most successful club in football history, the real Madrid bears a sort of stain on his curriculum full of stars of the most diverse nationalities and clogged with several dozen titles of different levels: not having convinced Pelé to play in Europe.
The Spanish team tried to convince the “King of football”, who died on Thursday at the age of 82, a victim of complications from colon cancer which he had been afflicting since 2021, to be part of the legendary squad which won the first five editions of the Champions League, between 1956 and 1960.
That merengue cast was a constellation of much of the best in world football in the mid-century. He had the Argentine Alfredo di Stéfano, the Hungarian Ferenc Puskás, the Spaniard Paco Gento and, for a short time, the Brazilian midfielder Didi.
But there was no Pele. And that was a problem that bothered the club which was still building its way to becoming number one in the world.
The first Spanish attack for the best-known number 10 shirt of all time took place in June 1959, just a year after the unprecedented conquest of the World Cup in Sweden, which placed the star on the international stage of football.
Real invited the Santos go to Madrid to play a friendly match at the Santiago Bernabéu. After the 5-3 victory over the Brazilians, Spanish officials spoke to Pelé and invited him to join the club. The “King” was not interested.
In the following years, the Madridistas repeated the offer countless times. And the answer was always the same.
Rumors that Pelé might leave Santos for the Spanish capital culminated in 1961. At the time, even Brazil’s then president, Jânio Quadros, was concerned about the risk of seeing one of the “greatest assets” of the Country relocate to the Spanish capital. outside.
“I’m worried about the repeated appointments of Brazilian players by foreign clubs. Now they want to ‘import’ Pelé too! We need to avoid such a process of weakening the world champion team, given that the ‘export’ of our athletes is not there I await measures, “wrote the representative to João Mendonça Filho, the leader who commanded the National Sports Council, the body responsible for all national sports policy at the time.
Despite the government’s wish, there has never been any passage of a law that would ban Pele from leaving Brazil to work abroad.
The reason why the three-time world champion with the national team and two-time world champion with Santos never agreed to play for Real (or Milanalready Inter MilanNo Manchester Unitedother teams who also tried to sign him) was another.
Unlike today’s players, the 20th Century Athlete never felt the need to go to Europe to “make his financial independence” and play alongside/against the best athletes of his time. Everything the King wanted and needed, he found right here in Brazil.
“The desire to stay at home was greater. It would have been incredible to play for Real Madrid, but I don’t regret staying and playing my career at Santos,” summed up the former player, in an interview with the magazine “Madridista Real ”, released two years ago. behind.
Pelé’s only experience abroad came at the end of his career. In 1975, at the age of 34, he put his retirement aside (he was no longer playing competitive games for Santos and only attended one or two holiday games) to work for three seasons at the New York Cosmos, a Warner-funded megalomaniac project that aimed to spread soccer in the United States.
On Thursday, shortly after the “King’s” death was confirmed, Real were one of the first clubs to issue an official statement expressing their condolences to “all football fans in Brazil and around the world”.
“The legend of Pelé will forever remain in the memory of all those who love this sport and his legacy makes him one of the great legends of world football,” reads an excerpt from the note published on his official website and on social media.
By decision of the family, the number 10’s funeral will only begin on Monday and will be held in Vila Belmiro, Santos’ stadium. The burial will take place at the Ecumenical Shrine of the Necropolis, where the historic number 10 shirt has its golden coffin reserved for years and with its gaze right on the village that it has helped to transform into a synonym for well-played football.
