Following the devastating loss of arguably the greatest soccer player of all time, Prof José Paulo Florenzano of the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo considers Pelé’s incredible legacy off the field. This article was originally written in Portuguese.
Pelé occupies a central, albeit problematic, place in the construction and affirmation of Brazil’s national identity. His role in helping forge the identity of modern Brazil has roots in helping the country win the World Cup in Sweden in 1958 and in the global role taken on soon after by his club team, Santos.
The Santos team during Pelé’s era traveled the planet as sporting diplomats, crossing ideological divides between communism and capitalism, celebrating the political emancipation of nations emerging from colonialism.
There is no doubt that the main achievements of the teams led by Pelé were encouraging the playing of soccer in countries where the sport was rarely played, and, conversely, to have transformed the way the game was played in traditional soccer nations. In doing so, Pelé transcended the role of “national idol.” He became something much more significant: a symbol of the Black diaspora, a pan-African reference point and a cosmopolitan icon.
It was no coincidence that Bob Marley – who similarly was held up as a hero to the Global South – made a point of wearing Pelé’s number 10 shirt during the singer’s brief visit to Brazil in 1980. To Marley and others, Pelé embodied the aesthetic of soccer as art and an expression of freedom.
Outside Brazil, nowhere was Pelé’s presence as an icon of Black achievement felt more than in a decolonising Africa.
The Mozambican footballing great Eusébio – who represented colonial masters Portugal on the international stage – first found his soccer identity playing for “Os Brasileiros” (The Brazilians), a team created in the suburbs of what is now the capital Maputo, in homage to 1958 World Cup winners.
Indeed, countless African players from the capital of Mozambique were given the nicknames of “Pelé”, “Garrincha”, or “Didi” – three Black heroes of the Brazilian national team, and an inspiration for millions across the African continent. Global inspiration, domestic force
Pelé’s professional career, falling between the years 1956 to 1974, coincided with the period in which Brazilian authorities held claim to what was called “racial democracy” – the belief that discrimination against non-white Brazilians did not exist.
But this ideology only served to muffle the very real struggle of Afro-Brazilians and blocked debate over racial inequality. It placed racism as something apparently unthinkable in national society, as the scholar Antonio Sergio Alfredo Guimarães states in his book “Classes, Raças e Democracia”.
These were the conditions under which Pelé’s trajectory took place, and his experiences lay bare how Brazilian-style racism operated.
Shortly after winning the country’s third World Cup in 1970,