Albert NgeneThe Beautiful Game
Pele’s greatest gift to football was to give it a fitting moniker which begins to capture – but never completes – the indescribable mystic of the king of all sports:
“O jogo bonito!”
That Portuguese appellation, which means the beautiful game can’t encompass Association Football in all its ramifications. But what it does is to take it as an idea, alive and active, and thread it from one cardinal point to another, from one generation to the next, and create the most powerful uniter of peoples around the world in a perfectly round ‘leather’ ball made up of 32 panels and weighing only between 410 – 450 g.
Football is The Great Equalizer
The life and times of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, popularly known as Pele, was a testament to that. He was born on October 23, 1940, in a poor neighbourhood in Bauru, Sao Paolo, and without football his prospects would otherwise have been limited. As a kid his parents were too poor to buy him a ball, but he kicked empty cans and bottles and stuff around in the streets anyway. And whenever he had a chance to play in a match with a real ball he demonstrated what he could do with it with an innate and acquired deference for the ball.
READ ALSO: Lionel Messi the Live GOAT; Pele the GOAT-Emeritus; Maradona, the Late GOAT
It was thus understandable that he played the game with a deep sense of gratitude.
Football scouts soon picked him up and he joined the junior team of Santos FC. But shortly thereafter he broke into the senior team in 1955. He was only 15 years old. Two years later he would be breaking Swedish hearts with his winsome smile and awesome good looks in their showpiece Rasunda Stadium in Stockholm where the 1958 World Cup final was decided.
READ ALSO:Pele And The Invention Of Football As Nigeria’s National Sport
Between that game in Stockholm and his death at the age of 82, in the well-appointed Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paolo, Pele had assumed and discharged a public service vocation as the mascot of football around the world. But he always returned home to Sao Paolo: where the other piece of his heart belonged, and Santos FC: where his ambidextrous feet belonged. His funeral and lying in state took place on January 2, 2023, at the Vila Belmiro where Santos FC played their home games.
Pele meant the world to four billion lovers of the beautiful game. He taught the world how:
- To play attacking football with zest and a smile for adornment
- To celebrate goals with a careless abandon as if teaching the spectator self-belief
Above all Pele gave us emotional mementos of imperishable moments of magic, handed down to us by way of old newspaper columns, football history books, and biographies. Thanks to YouTube, we can now share those moments.
A Long Walk by its very Nature Must be Lonely
Television had not come to Nigeria by June 29, 1958, when Pele came out of the tunnel at the Racunda Stadium for the World Cup final match between Brazil and Sweden. He was observed for the first time wearing the canary yellow jersey emblazoned with Number 10, which the world would associate with him for the rest of his career and would be evoked for eternity whenever great offensive play was witnessed in a match.
At the Racunda Pele began his long match to immortality as captured by this exquisite prose from an old French newspaper quoted by AFP Sport:
“His first goal of a double in the 5-2 triumph over hosts Sweden was unforgettable, as he scored after three touches when the ball never hit the ground.
“He controlled a long pass on his chest, knocked it over the advancing defender, and slammed a now trademark volley into the bottom corner!”
Football may unite the world but we all enjoy it differently. It’s not the acrobatic goals of an Ibrahimovic, or the Cristiano leg-over dribbles, or the Usain Bolt-like sprint at goal by a Son or Mbappe, or Becker’s snap goal kick assist for Mo Salah. Nah! For me pleasure comes from the dead ball – an Antonin Panenka penalty or a Zico/Beckham free kick around the box. Above all, I’d rather watch the diamond cutters game of Guardiola’s Barcelona even in a goalless draw. Forgive me if I enjoy football in the past tense but that is why Pele’s singular assist in 1970 resonates with me.
La Pausa
Brazil defeated Italy in the 1970 World Cup final played at the Estadio Azteca, Mexico City, by 4 goals to 1. Brazil captain Carlos Alberto’s goal against Italy has been adjudged the greatest ever World Cup team goal because it involved passes and dribbles among 7 or 8 of Brazil’s outfield players. But the final portion of it, verifiable on YouTube, is legend. When that game was played, I wasn’t even old enough to read newspapers. But how it played out has been handed down to me by oral tradition:
Tostao had dispossessed the Italian playmaker Antonio Juliano in the Brazil half of the midfield. He then started a passing game that kept possession in the canary yellow enclave as if in a hypnotic call and response to the chant of a Samba religious ceremony. After an eternity, the ball got to Rivelino who was due west of the centre circle. He passed to Jairzinho in jersey Number 7 loitering on the left forward flank. Jairzinho was out of position momentarily, but he had taken the Italian captain, left fullback, and man marker, Giacinto Facchetti, with him.
Jairzinho stirred awake and moved briskly past Facchetti and then passed to Pele in a false 9 position doing a penguin huddle, off the ball, with 4 or 5 Italian defenders. Pele received the ball and paused – (that was the moment La Pausa was invented). There was what appeared to be the sound of rushing wind and the beat of ocean waves thrashing sand on a beach nearby. Without as much as a glance, Pele knew what it was and he calmly resumed play, then laid the ball in the path of Carlos who had spied a vacant slot on the left of Italy’s eighteen where their captain should have been.
Carlos had run the entire 85 yards from box to box in order to hit a ball that was a dozen touches away when he started to run. He arrived just in time and hit the ball with a shotgun of a shot without breaking his stride. Italian goalkeeper Enrico Albertosi started his dive after the ball was already in the net.
“Oh Pele, you’re more famous but I am more beautiful!” – Muhammad Ali
The King is Alive
This is a love offering to Pele and I will not diminish it by joining the GOAT debate today (See Messi is the live GOAT, Prime Business Africa). But I want to ask you a hypothetical question: If Pele were able to attend Qatar 2022 and had a chance to confer with Neymar, Mbappe, Modric, Cristiano, and Messi on the sidelines: What would they talk about?
Hint: It won’t be about who the greatest player was.
Ik Ngene, Prime Business Africa’s Public interest analyst, writes from Atlanta.
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