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Pelé, acclaimed as so often
Photo:
imago images / Sven Simon
Pelé is sitting on the sofa and smiling.
Next to him is another man, an old white man, who is smiling too.
This man is the President of Brazil, Emílio Garrastazu Medici, head of the military dictatorship, a man who murdered hundreds of opposition members.
And Pelé smiles at this man, just as he has always smiled at so many people.
An idol, a god for the fans, the king - and on the sofa only someone "who behaved like a black man, who accepts everything the whites tell him," as a quote from the film puts it.
The picture on the sofa from 1969 is one of the impressive scenes in the documentary »Pelé«, which can be seen on Netflix from Tuesday.
Pelé, the adored, the adored, the greatest, who makes himself small in front of the rulers of the regime.
Pelé, now 80 years old, at the beginning of the film he pushes a walker in front of him, is asked by the two filmmakers David Tryhorn and Ben Nicholas.
He says he was "never interested in politics."
His team-mate at the Selecao at the time, Paulo César Lima, says: "Only a statement by Pelé against the dictatorship would have achieved a lot."
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At 17, Pelé thrilled the football world at the World Cup in Sweden
Photo:
AP
This is also part of the story of the world's most famous footballer alongside Diego Maradona.
While hundreds of people disappeared in his country, "nothing had changed for me as a result of the dictatorship," says Pelé: "In football everything stayed as it was."
World Cup participation as a national matter
But actually it was a little different.
The fame of Pelé, the boy from FC Santos, rose like a fairy tale as a 17-year-old at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, which led Brazil to the world championship with his genius, this fame even increased among the military.
His 1000th goal for Santos in 1968 became an act of state, and Pelé's participation in the 1970 World Cup became a national matter.
A matter that became so big that it cost the then national coach Joao Saldanho his job shortly before the tournament.
Saldanho had resisted pressure from the military to assert their favorite players: Dario, the president's darling, and Pelé, the darling of the masses.
Saldanho, a member of the Brazilian Communist Party in his youth, had said in an interview to the Medicis: "I don't choose his ministers, he doesn't choose my players." That was too much.
Saldanho was replaced by Mario Zagallo, who played with Pelé at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden.
Since then there has been no doubt about Pelé's calling.
The 1970 World Cup in Mexico, it is the beginning and end of the almost two-hour documentary.
These colours.
In 1970 the whole world seemed to be colorful, it was that time, and it was most colorful in the Aztec Stadium in Mexico City.
"An oasis of beauty," as Brazil's famous musician, Gilberto Gil, says in the film.
Pelé was almost 30, and many no longer believed that he could do a great job.
After the 1958 triumph, he had personally experienced two disappointing world tournaments.
Brazil defended its title in Chile in 1962, but the superstar was injured in the second game against Czechoslovakia and Brazil became world champions without him.
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Pelé's triumph in Mexico in 1970
Photo: AP
Four years later in England things got worse.
Pelé was chased like wild game by the opponents, in the preliminary round match against Portugal they had managed to kick him to pieces.
"Football has become ugly," Pelé told the British reporters at the time, the Brazilian head of the delegation, Joao Havelange, was furious about "the unbelievable brutality on the pitch," and the team doctor Hilton Gosling sighed: "We had as many injuries in eight days as there were in eight Years. «Brazil fails in the preliminary round, Pelé can only watch injured again.
He is so desperate that he wants to end his international career.
"I didn't know what to do next," he says in the film.
A squad like from the delicatessen restaurant
But he continues.
"This World Cup became my very personal challenge," he says of the 1970 tournament. Not for Brazil, not for the regime, he's doing it for himself.
And Pelé will once again become the Spiritus Rector of this wonderful team: Gérson, Tostao, Rivelino, Jairzinho, Carlos Alberto, Brito, Clodoaldo.
The authors of the Netflix film, Tryhorn and Nicholas, take the audience back with them to this great time, to the final against Italy, to the moment when Pelé paved the way to the World Cup with Brazil 1-0.
The image of how he then raises his fist in the sky, "he needed this moment," says Brito.
A monument to football history.
Pelé sees the old pictures of Mexico and says: "The greatest gift after a win is not the trophy, it is the relief."
Pelé was not a hero, not a saint that so many wanted to make him.
The film shows that in a very impressive way.
It was not in the military dictatorship, nor was it as a private person.
At one point the 80-year-old says: “I've had a lot of affairs.
From some of them children emerged, as I learned later. "
Pelé's story is a story of fame and fortune, he was one of the first millionaires in football, but it is also a story of rising from below, and a story of how time changes.
Pelé relates: When he came to Sweden at the age of 17, the Scandinavian children kept holding him in the face, then looking at their hands to see whether the dark skin would rub off.
"They had never seen a black person in their life."
When he says that, Pelé smiles his Pele smile again.
Pelé. Documentation by David Tryhorn and Ben Nicholas. 108 minutes. From Tuesday on Netflix
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