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  “They were the ones who wanted me to quit!” I’d protest. “The answer is still no, Professor!”

  Professor Mazzei would throw up his hands in mock despair and walk away.

  What was really going on?

  Well, by the time I reached my late twenties, I think that in certain situations I’d become a pretty stubborn guy. I’d been in the spotlight for nearly a decade, and burned more than once in soccer, in business, and in life. I had learned the hard way that, when it came to my career, in particular, it was important to say “no” more often than I said “yes.” Once I said no, I rarely changed my mind. Was that the greatest way to live one’s life? No, but it helped protect me. It gave me a bit of peace.

  In truth, I did deeply miss playing for the Brazilian national team. But I also believed that, before I could come back, something needed to change.

  That something was me.

  The first World Cup championship, in Sweden, had been a magical ride, no doubt. The image of me as the boyish teenage phenom, carried by sheer talent to heights few had reached before in soccer, had endured. In the years since, I had continued to thrive as a guy who just loved the game, and loved scoring goals. But in more recent years, there had been talk that, for all of my ability on the field, I was a solitary, even aloof figure off of it. For example, after we got bounced out of the 1966 World Cup in England, the Sunday Times of London said the image of me leaving the field hurt reinforced the image of Pelé as “the sad millionaire . . . an introverted, remote figure imprisoned in the shell that protects him from the crushing weight of his fame.”

  Some of these portrayals of me as a lonely superstar were utter nonsense, invented by journalists and others to create controversy and sell newspapers. For example, there was speculation in the press, going all the way back to the early 1960s, that Garrincha and I didn’t get along. Most of these were based on the theory that he and I had fallen out over a woman: Elza Soares, a famous Brazilian samba singer.

  The truth was actually pretty funny. After I hurt my groin at the 1962 World Cup, I did all kinds of rehab in a desperate effort to get back on the field. One afternoon, while still in Chile, I was sitting half-naked on a training table when who should walk in but Elza. She looked gorgeous, as always—sultry, poised, full of life. I have no idea how she managed to get into our dressing room though! Surprised, I grabbed a towel, and once I was covered up, I began chatting easily with her. While we were talking, Garrincha came into the room and joined us. I could tell right away that Garrincha was bewitched, and even after Elsa left, he still seemed to be lost in a daze.

  “Man, Pelé,” he said quietly. “Man, that girl Elza is really cool.”

  “Yup,” I agreed.

  “Man, she’s just marvelous. Wow. What a girl.”

  I sat there, silently, a smile spreading across my face.

  “Man, if . . .” And then Garrincha stopped himself. “Well,” he said, “it’s too bad that I’m married!”

  In the end, that didn’t stop him. Garrincha and Elza started seeing each other during that World Cup—which, of course, also saw Garrincha give one of the greatest individual performances in soccer history, leading us to the 1962 championship even after all the rehab failed to put me back on the field. Garrincha eventually left his wife to be with Elza, and they got married. This led to whispers that he had “stolen” her from me, and that I hated him for it. That obviously wasn’t true!

  In reality, I loved Garrincha. I loved his playful spirit. I loved that, even after he won the world championship twice, he was still the guy who would run around the Brazilian team bus, throwing ice water in people’s faces to wake them up. I was always grateful to him for running over to help me when I passed out on that field in Sweden. We shared the bond of having been underestimated because of our humble roots—the two country hicks who were most scrutinized by the team doctors in 1958. Right after my injury in 1962, Garrincha kept assuring me that I’d be back on the field in no time. “You’re not going to abandon me, are you?” he’d say good-naturedly. He also said that, if all else failed, he’d suggest to the team medics that they send me to his hometown, Pau Grande, to see a faith healer—surely she would get the job done.

  I got along well with Garrincha, and virtually everybody else. But as I got older, I began to see that “getting along” was not always enough. I was affable and I worked hard, yes. I always gave every effort on the field. But the first chapter of my life, when it was enough for me to just score as many goals as I could, without fulfilling any kind of greater role, had obviously come to an end.

  Deep in my heart, I felt like I needed to grow up. After all, I was no longer the boy who took the field in Sweden, or even the twenty-one-year-old who had played in the 1962 Cup in Chile. I was a man now. By the 1970 Cup, I would be twenty-nine—only a year younger than Didi was when he carried our young team with his maturity and steadying presence in Sweden. I guess there comes a moment in every person’s life when they realize they need to live for others, and not just for themselves. For me, this change didn’t happen overnight, and it wasn’t primarily the result of anything that happened on the soccer field. Rather, it was another life event—the birth of my first child, Kely Cristina, in 1967. As she started to grow up, and act more like a little person, she changed the way I looked at everyone—including my teammates. I came to deeply relish the feeling of looking after others, of helping people. I realized that if Edson was capable of this, so was Pelé.

  Meanwhile, I knew that, once again, the world was changing fast. When we traveled to Sweden in 1958, Brazil took everyone by surprise. People knew practically nothing about our country, or our team. Television was a rarity, and there was little film of us playing together that our opponents might use to learn our strengths and weaknesses. This remained true well into the 1960s. In fact, several of the most memorable goals of my career were never caught on film or TV. One example was the so-called gol de placa or “Plaque Goal” that I scored for Santos at the Maracanã in 1961—in the absence of video, the team officials wanted to commemorate it in some way, so they put a plaque outside the stadium that explained how I weaved around defenders to score that goal. Still, only the fans who were present in the stadium that day would have any real memory of what happened.

