Why Soccer Matters Page 6

  Does that sound crazy? Maybe so. But remember that I was barely sixteen when I became a regular for Santos. I was an immediate sensation—I was the top goal scorer in the São Paulo state league that very first year. This took place during an era, the late 1950s, when radio and other mass media were just starting to take off in Brazil. For the first time, there was a kind of popular culture, and I was abruptly thrust into the center of it. Overnight, I was surrounded by journalists and fans and people who said they wanted to be my friend. Our society is accustomed to celebrity now, and even cynical about it, but at the time nobody else had really been through any of this before. For a boy like me, it was all pretty overwhelming. Not on the field—there, I was always in control—but off of it. So, the persona I adopted was a kind of defense mechanism, a little barrier between me and the world. It allowed me to keep my feet on the ground as a person. Having Pelé around helped keep Edson sane.

  Over the years, I’ve raised eyebrows by sometimes referring to Pelé in the third person. “Pelé scored two goals today, but he felt . . .” “Pelé is very happy to be here in Berlin.” This was often out of necessity. There were aspects of being Pelé that were almost impossible to understand, even—or especially—for me. Being the object of so much love has been a true honor—I’ve been humbled by the good wishes I’ve received from all over the world. One writer, Norman Cutler, once wrote: “In the course of half an hour, he is showered with more hero-worship than a normal player receives during his whole career.” I don’t treat this lightly. God blessed me with an extraordinary talent, and I’ve always felt that it was my solemn obligation to Him to use that talent to make as many people happy as I could. That’s one reason why, to this day, I never turn down anyone who wants an autograph or a photo with me.

  I’ve seen amazing things over the years—things that go beyond the normal interaction between an athlete and a fan. I’ve seen grown men burst into tears upon seeing me; I’ve had literally all of my clothes ripped off by souvenir-seeking fans after big games; I’ve been mobbed by screaming, sobbing women; supposedly, they once even declared a truce in a civil war in Africa so that I could play a game there.

  When I lived in New York City in the 1970s, I would often visit children’s hospitals. Kids who hadn’t left their beds in months would rise to their feet, seemingly cured, when I entered the room. Their eyes would light up, and they’d say: “I’m going to be a famous soccer player! I’m going to score lots of goals, just like you, Pelé!”

  Some of these kids had terminal cancer. My goodness, sometimes they’d be missing a leg. But I’d glance over at the parents, and they’d have this light in their eyes, like they believed it, too. So I’d look back at the child, nod and say, with as much conviction as I could muster:

  “That’s right, son, you’re going to get out of here and be a great soccer player, just like me.”

  Being part of this was a tremendous privilege, some of the richest and most fulfilling experiences I ever had. Lord, I cry now just thinking about it. But these kids weren’t excited about meeting some Brazilian guy named Edson. They were summoning what little strength they had left to see Pelé, the soccer legend, the icon. It was almost too much for one person to handle. Living up to those huge expectations—being Pelé—would, over the years, be just as challenging as anything I ever did on the field.

  6

  Late one afternoon, I went downstairs to the manager’s office at the Santos stadium, so I could make my weekly phone call back home to Baurú.

  Dondinho sounded out of breath as he picked up the receiver.

  “Dico,” he said, “I think you’ve been called up to the national team!”

  I began shouting with excitement, and even did a little celebratory dance, right there in the office. This meant that I would be on the team in time to compete for the 1958 World Cup, at the age of only seventeen!

  “Wait—wait just a moment, son. Take it easy,” Dondinho said. “I said I think you’ve been called up.”

  “You . . . I . . . What?”

  I felt like my heart was going to explode as Dondinho explained to me what had happened. He’d been sitting around the house, listening to the radio, when the announcer began reading out the names of players who had been called up to the national team. But Dondinho said he couldn’t tell if the announcer had said “Pelé” or “Telê”—who was a player for Fluminense, one of the clubs in Rio.

