How Henry Kissinger Convinced Pelé to Play Soccer in the U.S.
The sight is unmistakeable: A number ten shirt gliding downfield, passing defenders like they weren't there, dominating the play with a simple grace you cannot teach. He knows the touch needed to send the ball looping over a defender's head and floating back to earth at just the right time. He knows how to shift his hips, just slightly and at the crucial moment, to send his opponent flying the wrong way. And boy, does he how to score.
The "he," of course, is Pelé-the great one, the King, the International Olympic Committee's Athlete of the Century, and the man more responsible for soccer's ubiquitous appeal than any other human being alive or dead.
To watch the man born Edson Arantes do Nascimento play soccer is a kind of spiritual experience. It is to witness a person that is doing exactly what he was born to do. It is destiny for him to dance his way past four defenders and score; it is destiny for him to win three World Cups, more than anyone who's ever played. There is an innateness to his supremacy. The game flows through him as he outwits and outruns the helpless opponents from Hungary or Sweden or Argentina or America.
Mastery of the world's most popular game is, amazingly, only one part of Pelé's story. He may have scored 1281 goals in 1363 games, but he is also a statesman in the truest sense of the word, a cultural ambassador for Brazil and the game he loves all over the world. That began in his playing days. One photo in particular, where he embraces the English legend Bobby Moore at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, speaks volumes. Brazil had just beaten England, the world champions four years earlier. The two men, one white and one black, embraced on the field. It was a seismic moment, a moment of unity and sportsmanship and humanity.
All this has earned him a long overdue feature on the silver screen. It's not his first, truthfully, but it is a biopic tracking his improbable rise from a stamp-sized village to national heroism, as a 17-year-old, at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. Pelé: Birth of a Legend premiered at Tribeca Film Festival last month, and opens in theaters today. While it has its shortcomings-it is overly stylized at times, and the sight of Vincent D'Onofrio as a Brazilian national team coach, accent and all, is a bit unnerving-the core of a spectacular story is there. It is, after all, the tale of how a young boy who couldn't afford shoes or a ball became the greatest soccer player the world had ever seen.
I sat down with Pelé-75 now and charming as ever-just before the film's premiere to discuss the state of world soccer, Lionel Messi, and his life-changing encounter with Henry Kissinger.
Why do you think soccer became the dominant global sport?
The reason the sport has grown so big, I think, is that it's not only for rich people. It's not just for big people-size doesn't exclude people. Everyone can participate. That's why it's become so popular worldwide. You don't need to have any special quality in particular to play.
In the film, the youth team in your village plays best when you take off your shoes and express yourselves on the field. So does your Brazil national team in 1958, when you use ginga [the traditional term for the Brazilian style of play, one rooted in the martial art of capoeira and defined by rhythm and dance as a way of moving with the ball and deceiving an opponent]. Is soccer at its best when players express themselves?
I think it depends how you see the game. From my point of view, what's beautiful in the sport is something you don't need to know too much about tactics or anything to see. If you find something beautiful, you don't need to be an expert to know it. It's like ballet.
The film deals a lot with the effort to suppress ginga when you were on the 1958 Brazil team. The coach wanted you to play a more rigid way, like the Europeans were-
The reason it was nicknamed ginga was that normally, when we'd play against a European team-now it's changed a bit-but back then, the European teams were very tough and physical. They were big, and defensively solid. Even the English, who invented football, were like that starting out. There were some in Brazil who thought we should make that our football culture.
We would say, "We want to dance. We want to ginga. Football is not about fighting to the death. You have to play beautifully." And so we did, and that's the reason that Brazil created more of a show, more of a ballet, than the European style.
Is that battle between freedom and expression versus the formations and rigid tactics still there today for the Brazil team? Are they still trying to find their way in that sense?
Yes, unfortunately. The style of football-all over the world, not just Brazil, also Europe-has changed, has become more similar. Brazil has a problem keeping the good players in the country. Almost all the best players, as soon as they come up, are taken elsewhere. We don't have the same Brazilian style-the ball control, the same way of playing-like we did in my time.
Because they go to Europe now?
Yeah. Because now they appear on the scene when they're 15 years old and go to Europe. Another thing that's changed is that in my time, all of the players used to belong to the team. Now, the majority of players, the best ones, belong to the impressarios, not to the team. The agent who has the rights to the player, and he wants to make money. So he wants them to get sold to Europe. Neymar, for example. In the last five years, Neymar is the best player to come out of Brazil. He used to play for my club, Santos. But when he was transferred to Barcelona, Santos got just 20 percent of the fee. 80 percent went to the manager. It's a big change.
Speaking of transfers, you were eventually declared a national treasure by Brazil, which prevented you from going elsewhere. Did you ever want to join a European team?
Well, first of all it was an honor for me. But I pay income tax like anybody else. [Laughs] I was invited-I had several proposals to play in Europe. For Real Madrid, for AC Milan, for Bayern Munich. But at that time, we didn't have too many Brazilian players outside the country. I was very happy at my team, Santos. I didn't have the desire to play outside the country.
Another focus of the film is your friendship with Garrincha, a truly great player himself. Brazil never lost a game when you two played together. What does his friendship mean to you, and what is his legacy?
We were friends on the national team, because I lived in Santos, of course, and he in Rio. But when we had games for Brazil-for a tournament, or whatever-we were together, and Garrincha was the joker. Sometimes I actually had to tell him to settle down. But I have an excellent history with him.
When we played in the World Cup in Sweden [in 1958], we went to the local store to buy a radio-one with batteries. At that time in Brazil, it didn't exist-we didn't have them with batteries. We went to the store, and the players-I remember I was with Garrincha, Nilton Santos, and Zito-all experimented with it. They were amazed by the songs on the radio and everything. Everybody started listening to it, different stations, and then we decided we might buy it. And Garrincha says, "Hey, you're crazy! Why would you take this back to Brazil? They don't speak Portuguese on this radio!"
Everybody thought it was a joke, but he was serious. He said, "I'm not going to buy this, I'm not going to buy this." That was the kind of guy he was, Garrincha.
When you did leave Brazil, it was to go to the United States with the New York Cosmos. What did that time in your career mean to you?
It was a bit difficult to decide to go, because I had retired from the national team of Brazil and I had decided I would retire with Santos. I had offers to go to Italy and Spain, but I said, "No, I'm just going to retire." But then Mr. Kissinger came to Sao Paulo.
Henry Kissinger?
Henry Kissinger. He invited me to go to the cafe with him, and there he said, "Listen. You know I'm from the United States, and I'm in politics there. Soccer is coming along there-they're playing it in the schools. Would you like to help us promote soccer in the United States? And I said, "My God."
I accepted-I said I would go for a year. But I worried a little bit, because the level of play there was not that high yet. But then, once we started to promote it, it became very interesting. They brought over [Franz] Beckenbauer, and [Johan] Cruyff, and Giorio Chinaglia. That's when I said, "Wow, this is great," and I agreed to play three more years. It kept going, they started playing in colleges, and it moved forward.
The other thing I worried about was that I didn't speak great English at the time. I didn't have time to learn. So when I came to the U.S., for the Cosmos, I studied English for four years. And that was important for my life.
Is Lionel Messi the greatest player right now? And is it worth comparing him to players from other eras?
There's no doubt he's the best player now. Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the best, too, but it's a different style. Messi has the same style as [Diego] Maradona some years ago.
