We are told Pele is the best but his record is overstated - he is a master of self-promotion and circumstance helped him achieve pre-eminence. For decades, the fact that Pele was the greatest footballer that ever lived has simply been taken as gospel. Despite the emergence of more recent challengers in Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, Pele remains the reference point against which all are judged. Those who played with or against him, from Alfredo di Stefano to Ferenc Puskas to Franz Beckenbauer to Bobby Moore, queued up to anoint him as the greatest. As did Pele himself. “In music there is Beethoven and the rest,” he said in 2000. “In football, there is Pele and the rest.” But it is an orthodoxy that has permeated subsequent generations too. To take one example out of thousands, Cristiano Ronaldo once said: “Pele is the greatest player in football history, and there will only be one Pele.” By the time Ronaldo was born in 1985, Pele had already been retired for eight years. How can you call someone the greatest player of all time if you’ve barely seen them play? To be fair, there is a good deal of evidence in his favour. Only the merest fraction of his 1,283 goals (give or take a few) were recorded on film, but what does remain paints a compelling if incomplete portrait of a truly special footballer. Lightning pace, effortless grace, immense poise, impressive power, supreme cunning and gigantic balls: all are on display. At the very least, there is enough footage to conclude that Pele was not simply Adam Le Fondre with a stepover. He really was astoundingly good at football. Then there is his record. Three World Cup victories in 1958, 1962 and 1970. Two Intercontinental Cups with Santos. Those 1,283 goals, of which 77 came for Brazil and 12 in the World Cup. But even as you list Pele’s achievements, it is possible to pick holes in them. Ali Daei of Iran is international football’s leading goalscorer, with 109 goals in 149 caps. This does not make him the greatest player of all time. Hundreds of Pele’s goals came in friendlies, against up-country teams or down-at-heel invitational sides. Pele scored against the very best, but he scored against the very worst too. His World Cup record, while impressive, is susceptible to overstatement. Injury in 1962 means that effectively, he only really won two World Cups, and was not the outstanding player either time. In 1958, it was Didi who was voted player of the tournament, while in 1970, it was very much a team effort, with the likes of Tostao and Jairzinho at least as important. Pele’s home country has long been aware of this. Ask a Brazilian who is their greatest ever player and you are as likely to hear Heleno, Garrincha, Jairzinho or Zizinho mentioned. Pele’s multiple post-football careers, wayward predictions and often contradictory public statements have turned him into a figure frequently parodied, and occasionally disdained. “I believe that Pele knows nothing about football,” current Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari said in 2002. “He has done nothing as a coach and all his analysis always turns out to be wrong. He’s an idol in all of Brazil, but his analysis is worth nothing.” “There is a sense that Pele belongs more to global heritage than he does to Brazil’s,” the Brazil-based writer Alex Bellos explained in his book Futebol. “He is an international reference point, and one who is simple to understand: a poor black man who became the best in the world through dedication and skill. But Brazilians do not love him the way they love Garrincha.” Just a couple of weeks ago, Pele was criticised again for coming out against the recent political protests, describing them as “a great loss for the country”. Not for the first time, the arch conformist had shown himself to be out of touch with the skittish insurgency characterising the new Brazil. If you really boil it down, Pele’s legacy rests on those two World Cup wins. In 1958, he forced his way into the side halfway through the tournament as a 17-year-old, scoring a hat-trick in the semi-final against France and two goals in the final against Sweden. In 1970, he was the most famous player in perhaps the greatest side in international history. Later that decade, a survey showed that Pele was the second most-recognised brand name in Europe after Coca Cola. What was interesting about Pele’s exaltation was how much of it was done in retrospect. Contemporary reports of the 1958 final clearly mention Pele, but reserve most praise for Garrincha, the most flamboyant player on the pitch. In the following months and years, though, the story of the 17-year-old kid from the poor background began to take an increasing hold. Books, films and newspaper articles began to accumulate. His club Santos, sensing they might have the box office draw of the century on their hands, took him out on tour, playing exhibition games all over the world. Pele played more than 100 games in 1959, including 15 in three weeks on a tour of Europe. By the early 1960s, he was regularly playing three times a week with extensive travelling in between. These tours served a dual function. Not only did they help to bulk up Pele’s record; they also spread the gospel. Jonathan Liew:
Posted on: Wed, 04 Jun 2014 11:13:33 +0000