  “Maybe you should go ask the managers,” Dondinho suggested. “Then you can call me back.”

  I slammed down the phone and went sprinting around the club offices underneath the stadium, trying to find somebody—anybody—who could clarify things for me. The first couple of people I saw just shrugged and said they’d heard nothing. Finally, I tracked down Modesto Roma, who was the Santos club chairman at the time.

  When I told him about the confusion, he laughed and laughed.

  “Oh, he definitely said ‘Pelé,’” Roma said. “I received a phone call a few hours ago. Congratulations, kiddo, you’ve made the national team.”

  Like I said: that damn nickname!

  7

  I was honored and excited to get the call-up, but I also knew exactly what awaited us—a big mess.

  Eight years had passed since the disaster at the Maracanã, but Brazil still hadn’t moved on—no, not in the slightest. Our team had qualified for the 1954 World Cup, which was played in Switzerland—another country that hadn’t fought in World War II, and was therefore in good shape to host the event. The 1954 Cup was notable for a number of reasons—it was the first tournament to be broadcast on television, and the Germans were allowed to compete again. But Brazil was sent home after getting only as far as the quarterfinals, when our team was destroyed 4–2 by a very skilled team from Hungary—the Marvelous Magyars, they were called. The Hungarians, in turn, lost to the West Germans in the championship game.

  There was no hysteria this time—in fact, there was little reaction at all, just a kind of big, nationwide shrug. The time difference with Europe meant that many of the games took place very late at night in Brazil. Only a small elite of Brazilians had televisions, and the quality of the radio broadcasts coming from Switzerland also wasn’t very good, some said. But the main reason for the apathy was, clearly, that Brazilians still felt burned by 1950. The trauma was still so fresh that people had trouble getting emotionally attached to the 1954 team. And maybe it was just as well.

  Following the 1954 tournament, while playing in World Cup qualifying matches against other teams in South America, Brazil had done nothing to shed its growing reputation as a team that played loosely and brilliantly against inferior opponents, but choked against the big guys. In 1957, the Brazilian team beat Ecuador 7–1 and Colombia 9–0, while getting walloped 3–0 by the Argentines and—most agonizing of all—dropping a 3–2 decision to our old nemesis, Uruguay. Needing one last win against Peru to qualify for the 1958 World Cup, Brazil got it by the slimmest of margins—an aggregate 2–1. Meanwhile, the team itself was in organizational disarray, calling up a bewildering and ever-shifting roster of players, and constantly shifting its leadership, with seven different coaches in the previous three years. Four months before the tournament was to start in Sweden, the coaching spot was still vacant.

  The team’s authorities asked us to report to Rio on April 7. Apart from that, we didn’t really know what to expect—and, man, were we in for a surprise! Upon arrival, instead of heading for a practice field to start kicking a ball around, we were sent directly to the Santa Casa de Misericordia, a local hospital.

  There, I and the other thirty-two players were submitted to an impressive array of examinations from neurologists, radiologists, dentists, cardiologists and more. We were poked, prodded, massaged, X-rayed and interviewed. The goal? To begin the process of weeding out eleven players. Only twenty-two of us would be making the trip to Sweden.

  The theory behind all this: Nobo
dy said so out loud, but these tests were a direct result of the perceived lessons from 1950. That is, if Brazil’s chronic poverty and underdevelopment had somehow caused us to lose to Uruguay, then our team was now going to use every scientific tool available to get rid of the players who showed symptoms of these maladies. This was easier said than done. Here, it is worth briefly exploring once again just what a sickly country Brazil still was in the mid-1950s. In some rural areas, half of Brazilian babies died before their first birthday. One out of three Brazilians hosted hookworms. The average life span was just forty-six years, compared to almost seventy in the United States. And while all thirty-three of us there in Rio appeared to be healthy athletes in the prime of our lives, the doctors were determined to discover if any of these pestilences and diseases were lurking right beneath the surface.

