1973 .. When the people of the Gulf first saw Pele in the wild

The Gulf people first saw Pele in the wild, 3 years after winning the World Cup for the third time in Mexico in 1970, in a famous visit to the Arab region that is preserved in the memory of contemporaries.

In February of that year, the ancient Santos Club came to the Middle East for the first time, and of course the “King” with his famous number 10 was leading the mission, and played Qadisiyah’s Kuwaiti team in a match in which he mentions the brilliance of goalkeeper Abdul Hameed Al-Shatti, who faced Pele’s attempts in that match, but escaped him. he equalized a few minutes later.

Santos also played during that period with the Saudi youth team at the Prince Faisal bin Fahd Stadium in Riyadh, and at that time Ahmed Eid was the goalkeeper, the only player included in the Saudi first-team squad, and that clash saw Pele score the second goal in a match that ended 3-0.

Pele received a famous yellow card in the match that brought together Santos in the same round against the Bahrain national team, as former Bahraini international referee Ibrahim Al-Dawi said that the “king” was very much against the referee’s decisions , which prompted the latter to raise the yellow card in the face of the Brazilian star during the match which ended 7-1 in favor of Santos.

Santos, led by Pele, played Qatar’s Al-Ahly in Doha and won 4-0, and with four unanswered goals to win the Emirates in Dubai during that round, before heading to Cairo to meet Al-Ahly, and then the Brazilians won 5-0, and then Sudan when they faced Al-Hilal and won with a goal without.

Pelé’s first visit to the Arab region came in 1965, when he visited Algeria with the Brazil national team to meet the hosts in a friendly.