The term ‘legend’ is often tarnished these days in football and sport in general. In that vein, most top sportsmen today are seen as the best of all time by fans with tastes so exclusive they require the player they watch to have been the greatest that ever existed. Lionel Messi is the best footballer of all time, Roger Federer the greatest tennis player, LeBron James the greatest basketball player, and whoever comes next will easily be the best that ever was.
But what truly separates a legendary sportsman from a very good one is the timing of the call. Being labelled a legend at your peak should almost be expected when you are a gifted sportsman. What you cannot expect, and something that will solely be dictated by the true impact you had on your sport thanks to the benefit of hindsight, is being hailed as a legend decades after you last touched a ball and wore shin pads – if you ever wore shinpads.
Edson Arantes do Nascimento is one of many players to have been called a legend during his playing days, but only one in a handful for whom the adjective is still the same after four decades, even being amplified as time went by despite last gracing a football pitch with the Brazilian national football team on July 18th, 1971 before an audience of 138,575.
For his jubilee, Pelé relied on most of his team-mates with whom he won the 1970 World Cup the year before with a Brazilian team widely seen as the greatest ever. Only flying right-back Carlos Alberto, scorer of one of the best goals in the history of the World Cup in 1970, was missing but the other stalwarts were there, notably Rivelino, a dazzling attacking midfielder in his day, creator of the ‘flip flap’ later reproduced by countrymen Ronaldinho and Ronaldo among many others. As he received the ball half an hour into the game, the German commentator went as far as saying ‘Here is one man who is seen as a potential successor to Pele’. With the benefit of hindsight however, and despite all of Rivelino’s quality, that statement turned out to be quite off the mark.
Choosing his last ever opponent, Pelé opted for a side nicknamed the ‘Brazil of Europe’ : Yugoslavia, then a European powerhouse led by captain Dragan Dzajic, the Red Star Belgrade left-winger whose lob against England in the 1968 Euro semi-final threw out the defending world champions days before a bribed referee handed Italy the final victory. Dzajic’s technique moved Pelé to the extent he once said ‘I’m just sorry he’s not Brazilian, because I’ve never seen such a natural footballer’. It should not come as a wonder then that Dzajic opened the scoring deep into the first half (41:55) to celebrate his 50th cap in a Yugoslavia jersey.
The first half an hour was on-and-off, as if all the players looked ashamed to be allowed to share the same bit of eternity that Pele was granted on his final day in the Brazilian outfit. The Maracana pitch did little to help the players, though the class of their number 10 shone through this quagmire of wayward passes and missed first touches.
It was all about him anyway. Early in the game (17:30) he earned a free-kick on the edge of Yugoslavia’s area – and set the regulatory distance where the opponent wall places itself. The referee did not even bother checking whether Pele’s mark was stood ten yards from where the free-kick is taken. This sport is his. It is said he could do absolutely everything with a football except long passes with the outside of the left foot. To quote Inter’s legendary sweeper Tarcisio Burgnich, tasked with marking him in the 1970 World Cup final where Pelé eventually headed home a legendary header to bring Brazil its third World Cup, ‘I told myself before the game, ‘he’s made of skin and bones just like everyone else’ — but I was wrong’.
Glimpses of his extraordinary talent shone through during his last game in a Brazil jersey. A dazzling move on (26:29) and a double one-two (38:30) hinted that somebody out there wasn’t quite playing the same sport as his colleagues.
As the first half drew to an end, Pelé tried harder and harder to level the scoreline knowing he will be replaced at half-time. He headed the ball near, created two great chances in quick succession (53:00) – but failed to even it out as the referee blew his whistle with a 1-0 scoreline to Yugoslavia. It didn’t matter though as his status was settled long ago.
When, aged 17, he scored a brace in the 1958 World Cup final against hosts Sweden, five days after bagging a hat-trick in the semi-final against France. Or when he fired five goals in the 1962 Intercontinental Cup against Eusebio’s Benfica for his beloved Santos, winning nine domestic titles in eleven year, from 1958 to 1969. And how about his brilliant effort against Vasco two years earlier in 1969, in that same Maracana stadium then filled with 135,000 people in what was his career thousandth goal. Beyond goals, his peerless acts of footballing wizardry stand untarnished in memory, not least his rounding of Uruguay’s goalkeeper Ladislao Mazurkiewicz in the 1970 World Cup, his last, where he was named Player of the Tournament for leading Brazil to another win that allowed Brazil to keep ad eternam the Jules Rimet Trophy, ancestor to the current shield.
As half-time is whistled, Pelé began a lap of honour around the biggest stadium in the world. The Maracana rose to its feet to applaud the greatest player ever, treading the pitch for the last time. Brazilian and Yugoslavian players alike formed a guard of honour to accompany the national hero on his way to eternal stardom. A banner in the stands was unveiled, reading ‘VIVA O REU’. The German commentator paid a spontaneous tribute to a player he calls ‘the fittest synonym to perfection on a football pitch’ ; ‘a conductor and solist at the same time’; ‘a name known in every stadium around the Earth’. Words all the more amplified that they still hold true today, forty years later.
‘Football has no time for sentimentalism’, adds the German commentator as the second half starts and the Brazilian players start getting organized, looking around the field but failing to find their charismatic number 10 for the first time in more than a decade. Although they would salvage a draw from this contest with Yugoslavia, the final scoreline being 2-2, it would take them more than two decades to win the World Cup again in 1994, such was the everlasting influence of their football icon.
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