  To fit the doctors’ vision of an ideal athlete, several players had teeth pulled, right then and there. Others were given a quick tonsillectomy. Still others were eventually sent home because their physical makeup wasn’t quite right.

  Two of the players, above all, merited special scrutiny.

  One of them was Manuel Francisco dos Santos, who played on the right wing for the Botafogo club and was better known by his nickname: “Garrincha,” or “little bird.” Garrincha was, at first glance, the poster child for precisely the kind of defects and illnesses the Brazilian doctors were screening for. His spine was deformed, and his left leg was two and a half inches shorter than his right, which was itself bent grotesquely inward. Garrincha probably wouldn’t even have been invited to the team at all if another winger, Julinho, who was playing for a club in Italy, hadn’t declined a spot, saying it should go to someone who was still playing in Brazil. Doctors from all over the hospital came to marvel at Garrincha’s legs, which were also covered with scars from collisions and kicks that he had absorbed from opponents. Garrincha scored poorly on his mental aptitude test; on the line where he was supposed to fill in his profession, he wrote “atreta,” or “athrete.” Yet, truth be told, if spelling had been the main criterion, Brazil might not have sent a single player to Sweden in 1958! And the doctors, after considerable scrutiny, concluded his legs, while absolutely horrid to look at, seemed to work fine, more or less. Garrincha was cleared to join the squad.

  The second player who was put under the microscope? As you might have guessed, that was me. I scored pretty well on the physical exam and motor skills, but came up short on the behavioral tests that could supposedly measure our mental toughness. These were considered particularly crucial, given the supposed lack of mettle that caused Brazil to lose in 1950. And nobody was in the mood to make any allowances for the fact that, at seventeen, I would be one of the youngest players ever to participate in a World Cup.

  The verdict from João Carvalhães, a sociologist who was running the tests, left no room for doubt: “Pelé is obviously infantile,” Carvalhães wrote. “He lacks the necessary fighting spirit. He’s too young to feel aggression and react with adequate force. What’s more, he doesn’t have the necessary sense of responsibility to team spirit.”

  “I don’t advise that we take him” to Sweden, Carvalhães concluded.

  Luckily, the man who was ultimately chosen as coach of the 1958 team, Vicente Feola, was a man of instinct. After fully reading Carvalhães’ report, he replied:

  “You may be right. The thing is, you don’t know a thing about soccer! If Pelé is healthy, he’ll play.”

  8

  Our practices were rigorous and spirited. Our team gelled well, and seemed relatively unburdened by the ghosts of World Cups past. Three days before we departed for Europe, there was just one more hurdle to clear: a final warm-up game against Corinthians, one of Brazil’s biggest and most popular club teams, at Pacaembu Stadium in São Paulo.

  We should have never, ever played that game.

  To this day, I have no idea why the team scheduled it. We had already played warm-up matches against other national teams, including Bulgaria and Paraguay, so we were ready for competition. Playing a local club with a huge fan base like Corinthians produced an odd, predictable and completely undesirable effect: We would be jeered on Brazilian soil before a crowd that was almost entirely against us. Making matters worse, the Corinthians team and their fans were angry over a perceived insult: Their most beloved player, Luizinho, had been left off of the national team.

  As we took the field at Pacaembu, boos rained down on the Brazilian team. They only increased in volume as we began scoring goals. When we were up 3–1, and many players were already thinking about what on earth we’d need to wear to Sweden, I received a pass in our opponent’s midfield and began heading for the penalty area. I never even saw Ari Clemente, a Corinthians defender, as he slid toward me.

  I felt like someone had stuck a flaming needle deep inside my right knee. I rolled around on the ground, screaming, as the team trainers sprinted toward me.

  “Can you get up, son?”

  I was overcome with pain—and horror. I thought instantly of my father. It was the same knee that he had ruined in his first big game. Was this to be my destiny too?

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” I said, struggling to reassure myself, mostly.

