It is from images like this that the film is born Pele – Birth of a legend: Dondinho (the father) is cleaning a public toilet, with Dico (not yet Pelé) helping him – and, suddenly, he exclaims:
– If you want to be a professional player, you don’t have to be ashamed of who you are…
Equally exciting is the moment when Dico and Dondinho appear to be training in the back of the poor house with an orange – and Dico works magic with it, the magic already blossoming on his feet, on his bare feet. It wasn’t until the age of 12 that he first wore shoes and soon led Ameriquinha to victory in the Bauru tournament. He moved to Bauru BC-and the tragedy almost deprived him of his immortality: he went swimming in the river with a friend and, swimming badly, they miraculously saved him from drowning as he launched himself fearlessly into the adventure.
He was sleepwalking, his mother, in a panic, several times discovered him wandering around the house, late at night – and other times, which was not fear, it was laughter – laughter when she heard him, while he was sleeping, leave the bed in a scream and a cry that creeps in:
– Goal!
Bangu toured Bauru and, watching him play, wanted to take him right away to Rio de Janeiro. Not because Dona Celeste forbade Dondinho to leave him. He tried to do the same later, when Waldemar de Brito (a friend of his father who had been a star of the team) lured him, dazzled, to Santos. He was 15 years old, he began to earn five cruzeiros a month, plus room and board – and his companions didn’t call him Pelé, they called him Gasoline because he always begged them to let him go to the pump “fill up his cars”…
Maracana and Belenenses
Also impressive in the film is the scene of his farewell to Bauru – of Pelé who launches into the future. He was already there when, on June 19, 1957, he set foot in the Maracanã and the Maracanã for the first time – and from him came the first sign of divinity. No, he wasn’t wearing the Santos shirt, he was wearing the Vasco da Gama shirt. To face Belenenses in the Torneo Morumbi (which was played as an airlift between São Paulo and Rio) Vasco asked Santos for five players – and Pelé, who had just turned 16, scored three times in a 6-1 win. He says whoever saw the first hat was the most sublime hat in his life …
– Was it the match against Belenenses, for Vasco, that paved your way to the World Cup?
– That was an important moment, of course. It hadn’t been decided yet whether I would go to the World Cup…
– … and with that flip of the hat, it was immediately thought that yes, that he should have gone…
– The best goal of my life wasn’t that, the most important thing could have been…
It is with this World Cup, the 1958 World Cup that Pele – Birth of a legend ends and you understand why the film is what it is – and why there is, agitated, the cry:
– You may only be 16, but you’ve become a spokesperson for this great nation…
and Pele became, inter alia:
– … the player who changed the game, sublimated «ginga» and «beautiful football», inspired a team, made it believe it was capable…
