You will laugh, but I saw how Pele played football! And not in a recording after many years, but directly on a black and white TV! It was in June 1970 when our television broadcast live from the World Cup in Mexico.
Mykola NesenyukEveryone was waiting for the Brazil-Czechoslovakia match to finally see the same Pele, who was proclaimed the "king of football" before that. At that time, I was young and did not think about why this particular football player was declared the "king" of football. His only real success was the victory in the World Cup in 1958, where the 17-year-old player became the world champion as part of the Brazilian team. No one in the world saw that tournament - Pele's game was known only by a few newsreel frames of a few tens of seconds. That's all!
After that, the future "king" played for his "Santos" in the state championship (Brazil's championship did not exist then), and also went every year with that "Santos" and the Brazilian national team on a tour to Europe, playing "exhibition matches" and gathering full stadiums of those who want to see Pele himself!
Brazil won the 1962 World Cup without Pele - he only appeared once in the very first match. But this did not prevent him from being called "world champion", which was not true - according to the then regulations, only the participants of the winning final match, who received eleven gold medals, were considered champions. Pele did not have such a medal. At the next World Cup in 1966, Pele's Brazil failed - the team didn't even get out of the group! So after 1958, Pele did not show anything for the national team and did not win anything! And he was still “the king”!
I would like to look at Pele for the first and last time only in that memorable June of 1970. According to my teenage impressions, Pele did not show anything particularly phenomenal then. The game of the Brazilians was mainly led by a certain Tostao, Jairzinho shone in the attack, Carlos Alberto managed in the center. All the Brazilians of that time were great masters! Although our Byshovets certainly looked no worse!
The fate of the title was decided in the group, where Brazil narrowly beat the reigning world champions England 1:0 thanks to an accurate shot by Jairsinho. As a result, England got into the quarter-finals against Germany, and in turn into the semi-finals against Italy. The Brazilians went to the finals, easily overcoming Mexico and Uruguay. In the final against Italy, Pele opened the score, but it still didn't decide anything - the Italians equalized! Only in the second half did the Brazilians prove their superiority, scoring three times.
And that's when the "king" made the most important decision - he didn't play for his national team for a single second! Walked away victorious and did it right! The fact that he did not stand out in Mexico meant nothing. The main thing is that he became the world champion for the third time (?) at the age of almost thirty, which was then considered almost retirement in football. What did you want?
Interestingly, at the same time, another "king" - John Lennon, the leader of the Beatles group, who, like Pele, was twenty-nine at the time - made the decision to stop. It was the breakup of the Beatles that made them great and forever unique, just as the retirement of the national team made Pele the "king of football" for all time.
In fact, Lennon continued to perform and record songs, but they were no longer the Beatles. Likewise, Pele still played somewhere in the jungle for his "Santos", making a mockery of the serious football world with his "thousand goals", the number of which cannot be officially confirmed, just as it is impossible to confirm the "1500th anniversary of Kyiv".
In this way, in the summer of 1970, the football player Pele forever became the "king of football" and then successfully worked as this "king" all his life, without becoming either a coach, a television commentator, or a businessman. Why, when he is "the king"? Holder of a title that never really existed. There was Pele, who will be the one and only "king of football" for all future generations. And it's not up for debate.
Mykola Nesenyuk
