Pursuing Pelé: My story of the legend

In 1977, I was still in my teens, still too young to give up on the dream of being a footballer and still living with the hope that one day the genius who had fired the footballing dreams of a million boys and girls across the world, would make a miraculous entry into my life. Till then, all I had seen of Pelé was his grainy pictures in newspapers and magazines. Despite that, I knew everything about his life, including his childhood spent in poverty with a father whose own soccer career was brought to an end by a fractured leg. He wasn’t quite my age when he scored a goal, his very first in a major game, against Brazilian club powerhouse Corinthians FC which that year won the Campeonato Paulista, the top professional football league in São Paulo.

Pelé. (Photo: Twitter)

His later exploits with the national team were well-known to every Calcuttan of that era and when news broke that the man would be coming to the City of Joy with New York Cosmos Club for a friendly against local club Mohun Bagan, it was as if the whole city was waiting to get a glimpse of him. I was lucky. Through a friendly source at the airport, we managed to bag the most prized seats in the house — atop a trolley on the tarmac just metres away from where the plane carrying Pelé and his teammates would land.

With the benefit of hindsight it was a bit of a fiasco. Pele’s plane landed in the middle of the night and we barely caught a glimpse of that famous hand waving before he was whisked away to his hotel, avoiding the usual route from the airport in an effort to avoid the thousands of people who had thronged the streets merely to watch him go past.

It was the reverence reserved for the gods. But who’s to say he wasn’t one.

Years later I did meet him, at a media event where he was one of the many celebrity guests. As he was trotted out on a wheelchair into the hall full of the city’s elite, it wasn’t a pretty sight. This was the lion in winter brought out as spectacle for the suits and the ladies in their fineries. Pelé belonged to the world of urchins and underdogs, because the story of his life was of the boy who polished shoes as a child to supplement the family income and played the game for the sheer love of it. The adulation and the riches just followed like obliging vassals.

And now he is gone. Snatched away by cancer at 82.

Instead of mourning, just imagine the games they will have up there now. Maradona's XI vs Pelé's XI. Mouth watering prospect but not the kind that earthly folks can hope to watch. No sir. Such match ups are made only in heaven.

Sure, Maradona's had well over two years to train.

But Edson Arantes do Nascimento is on his way, along with those three World Cup wins, the title of "king of soccer", 757 career goals  and an artistry that has few parallels in all sport. “One day, I hope we can play football together in the sky” was his message when that other genius, Diego Maradona, died in 2020. Now they will, these two men, who brought us so much joy.

Indeed, the debate on who's the GOAT was settled long before current contestants even entered the fray. With the ball at his feet, Pelé wove magic on the field. But he was equally lethal without the ball too, timing his runs to perfection, as he did with that inch perfect pass that he laid for Carlos Alberto in the 1970 World Cup final against Italy. That 1970 World Cup final against the famed Italian defence was the ultimate triumph of o jogo bonito (the beautiful game), as Brazil and Pele won an unprecedented third title.

And it was for his sake that I wanted Brazil to lift a sixth title in Qatar less than a fortnight ago. That they weren’t good enough is a pity. The Black Pearl would have savoured one last win before setting off on his new adventures.