Young Pele, Soccer Player

Young Pele, Soccer Player

- Clare and Frank Gault

    A small boy danced barefoot out into the street and began kicking at the air as if he were kicking a soccer ball. But there was no ball. Nearby, a group of men and boys huddled around a radio, listening to a local soccer game Bauru (bou roo’) against Sau Carlous (sou kar loos) a neighboring town in southeastern Brazil. The year was 1948.

        One of the men smiled as he watched the boy acting like a real scooter player. The boy was eight years old. His name was Edson Arantes do Nacimento (ed’ song u ran’ chas doo na sc men too), but his friend called him Pele(pele’).

        Pele kept kicking at the air. He could imagine himself out on the soccer field, dribbling the ball downfield with his feet, passing it to a teammate, then taking a pass in return and kicking a goal.

        Suddenly, the radio announcer became excited. Bauru had the ball near the Sao Carlos goal. Pele stopped to listen. A player nicknamed Dondinho (don den yoo) was moving in to take a shot and it looked as if he would score. Dondinho kicked, but he missed. Everybody groanced.

Dondinho was one of the policemen in town, but he played soccer part-time for the local club to earn a little extra money for his family. He was also Pele’s father. Pele ran home. Soon his father arrived, too, looking very sad.

        Pele’s mother said, “See what that game does to you. You missed a goal, and now you’ll be sad for days. I pray Pele never plays soccer.” But that night, when Pele’s father, mother, grandmother, younger brother and sister gathered for prayers, Pele prayed he would become a great soccer player.

        Pele took his soccer ball everywhere: one of his father’s old socks stuffed hard with newspaper and laced shut with string. It was no bigger than a large orange and not very round, but it was the only soccer ball Pele had. He had no money to buy a real one. He would practice kicking it as he walked down the street. He would dribble it. Or aim it at a telephone pole. He could do almost anything with it.

        Nothing could stop Pele from playing soccer. The games were too much fun. But after a while, Pele felt he was missing something. He wanted his own team that could play other teams on a regular soccer field with a real ball.

“If we had uniforms,” he told his friends, “other teams would play us a team. We could call ourselves the ‘Seventh of September.’” (The seventh of September is Brazil’s Independence Day.)

        To get money for uniforms, the boys collected old bottles and anything else they could find. They went up and down the streets and alleys. They poked into trash cans. They raked the city dump. When they had a big pile of old bottles, scrap metal, pieces of pipe, and old pieces of furniture, they took it all to a junk man to sell. Finally they had scraped together enough money to buy shirts and pants, but not enough for shoes and socks.

        “We’ll just have to be known as Seventh of September, the barefoot team,” said Pele.

The Seventh of September played every other team they could, and in time they became famous in the area. When Pele was about eleven years old, the mayor of Bauru decided to hold a big tournament for all the younger teams. It was to be held in the city stadium with professional referees, just like big league soccer.

        Pele and his friends wanted to enter the tournament, but they needed new uniforms. This time, a travelling salesman helped them. He was a soccer fan and had heard of the barefoot team. He put up the money for uniforms, socks, and shoes. However, he asked that the team be called “Little America” after his favorite big league team, “America,” in Rio de Janeiro.

        That seemed to be a small price to pay. As soon as their equipment came, the boys started to practice, But after only a few minutes they were unhappy. They had never played in shoes before.

“I can’t feel the ball,” Pele said. “I kick it, but it won’t go where I want it to.”

        So they all took off their shoes and went back to playing barefoot. One of the tournament officials saw them. “Boys, you have to wear shoes in the games, so you might as well get used to them. Without shoes you can’t play.”

        The boys had no choice but to put their shoes back on. They got blisters the first day, but after a few days, the shoes became more comfortable. And Pele began to get the “feel” of the ball. He found he could kick with his toes as well as with the sides of his feet. The ball traveled farther with less effort. Wearing shoes is better, he finally decided.

        Sixteen teams entered the tournament. Little America won their first game then they won their second game and their third. Suddenly they were in the finals, playing for the championship before a huge crowd.

It was a hard, close game but years of playing together paid off. Pele was especially good that day, dribbling, passing and shooting all over the field.

