Sweden. But by the time they got to the Caribbean, they were playing better. They also signed two Santos players—Nelsi Morais and the Peru international Ramín Mifflin—and a few more from England. Another newcomer was Giorgio Chinaglia, the Welsh-born, hell-raising Italy striker signed from Lazio. Pelé rated him, and when they first played together they scored two each in a 6–0 win over the Los Angeles Aztecs. But Chinaglia was hard to handle. When Franz Beckenbauer later joined the Cosmos, for example, Chinaglia said they should sign more Americans instead. At one point Hirshey found Chinaglia on a sofa in the 29th floor of the Warner building, sipping Chivas. “Every time I breathe, I insult someone,” Chinaglia told Hirshey. “If a dog chokes on a bone around here, they blame Chinaglia.”
The Cosmos came second in the northern division in 1976. In the playoffs they lost to the Tampa Bay Rowdies in what was practically a quarter-final. Pelé broke the NASL record for assists (eighteen) and was doing his part to raise the league’s popularity. He often came off the pitch bare-chested because someone had wanted his shirt. In Chicago, twenty-eight thousand had turned up to see him play. For the next game the attendance was three and a half thousand.
Pelé was happy enough to sign a one-year extension. His wife loved New York, and he was enjoying it too. He did publicity gigs as part of his deal: interviews, photoshoots, baseball and NFL games. He didn’t really care for either sport. At the baseball he’d fall asleep. He lived in eastern Manhattan, but not even his teammates knew the address. He began drinking a little too, and hung out at Studio 54, living it up with guys like Frank Sinatra, Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart and Woody Allen. Once Hirshey found him there with his arms around two blondes. “Not for the book,” Pelé said and smiled.
As always, Pelé went out on top. In 1977 the Cosmos came second in their division, cruised to the playoff final—the Soccer Bowl—and beat the Seattle Sounders 2–1, Chinaglia striking a late winner. After a farewell tour, Pelé played his final game on 1 October that year, when the Cosmos met Santos in a friendly in front of 75,000 at Giants Stadium. Pelé played one half for each side. After the final whistle, he broke down in tears. He was nearly thirty-seven, and Mazzei said he had the fitness to keep going. But Pelé was done. According to his own count, he had scored 1,283 goals in 1,367 games. “That felt like enough,” he wrote.
V — AMBASSADOR
Pelé didn’t plan to spend his retirement on the beach. He stayed in New York, and kept working for a soft drink-sponsored global children’s initiative, which had him travelling across the world. But the gigs took a toll on his marriage to his childhood sweetheart, Rosemeri. When he missed the birth of their third child, Jennifer, in order to do TV commentary at the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, Rosemeri filed for divorce. Pelé stayed in single in New York, partying with George Best and dating models, including two who had been crowned miss Brazil. He married two more times and had (at least) seven children. Less happily, his first son, Edinho, was jailed for money laundering and spent six months inside a max security prison in 2006—a period that Pelé described as the worst of his life at the time. In 2014, Edinho was sentenced to thirty-three years in prison for money laundering, though the punishment was reduced to twelve years and ten months on appeal.
Pelé had many interests. He played guitar, he wrote songs and released albums. He loved movies, and starred in many. One was ‘Escape to Victory’, released in 1981, with John Huston as director and stars such as Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone, plus a raft of ex-footballers. The plot is set during the Second World War, when the Nazis stage a match between them and a team of prisoners as propaganda, only for the prisoners to hatch an escape plan. During the filming, according to Pelé, Stallone forbade anyone from sitting in his seat, and insisted on scoring the winner, even though he played the keeper. In the film Pelé gets hacked down, returns to the pitch and equalises with a bicycle kick—shown in slow motion again and again. The film has a 6.6 score on IMDB.
If Pelé was the king as a player, he was not bad as ambassador either. He worked for UNICEF. In 1992 became a UN ambassador for ecology and the environment. He was willing to endorse almost anything, and had three rules only: no alcohol, no tobacco, no religion. He got mocked when he became the poster boy for viagra. He even got his own brand of coffee. When Saddam Hussein was captured in 2003, US forces found him with a machine gun, a suitcase full of cash and a packet of Café Pelé.
In the early 90s, Pelé also set up a sport and marketing company. When he lost the bid for the domestic rights to show the 1994 World Cup, he accused the federation president, Ricardo Teixeira, of taking a bribe in the bidding process. Teixeira was the son-in-law of Havelange, and Havelange banned Pelé from the World Cup draw in Las Vegas that year. A year later Pelé moved on to became Brazil’s minister of sport. He pushed for a law that would force more transparency among clubs and greater freedom of movement for players. The legislation became known as the Pelé Law, but it met robust resistance from the establishment and, when Pelé resigned in 1998, the text had been watered down badly.
Pelé spent the next twenty years being Pelé. He was chosen to wave the chequered flag at the 2002 Brazil Grand Prix, only to get distracted chatting to someone just as Michael Schumacher won the race. Two more cars zipped across the finish line before Pelé turned back towards the track, still without moving the flag.
Wherever he went, he usually represented somebody. He got close to the establishment in Brazil, and at FIFA under Sepp Blatter. In his 2006 autobiography he thanks Blatter for suggesting that he write it. At the 2013 Confederations Cup, Pelé angered many by encouraging protesters to calm down and enjoy the football—a line the Brazil regime and FIFA favoured. But he stayed largely adored in Brazil. One time his car stopped at a red light in São Paulo, and two armed thieves pointed a gun at the driver. When they checked the back seat and saw Pelé, they apologised and left.
Pelé died on 29 December 2022, at eighty-two. He had won it all, broken records, and made history as a supertalent, touring megastar, creative genius, trailblazer and ambassador. He was survived by many friends and loved ones, including his mother, Celeste, now a hundred years old, who could tell herself that, while her little Edson never did become a teacher, he had a decent career after all.
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