Pelé is dead, but his legend remains: the media around the world salute the legendary Brazilian who died Thursday at the age of 82, the only winner of three World Cups and who gave “futebol” its hours of glory and letters of nobility. The images of the “King” and the comments are looping on televisions around the world, flooding social networks. Ditto for the One of the Internet sites. Starting with Brazil in shock: “Mourning” for the “immortal king of football”, headlines the daily O Globo on his site, with images of the player in the national jersey, in particular the iconic one, where all smiles, he raises his right arm, carried by his teammate Jairzinho seen from the back with his number 7. The newspaper does not hesitate to say that he is “a fundamental figure in the construction of modern Brazil in the 20th century”.
“Pelé is dead, footbal loses its king”, title O Estado de S. Pauloa man who according to the Folha de Sao Paulo “showed the power of sport and pushed the boundaries of stardom”. The daily adds: “Never before on this planet has a single person gathered all the basics of football like him, which is not by chance the most popular sport of all.” On the website of this Paulista newspaper, Juca Kfouri praises the “best player in history” and quotes the writer Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902-1987): “It is not difficult to score a thousand goals like Pelé: what is difficult is to score a goal like Pelé”. This journalist, who is authoritative in Brazil, concludes his beautiful obituary thus: “No, it is not true that Pelé is dead. The one who died is Edson” – the first name of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, says Pele.
In Argentina, country of Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi, who are also applying for the unofficial title of best player of all time, Clarin sees in Pelé “the first great football star”, a “great among the greats” according to Luis Vinker. “The ball is crying: Pelé is dead”, headline Oh. And the Argentine sports daily shows fair play: “Beyond the rivalry that exists between Argentina and Brazil, no one can doubt that Pelé was one of the greatest footballers in history, for many the best beyond Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi. What is certain is that he marked an era since his teenage debut, both with Santos and the Brazil national team”.
“Global Face of Soccer”
Still in Latin America, the Mexican press favors the image of “Rei” celebrating his 3rd world title in 1970, at the Azteca stadium in Mexico City, carried by his teammates, shirtless and wearing a sombrero. “Football is in mourning”, title El Universal. In Ecuador, El Universo de Guayaquil says “farewell to Pelé, the ‘supernatural footballer'”. In the United States, a country much less focused on king sport, New York Times evokes the disappearance of the “global face of soccer”, which “helped to popularize this sport in the United States”, during his stay at Cosmos New York (1975-1977).
“Brazil and the world in mourning: there was only one Pelé”, recognizes the washington post, on whose site sports journalist Liz Clarke writes: “They’ve called him the King of Football, but it’s Pelé’s other nickname – the ‘Pérola Negra’, or Black Pearl – that best evokes the rare intelligence that he contained in his small frame”. It is also this extraordinary talent that Vincent Duluc magnifies in L’Equipe (22 special Pelé pages): “Behind the sadness hides the happiness of having seen him play, of having seen him dance, even on images old, and to have seen it give another meaning to the most universal game on the planet”. The editorialist of the French sports daily ends his column with a sigh of “saudade” thinking of the Brazilian N.10 and the 1970 World Cup, “he was the greatest, and she was the most beautiful”.
The biggest? This is also the opinion of the French newspaper The world about the “absolute monarch of football”. “O Rei. The king, quite simply. With all of his attributes. His crown, never disputed, not even by Cruyff, Platini, Maradona, Zidane, Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo”, advances Bruno Lesprit. Release, always on the lookout for its front page during the deaths of personalities, offers a surprising photo: we see Pelé on the ground, in shorts and shirtless, but a long coat placed on the shoulders, and looking back (photo taken in Liverpool in 1966 after a Brazil-Portugal). On the L’Equipe du soir channel, Brazilian correspondent Eric Frosio believes that there is “a before and after Pelé”. The journalist from Le Figaro is full of praise, calling it the “sun of Brazil”.
The title “Seleciao” contains a play on words (“Seleçao” and tchao) and Paul Quinio’s editorial, titled “Forever the first”, likes to imagine Pelé completing a “band of fantastic four” with Diego Maradona, Johan Cruyff and George Best: “They are so different, probably wouldn’t have gotten along down here, in a locker room, but the joy, the fire, the tactics, the alcohol, mix where they are now in a extraterrestrial, almost childlike harmony”.
“Absolute Legend”
So the biggest? “Pelé was better than Messi, Maradona and Ronaldo together,” says German tabloid sports editor Alfred Draxler Picture. Die Zeit, still in Germany, recalls that Pelé “started barefoot in the streets of Bauru and became the footballer of the century”. “I thought Messi was the best of all time, but now I realize it’s Pelé,” says John Carlin of the British The Times. Richard Williams, of Guardian, retains “the joy” that emanated from Pelé: “The first world football superstar made everyone smile and his sleight of hand was never done to belittle his opponents”. On the front page of the newspaper, he is described as a man who “gave his talent to the whole world”.
“Pelé will always be associated with the ‘beautiful game’ – and no one has played it more beautifully,” says the BBC’s Phil McNulty in his obituary. Soberly The Daily Mirror claiming in particular that the triple world champion (1958, 1962 and 1970) was “the greatest”, when the Irish media The Irish Times calls it “Magic”. “Pelé, the ‘black pearl’ who enchanted the world, is no more”, title The Times of India. “Absolute legend”, abounds Morocco today. Similar tone in Spain, where El País famous “Pelé, world football in four letters”. La Vanguardia evokes “the last great legend of world football”, and Marca highlights on its site the portrait of the young Pelé with a crown on his head, the years 1940 and 2022, and a black border, the color of mourning. The sports daily also links the video “which shows that all the great actions of Cruyff, Zidane, Messi… Pelé had already invented them”.
El Mundo recalls “the two most beautiful goals in history”, regretting that we “cannot see them” for lack of any video recording: a goal in 1959, after four shots from the sombrero, and another in 1961 , when Pelé receives the ball in front of his surface, eliminates seven opponents and scores his goal. “The world of football is losing its ‘Rei’, laments La Stampa, in Italy. On the site of the Turin daily, Matteo Giusti begins his article with a quote attributed to the Brazilian writer Jorge Amado: “If football had not been called that, it should have been called Pelé”.