When I was a kid in the late 80s, my uncle showed me a picture once. It was big, yellow from age, and worn down. He told me to look closely to see if I recognized someone. It was a family...
When I was a kid in the late 80s, my uncle showed me a picture once. It was big, yellow from age, and worn down. He told me to look closely to see if I recognized someone. It was a family gathering with a lot of people I didn't recognize. After a while, I saw Pelé in the midst of them, smiling at the camera.
My uncle told me he found the picture in the gutter and cleaned it up. Back then, there was no digital photography and Photoshop was in its infancy. I had no reason to doubt him.
Seeing Pelé like that, in an actual photograph, was not like seeing a random celebrity. You see, I'd been hearing stories about Pelé since I was a little kid. My mother and uncles saw his rise, and some of them watched him live at the stadium. To me, Pelé was more than human. He was a genius, an artist, a deity.
A local channel used to show reruns of previous World Cups, and that was how I saw Pelé's magic in action. When they ran the 1970's final, people cheered in their homes. I did the same.
There were, in the history of the sport, athletes that surpassed Pelé in their respective positions, but Pelé was football incarnated. Like water, he would become whatever you needed of him. He kicked and scored with both feet. Pelé could be a defender, a midfield, a forward-center, an attacker, or even a goalkeeper. Pelé excelled at every position, as demonstrated in his career. Pelé was a force of nature that assumed corporeal form 90 minutes at a time.
When I was a kid in the late 80s, my uncle showed me a picture once. It was big, yellow from age, and worn down. He told me to look closely to see if I recognized someone. It was a family gathering with a lot of people I didn't recognize. After a while, I saw Pelé in the midst of them, smiling at the camera.
My uncle told me he found the picture in the gutter and cleaned it up. Back then, there was no digital photography and Photoshop was in its infancy. I had no reason to doubt him.
Seeing Pelé like that, in an actual photograph, was not like seeing a random celebrity. You see, I'd been hearing stories about Pelé since I was a little kid. My mother and uncles saw his rise, and some of them watched him live at the stadium. To me, Pelé was more than human. He was a genius, an artist, a deity.
A local channel used to show reruns of previous World Cups, and that was how I saw Pelé's magic in action. When they ran the 1970's final, people cheered in their homes. I did the same.
There were, in the history of the sport, athletes that surpassed Pelé in their respective positions, but Pelé was football incarnated. Like water, he would become whatever you needed of him. He kicked and scored with both feet. Pelé could be a defender, a midfield, a forward-center, an attacker, or even a goalkeeper. Pelé excelled at every position, as demonstrated in his career. Pelé was a force of nature that assumed corporeal form 90 minutes at a time.
He is now among the Gods, which is oddly fitting.
Archived (via Wayback Machine).
Note: both vowels in "Pelé" are open (Google Translate gets it partially right). You have to really open your mouth.