MacFormat España 17/MacFormat 17 (Spain)/MacFormat 17.bin/DATABASE/BODY/CU142.TXT

Text File | 1996-01-29 | 9.3 KB | 200 lines

1.5
The finest footballer of all time was a compound of strength,
courage, speed, technique and agility. Pele had scored over
1000 goals in first-class football before he was 29. Born
Edson Arantes do Nascimento into a poor negro family, by 16
he was an international, and at 17 scored two astonishing
goals in the World Cup Final of 1958 against Sweden. He was
less fortunate in the 1962 and 1966 World Cups, dropping
out after a couple of matches in 1962 with a pulled muscle,
and suffering painful injury at the hands of brutal defenders
in 1966. He swore he would never play in another World
Cup, but changed his mind and proved a crucial force in
Brazil's triumphant 1970 win. His success as a striking, goal-
scoring inside-left was the more remarkable in that it
coincided with the era of packed, ruthless defences. In 1974
he refused to play for Brazil in the World Cup but accepted a
$4.5 million contract to play for the New York Cosmos. This
was because, for the second time in his life, he had been
ruined in a business deal. He remains the unattainable ideal
to which all footballers - especially the Brazilian ones - strive
@
2.2
JIMMY GREAVES is back in English football.  Two moves,
from Chelsea to Milan and then back to Spurs, involved a
total of £178,000 in transfer fees.  His salary from Spurs will
be something like £5,000 a year.  But none of this compares
with the fabulous soccer star from South America.

Italian club Juventus couldn't persuade Santos of Brazil to
sell him for £550,000.  At 20, he's reputed to be the richest
footballer in the world with a salary of £1,000 a week.  He
aims to make enough money to retire from professional
football and play as an amateur.

The lithe young Negro slipped away from the statuesque
blonde who had been on his arm all evening and quietly
denied marriage plans that would have commanded taller
headlines in South America than any revolution.

His name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento.  He calls himself
Pele.  He is 20 years old and the world's richest footballer.
He is probably the greatest player of all time.  Pele is a few
months younger than Jimmy Greaves and plays in the same
inside-forward position.  Greaves rated an £80,000 offer
from Italy. For Pele the Italian club Juventus bid £550,000
and still couldn't persuade his club Santos to sell.

Pele was holding court in Brazil on one of the two nights a
month in which he permits himself a heavy "date."  Just a
sober, unpretentious party that did not match or hit his
income of £1,000 a week. But it was in the Hollywood idiom
that he explained his love-life - "Just good friends, very good
friends," he said.  "I will marry only when I meet the girl
who does not like Pele the player, but Edson Arantes do
Nascimento the man."

Every morning his mail contains around 30 letters from
women.  Rich women and beautiful women.  Seeking to
marry him.  Eager to give all their favours for just one
meeting.  Begging for even an old lace from his boot. Yet his
rare hours of romance are agreed only after a cold-blooded
analysis of his football programme.  Only once has he been in
a night club-to celebrate Brazil's world cup triumph when he
starred and scored in the final at the age of 17.

I saw him take the floor with a girl of Anita Ekberg
proportions whose mighty shoulders almost enveloped him.
He looked like a bewildered black choirboy lost in a La Dolce
Vita party.  But he is as immortal in Brazil as Hobbs or
Matthews here.

So great is his popularity that he finds it almost impossible to
pay for anything he wants.  Shopkeepers insist on making
everything a gift.

Although Pele makes Greaves look a novice, both as a player
and a businessman, I doubt whether any British footballer
could approach his sport with quite the fanatical
professionalism of the Brazilian idol. He has never smoked, is
completely teetotal and his every meal is worked out by
experts to the last calorie.  Twelve hours' sleep every night,
two hours' rest every afternoon and a thorough medical
check after every training session.  And to think Greaves
called Italian methods tough!

Financially, however, Pele is in paradise.  His property
investment and building company alone could make him a
millionaire before he is 30.  Wealthy fans helped him start;
within two years he had provided at least one house for all
his poor relations.