  This sounds simple, but it actually had lots of consequences on the way our team operated and prepared—and it even dictated our style of play. With no real record of our performances, we were free to play like a group of talented individuals, rather than a real team. We didn’t need any sophisticated strategy—we could just rely on our instincts and have fun on the field. Brazil was especially good at this, and it was a reason we had been so successful. But now, even though we weren’t even a decade removed from the Sweden Cup, the spread of television was starting to pull the curtain down on everything in the world—soccer included. We’d already seen this at the 1966 World Cup in England: Teams had prepared for us, and they were starting to employ very complex game plans. Now it wasn’t enough to just get a bunch of talented guys together and motivate them. You had to have tactics, teamwork—and leadership.

  In that context, I saw the errors of 1966 in a new light. That moment after the Scotland tie when the coaches berated us, and Garrincha and I just shrugged at each other in the hallway afterward—that had been a mistake. We were established, important team figures by then, and we could have spoken up for what we knew was right. Similarly, when the team decided not to play me in the ill-fated game that same year against Hungary, I could have done more than just meekly accept my fate.

  Maybe it was necessary for us to lose in England for me to see all of this. Maybe it was necessary for me to step away from the international game for a period. Meanwhile, there had been other positive changes—Santos was playing well, and I was the leading scorer, which meant that my health was back to one hundred percent and I could go play for Brazil again without worrying about neglecti
ng my club team. There was also now a more subdued, controlled atmosphere around the international game—some changes had been made following the 1966 tournament, such as allowing players who get hurt midgame, as I had, to be substituted. The 1970 Cup would also be the first to have yellow and red cards, partly to discourage the kind of brutish behavior we’d seen in England.

  After considerable thought, and conversations with everybody from Professor Mazzei to Rose and Mom and Dad, I called the team leadership and asked them if they’d take me back. Thankfully, they said yes. I vowed to them, then and there, that from that moment on I would focus not only on being a good goal scorer, but a good leader as well.

  10

  Well, easier said than done!

  In early 1969, a little more than a year before we were to leave for Mexico, the directors surprised us by bringing in a new coach: João Saldanha. Saldanha was a well-known journalist who had been one of the loudest critics of our chaotic, overconfident approach in 1966. He was a charismatic whirlwind of a man, always well-spoken and very sure of himself. Whereas the previous coaches seemed afraid to offend anyone by committing to one player or another, Saldanha declared right away that he was going to select a core group of players and stick with them.

  “My team is made of eleven beasts who are ready for anything,” Saldanha told his former colleagues in the press. “They’ll stick with me until the end. It’s glory or bust!”

  Thus, we became known as “Saldanha’s Beasts.” And in the beginning, it seemed like a pretty good mix. Rather than trying to pick an all-star team of Brazilian players, Saldanha wanted to foster unity by putting together a core from just a few club teams. By selecting clusters of players who already knew one another, we’d solve the issues of chemistry we’d had in the past. So many of us came from Santos and Botafogo, the two best club teams of the era. We won almost all of our games in 1969, beating all six of our opponents in the qualifying round—which had never been done before.

  Unfortunately, Saldanha also had a dark side. What seemed like confidence in the beginning turned into a dangerous, erratic arrogance. He was very volatile, and everybody knew that he liked to drink. The New York Times described him in a long profile piece as “outspoken, quick-tempered, aggressive and Quixotic.” He developed a habit of berating anyone in the press, or even in the stands, who dared to question his coaching. In one notorious incident, Saldanha was so angered by criticism from a club team coach in Rio that he reportedly went after the guy with a gun. It was a miracle that nobody got hurt.

  The intrigue began to take its toll on the field. At the end of the year, we lost a friendly match against Atlético Mineiro—the club team Dondinho had auditioned for back in 1942—by a 2–1 score. We lost 2–0 to Argentina at a game in Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil. Meanwhile, Saldanha traveled to Mexico and Europe to scout our future opponents. Upon his return, he started randomly cutting some players from the squad and inviting others, breaking up the core that, all things considered, was still playing pretty well.

  This time, I resolved not to repeat my mistakes from 1966—I would not be the quiet superstar any longer. I had learned my lesson, and I decided to speak up. I tried first to talk directly to Saldanha, but I couldn’t even get him to sit down with me. So, somewhat reluctantly, I went to the press instead. “Isn’t it a little early to be making so many changes to the team?” I said. “I don’t think this is the best moment for new players.”

  I guess I was lucky that Saldanha didn’t come after me with a gun. But close enough! He began telling the press that it was time for a “new generation” of Brazilian players to get their chance. Before a game against Argentina, he left me out of the starting lineup for what he said were reasons of discipline. As another game with Chile approached, Saldanha said he was considering removing me from the team altogether, alleging that my poor eyesight—myopia—was a handicap in night games.