  But as I tried to get back on my feet, and put some pressure on the knee, it immediately buckled. The trainers exchanged knowing glances and carried me off the field, back to the dressing room. I was sobbing like a child.

  In all the years that followed, and all the big games I played in, I can’t recall any moments more unnerving than those initial minutes as I sat in the dark training room at Pacaembu, drying my eyes, with my knee up on a metal table. The medical staff—Dr. Hilton Gosling, the team doctor, and Mário Américo, our beloved physical therapist—put some ice on my knee and talked to each other in hushed tones.

  “Don’t worry one bit,” Mário said. “I’m going to make sure you’re just fine.”

  Kind words, but nobody really knew what would happen. After all, we were still in Brazil, and there were eleven healthy players—including Luizinho—who were more than ready to take my place. It would have been a simple, obvious decision to leave me behind—and I later learned just how close they came to making it. The Brazilian team authorities sounded out a player named Almir, who played for Vasco da Gama, as a replacement for me.

  In the end, Dr. Gosling told the coaches that my knee was in fact in pretty bad shape. I would miss up to a month, he said, meaning all the remaining warm-up games we had scheduled in Europe, and probably the first few matches of the World Cup as well. But Dr. Gosling told them I was young and in very good health; and I might, just might, recover more quickly than he anticipated.

  The coaches had a long, detailed discussion—and decided that the risk of taking me to Europe was worth the potential payoff. If I had been in charge, I don’t know that I would have made the same decision. But for the grace of God, and the faith of the doctors and the coaches, my life could have been quite different.

  9

  For a few years back in Baurú, I had dreamed of being a pilot. There was a small airstrip in town, and I’d spend long afternoons there sitting by the side of the runway watching planes and gliders take off and land, sometimes skipping school to see the pilots in their leather jackets and aviator glasses. It all looked impossibly glamorous, a passport to a new and more exciting life.

  One day, we heard someone shout that a pilot had crashed his glider. This seemed like the most dramatic thing that had ever happened in Baurú. My friends and I ran first to the scene of the accident, where we closely examined the smoldering aircraft. Then we went over to the hospital, and we peered in through a dirty window. Sure enough, there was the dead pilot, lying there on the autopsy table. I was fascinated—I’d never seen a corpse before—but then the doctor tried to move the poor man’s arm. This required some effort, as the body must have already been stiff, and as he yanked at it, a stream of blood spilled out
onto the floor. My friends and I screamed in horror, and ran home as fast as we could. I had nightmares about it for months, if not years.

  Well, as you might imagine, that experience put me off flying for a while. So when I boarded a Panair DC-7 bound for Europe on May 24, 1958, it was the first time I had ever been on an airplane. I ambled slowly up the stairs, my right knee wrapped in a giant bandage, nervous about the trip and—above all—the possibility I might not get to play at all because of my injury. Would I be sent back to Brazil as soon as we arrived in Europe? My stomach was churning.

  Once we got under way, though, things lightened up quickly. The team dentist, Dr. Mário Trigo, was a jokester who kept things lively by organizing a kind of quiz game in which he asked us questions and we provided all kinds of goofy answers. When we stopped to refuel in Recife, a city on Brazil’s northeastern coast, there were thousands of people at the airport, chanting and cheering, wishing us good luck. This helped remove some of the sour taste from the Corinthians game—and reminded us that we had an entire country on our side.

  We also began to forge the personal bonds and friendships that make any team—especially a national team—such a fulfilling experience. Nothing brings people together quite like the honor of representing one’s country. And, this being Brazil, one important form of bonding was to assign everybody stupid nicknames, even if they had two or three of them already. Gylmar was “Giraffe,” because of his long neck. De Sordi was “Head,” because his was huge. Dino Sani was “Knee”—because he was bald, and without hair his head looked like a knee. A few nicknames were so vulgar as to be completely unpublishable. Didi was “Black Heron,” and Mazzola was “Stony Face.” For reasons of obvious physical irony, everybody thought it would be hilarious to call me “Alemão”—“The German.”