He is also "Mr. Coffee" of Brazil with a personal publicity
campaign worth £6,000 a year.  His autobiography - "I AM
PELE" - has already sold 100,000 copies in Brazil and in the
worldwide translations the English and German rights alone
will net him £20,000. Yet he still lives in the same, small,
modest hotel with a few Santos clubmates.  His delight is to
help with the homework of the black orphan boy he has
adopted. For he remembers the time six years ago when he
was just another black urchin in this rags or riches country
where his African forebears were shipped as slaves.

Two ambitions remain unfulfilled for Pele.  To find and
reward the old man who saved him from drowning as a
schoolboy. To make money so fast that he can afford to turn
amateur and play football for Santos "just for kicks." Like
Stanley Matthews he says - "It is enough to play the game I
love."  And maybe that is their secret.
@
2.4
IT WAS the first time, he said, he had ever trembled.  He was
called upon to take a penalty.  More than 70,000 voices
demanded that he take it.  He held back.

"P-e-l-e ... P-e-l-e ..." they chanted.  He still held back.
Another voice over the public address system at the
Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday night
insisted: "Pele MUST kick.  Pele MUST kick.  Only after Pele
scores his 1,000th goal will peace, calm and serenity return
to Brazilian soccer fans.

They could have added: "to the whole of Brazil."  He moved
up to place the ball on the spot.  The "peace" and "calm"
arrived as the stadium hushed and stood like an empty shell.
He stepped back from the ball.  It was hell for the guy.
There had been 999 goals before, and few of them had
bothered him. But the country needed this goal-he needed it.

Andrada, the goalkeeper of Vasco da Gama, had his own
thoughts.  He had stopped earlier Pele efforts. Now what was
he to do?  If he saved it he wouldn't be very popular.
Nobody wanted him to save it not even his own fans. The
world's most complete footballer moved forward and stroked
the ball gently, ever so carefully, into the left-hand corner of
the net.

He had scored it at last.  The moment of "serenity" for a
nation had come. The crowd came on to the pitch and hoisted
him onto their shoulders. The 28-year-old genius, once a
penniless boy in Tres Coracoes, Central Brazil, had passed a
scoring milestone that no other footballer in the world had
ever reached, or, I dare say, will ever reach.

He pulled a new jersey - numbered 10, naturally - over his
playing shirt and embraced his team mates before going off
so that the game could restart. There were only 12 minutes
play left.  It was then that he said: "Tonight was the first
time I have ever trembled."
@
2.6
Pele, and Brazil, won the World Cup for keeps when they tore
Italy apart 4-1 in the Aztec Stadium here tonight. Pele, the
King, led his court of 10 super, soccer princes in another
display of genius that had 112,000 lucky subjects in the
stadium paying due homage and 800million TV viewers
gasping.

Fittingly, he opened the scoring and, after the ever so slight
scare of an Italian equaliser through Boninsegna, his men
took over and wrapped up the game through goals by Gerson,
Jairzinho and Alberto.

Praise flooded in from the four corners of Pele's kingdom -
but it was Brazil coach Mario Zagallo who summed it all up:
"Pele proved today why he is considered the world's best
soccer player. He crowned himself once more as the king of
soccer. He has achieved what probably no one will be able to
do again - that is to win three World cups"

And the King himself said: "This was my last World Cup.  I
am the happiest man in the world. I was sure we would win
as soon as we controlled the midfield," he added before being
escorted to the team bus by four steel-helmeted policemen.

Brazil's speedy outside-left, Rivelino, fainted during the
mobbing after the match. "I don't know exactly what
happened, but it seemed hundreds of people were pouring
over me," he said later.  "I could not breathe and suddenly
everything went black."

British sportsmen were full of praise for the champions.
Bobby Moore, England captain, said: "A fine game, two fine
sides.  Gerson's wonderful goal turned the match for Brazil."
And Gordon Banks, the England goalkeeper, added: "Brazil
put the pressure on much more in the second half and it was
inevitable that the Italians would crack eventually." Joe
Mercer, manager, of Manchester City: "This shows that
football is about individual talent.  It's wonderful to see a
team with so much to offer in that respect win this trophy."

In Rio de Janeiro, the victory was greeted with an
unprecedented explosion of joy in which thousands of
chanting people danced in the streets. As soon as the cup was
handed over, main squares and avenues were blocked with
crowds snake-dancing to the samba drums. Even babies in
prams waved tiny Brazilian flags while air force planes
zoomed through the skies and thousands of balloons with the
national colours were set loose.