  The myopia charge was pretty funny, actually. It’s true that I’m nearsighted—I always have been, and the issue was diagnosed by the doctors at Santos when I first arrived there at age fifteen. But it never interfered with my play—in fact, it may have even helped it. One of the more interesting theories over the years for my success, put forth by some journalists, was that I had extra-peripheral vision that allowed me to see a wider swath of the field than most players. I have no idea whether this is true—but the point is, my vision certainly wasn’t a problem.

  Everybody knew what Saldanha was trying to do. His behavior had become unsustainable. Prior to the Chile game, the team management fired Saldanha. I stayed in the lineup and scored two of our five goals.

  Was that the end of the mess? Goodness, no. Back now in the realm of journalism, with all the power and none of the responsibility he’d had before, Saldanha ripped into all of us with a renewed vengeance. He said that Gérson, one of our star midfielders, suffered from psychological problems. Leão, the reserve goalkeeper, was struggling because his arms were too short, he said. As for me, once the whole myopia story was exposed as a red herring, Saldanha changed his tune and said I was horribly out of shape. That, too, was a lie—so then he modified his story yet again. Speaking on television late one night, Saldanha said the sad truth was that Pelé had a very serious disease, but he was not at liberty to disclose what it was.

  I watched all of this live, from home, as he said it. It sounded false, and of course I felt perfectly fine—but Saldanha seemed so thoroughly convinced that I began to wonder. Was it possible that Saldanha knew something I didn’t? Could the team officials be hiding something from me, either out of pity or, more likely, the desire to have me win the 1970 Cup free of distractions? This was, after all, the same team that once had screened our mail, and forbidden us from questioning their orders. In the Brazil of that era, where soccer players were sometimes treated as property, anything was possible.

  The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that I might have some terrible disease like cancer. I couldn’t sleep that night. The next morning, I went to the head of the technical commission and our team doctor and I demanded to know the truth—was I sick or not? They said the whole thing was nonsense, and just an excuse by Saldanha to save some face in the public eye. But it wasn’t until I examined both my recent and past medical reports with my own eyes that I finally began to relax.

  Time has passed, and so has my anger over what happened. Saldanha suffered from many problems, some of which might have been beyond his control. He does deserve some credit for laying the foundation for the 1970 team, and for helping Brazilian soccer begin to get its self-esteem back. In the end, he died doing what he loved, passing away in Italy while attending the 1990 World Cup—as a journalist.

  11

  Our new coach was not only the anti-Saldanha in terms of demeanor, but a former teammate and dear friend of mine—Mário Zagallo. A key player on the World Cup–winning teams of 1958 and 1962, Zagallo had always played soccer with a chip on his shoulder, for a reason I could certainly identify with. Zagallo had been on the field at the Maracanã in 1950, as an eighteen-year-old soldier taking part in the pregame festivities. He stayed and watched the match, and was one of the many Brazilians who vowed, each in his or her own way, to avenge the loss against Uruguay.

  Although he was just thirty-nine when he took over as our coach, and only six years older than the senior player on the team, Zagallo in a very short time established himself as a skilled tactician who—refreshingly—refused to play mind games. He had the respect of the players for both his championship pedigree and his reputation for immense physical strength—Zagallo had grown up swimming in the rough tides of Brazil’s northeast, and every single move he made conveyed authority and self-assurance. He was, in fact, the calmest man I have ever known.

  Right away, I sought out Zagallo and assured him I wouldn’t be any trouble—that the situation with Saldanha was unique, and wouldn’t be repeated.

  “If you don
’t want to play me, I’ll understand,” I said. “I won’t protest, I promise. But please just tell me so directly, instead of playing games.”

  Zagallo just laughed. “Pelé,” he said, clasping his huge hand on my shoulder, “I’m no fool. You’ll be on the field, trust me.”

  Zagallo was self-assured enough to retain the core of the team that Saldanha put together, with only a few changes. Among them, he made the very wise decision to promote Eduardo Gonçalves de Andrade, nicknamed Tostão, or “little coin,” one of the greatest talents and most vivid characters ever to play for Brazil. Tostão made his debut in the big leagues at age fifteen, and his youth and skill as an attacking forward led some people to call him the “White Pelé.” Extremely intelligent on and off the field, Tostão would later become a medical doctor. There was some speculation in the press that it was impossible for the two of us to be on the field together—our styles were very similar—but Zagallo had the confidence and wisdom to dismiss those concerns. In fact, some people later observed that the 1970 team actually had four or five “number tens” on the field at any given time.

  This was highly unusual, and some critics disparaged us as a team of all attackers and no defense. But Zagallo believed that he could play as many talented players as he wanted, as long as he encouraged us to work together. That sounds simple, but I had seen throughout my career how hard this concept was to execute. Zagallo encouraged all of us to speak up, to provide input, to help him make decisions. It was the opposite of the authoritarian, say-nothing climate of 1966. We had team meetings where everybody spoke. Zagallo would sit there and listen. He had the confidence to gather input from everyone. And thus, slowly, a real team began to be born.

  12

  As we got ready to leave for Mexico, politics again intruded on our preparations—in maybe the most amazing way ever.