Before Thursday, December 29, I had concluded plans to write on the raging battle between the Interim Management Committee (IMC) and the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) club owners and the failure of the former to restart Nigeria’s topflight this year.
I was preparing to deliver another no holds barred article before the news broke that Edson Arantes do Nacimento, nicknamed Pele, had passed away at 82 years after a long battle with colon cancer.
When I confirmed that his death was no longer another rumour as it was the case on a few occasions in the past, I was left with no option than to change my plan.
I, hereby join the rest of the world to pay tribute to the undisputed king of football.
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When most of us were growing up, age and rural life combined to deny us the opportunity to watch live how the young Pele took the football world by storm with his mesmerising skills.
However, as we grew older, technology enabled us to have an idea of the playing abilities of the man we all adored blindly. Yes, blindly because we didn’t have the opportunity to see for ourselves what made him so special and popular around the world, especially in the field of play. But every talented football player before and during the time some of us began to play football either nicknamed himself Pele or was given the alias by those who considered him good enough to be so named.
Born on October 23, 1940, Pele was so talented that he began to play professional football in the Brazilian topflight with Santos at the age of 15 and Brazil’s national team at the age of 16. Arguably, some of us believe that then there was nothing like “football age”, a cancerous practice that has made nonsense of African football.
So, playing against bigger and “very dangerous” opponents at such a tender age made Pele’s heroics on the field more intriguing. To put the icing on the cake, he won the first of his three World Cup titles in 1958 in Sweden when he was only 17 years. He would later win two more titles in 1962 in Chile and 1970 in Mexico. Till date, Pele is the only one in the whole world who has won three FIFA World Cup titles.
Without doubt, what made Pele so phenomenal was his electrifying play and penchant for spectacular goals that he scored for fun. He made acrobatic, overhead-kicks, scissors-kicks or what we call in local parlance “sangalo” very popular around the world.
No wonder, he scored 77 times for Brazil in 92 appearances, a goal scoring record that was recently equalled by Neymar at the just concluded FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Apart from the national team, Pele scored a whopping 655 goals in 700 matches for both Santos and New York Cosmos. As a matter of fact, it is recorded that his 1,279 goals in 1,363 matches, which includes friendlies, is recognised as a Guinness World Record.
Therefore, even at the time he retired from active football in 1977, having played for 21 years, he remained world football’s most influential and renowned personality. Regarded as one of the greatest players of all time and labelled “The GREATEST” by the world football governing body, FIFA, Pele was named one of the most successful and popular sports figures of the 20th Century. In 1999, he was named Athlete of the Century by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and was included in TIME’s list of the 100 most important people of the 20th Century. As late as 2000, Pele was voted World Player of the 20th Century by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS) and was a joint winner of the FIFA Player of the Century with Maradona.
Considering his unmatched achievements as a player and the subsequent recognitions he earned, it has been difficult for some of us to understand why some people found it hard to put the label of the Greatest Of All Time (GOAT) on Pele when even the custodian of the game, FIFA, had tagged him the greatest.
It, therefore, baffles me when football fans of the 21st Century attempt to equate or even place their heroes like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo ahead of Pele whom even FIFA recognises as the GREATEST and not “one of the greatest”. For me there is simply no basis for comparison because those players who are being compared with Pele still have so much to achieve to attain his lofty height. Unfortunately, time is against them as they are both in the twilight of their illustrious careers.
Without undermining their achievements, those who are tempted to ascribe the label of GOAT to Messi and Ronaldo of Portugal make reference to their bulging cabinets of silverware made up of Champions League trophies, FIFA World Player of the Year awards, Ballon dór and a host of other trophies, but the truth is that Messi only recently won his first and surely his only FIFA World Cup. Ronaldo has failed to win. Unfortunately, both have only a few years to leave the stage.
It is necessary to stress here that there is no basis for comparison between Pele and the “New generation GOATS”. Let’s not forget that one gold medal is valued more than one million silver medals.
Therefore, since the ultimate prize in football is the World Cup trophy, a player who has won everything but the most coveted trophy is not in the same league with someone with three FIFA World Cup trophies.
Therefore, as long as no other football player has won three FIFA World Cups, Pele will indisputably remain the GOAT, even in death.
Among the present generation of footballers, only Kylian Mbappe who clocked 24 years recently stands a chance to equal or even surpass Pele’s record of three World Cup titles. For now, there is none like the legendary Edson Arantes do Nacimento of Brazil.
Fare thee well, Pele, the King of Football!