        I ate in the game, Pele got the ball and dribbled it quickly towards the goal. An opposing player moved in to take the ball away. Suddenly, Pele stopped cold and changed direction. Still controlling the ball with his feet. The other player tried to change direction, too but he slipped and fell to the ground.

        In a flash, Pele was racing for the goal. Only the goalkeeper was in his way now. Out from the net came the goalie to try to smother the ball. Pele faked a kick. The goalie drove, but the ball wasn’t where he thought it would be. Pele angled a soft shot for the corner of the net. Bounce, Bounce. The goalie raced for it. But it went into the net. It was a goal.

        The crowd stood and cheered. Little America had won. The crowd started to chant, “Pele, Pele, Pele.” Pele heard his name and ran around the field, his arms raised in victory. The people threw coins out onto the field. They added up to $3.50 more money than he had ever seen before.

When Pele was fifteen years old, a big league team named after a large port city in Brazil, Santos, signed him to a contract. For the first time, he was to be paid for playing soccer. Pele started with the junior Santos team. He practiced and played with them for three months before he got his chance to play with Santos' first team. He entered an exhibition game as center forward in the school half and scored his first goal in big league competition.

        By spring of the following year, Pele was a regular starter with Santos. And after only two months of play, he became so well known around the big leagues that he was chosen to be on Brazil’s national team. He was still only sixteen years old.

        In his first game for the national team, Pele went in during the second half. He scored the only goal for Brazil as they lost to Argentina, 2 to 1. But just a few days later, they played Argentina again. Pele was a starter and scored another goal. This time Brazil won, 2 to 0.

        The next year, 1958, was a World Cup year. Every four years the major soccer playing countries hold a series of games ending in a finals to decide the victor. The World Cup is given to the best national team in the world.

Pele was only seventeen years old, but he was chosen for Brazil’s World Cup team. In the quarter-finals against Wales, Pele scored what he feels is one of the most important goals of his career. Brazil won, 1 to 0, and went into the semi-finals, beating won, 1 to 0, and went into semi-finals, beating France as Pele scored three times. And in the finals, Pele scored twice more as Brazil beat Sweden, 5 to 2.

        It was Brazil’s first World Cup title. Pele had scored six goals in the three games he played.

        Pele was famous. His feats in the World Cup, with the national team, and with the Santos were the talk of the soccer world. Every team wanted him. Every country wanted him. Then the government of Brazil acted. Pele was declared a “national treasure.” Brazil had passed a law to stop people from taking national treasures out of the country. The law was meant to protect works of art and important relies. But this time the law was used to keep a human being in the country.

        Brazil won the World Cup again four years later and then again eight years after that. And over this span of years, Pele’s team, the Santos, won state and international team titles time after time. Pele proved that he truly was a “national treasure.”

Pele scored 1220 goals, including 95 for the Brazilian national team. That is a fantastic total for soccer, as many games are low-scoring, often decided by one or two goals.

        Why has Pele been such an outstanding player? Speed, of course, is one reason. Pele can run. And he can change direction and speed quickly. That makes it hard to cover him. Other players can’t seem to block him out. But his supreme skill is in ball control. Sometimes it almost seems as if the ball were tied to his foot. Other times he seems to have magical control over it. The ball does exactly what he wants it to do.

        Most teams try to stop Pele by putting two or three players to guard him. Of course, when they do that, Pele’s teammates are a good spot to score. So Peles' value to his team is much greater than just the goals he scores. He sets up as many goals for his teammates as he scores himself. It’s no wonder that Pele has been acclaimed all over the world as “the greatest soccer player who ever lived.”

        In 1974, Pele said he would retire. Giant crowds shouted “Pele, Pele, Pele,” and “Stay, stay, stay.” But Pele felt it was time to quit. He was thirty-three years old, and he wanted to relax and spend more time with his wife and two young children. But in 1975, with the permission of the Brazilian government, Pele signed a contract to play for the New York Cosmos Soccer team. He couldn’t resist trying to beat the last challenge - making soccer a major sport in the United States. Right from his first appearance, crowds doubled and tripled. Pele excited more interest and enthusiasm in soccer than there had ever been before.

Three weeks after arriving in New York, Pele was seen playing soccer with a bunch of boys in Central Park. When Pele saw the boys playing, he couldn’t stay away, just as he couldn’t stay away from the games when he was a barefoot kid kicking an old sock stuffed with newspaper.