The King is dead – long live the King!

I consider myself privileged to have seen him in action. Granted, South Africa was banned from the international family of football playing nations, but we somehow managed to get those old Beta video tape records and watched enthralled as Edson Arantes Do Nascimento, the kid from the ghettoes of Tres Coracoes in Brazil combined beautifully with Jairzinho, Tostao and Garrincha to mesmerise the opposition.

I still remember with fondness that 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico when in one infinitely memorable moment, Pele received a cross from the right, out-jumped the entire English defence and strongly headed the ball down. But in a blur of movement, goalkeeper Gordon Banks miraculously flung himself in the air and punched the ball clear over the bar.

Extra ordinary stuff!

As kids growing up in Saulsville, we usually played street chaillenge football barefoot with a grotesque object, usually a woman stocking stuffed with rags and newspapers, and the most skilful among us we nicknamed him Pele.

For Pele was the heart and soul of that Brazilian team and although the squad was packed with superstars in their own rights, he literally loomed larger than all of them and popularised the number 10 jersey by making it a point of reverence that every player wearing that jersey number should be closely watched.

Pele was this kid from the favellas of Brazil who rose to become the greatest global icon, someone who changed the face of football to be known as the beautiful game because of his grace, his agility and the artistic manner in which he danced with the ball seemingly glued at his feet.

He could perform a shimmy, a body wave, a nutmeg or Shibobo as we call it in the townships. The funny thing is that he did the show me your number jig, (feigning a kick) and as you jumped in the air, he could gallop past you and make a bee-line to goals. Yet some European coaches say you are disrespecting your opponents!

Not the tallest of strikers, but Pele was one of the deadliest marksmen in aerial conflicts. He arrived on the global stage during the halcyon days of the bell bottom trousers, the Afro hairstyle, the polka dot shirts and the hula hoop era.

Indeed Pele emerged during the heady political era of defiance campaigns of Nelson Mandela in South Africa, the peaceful protests of Martin Luther King across the United States when Muhammed Ali became the prettiest and deadliest pugilist of all time on earth.

But because football is considered the most popular sport on earth largely because of its ability to generate a certain level of excitement and passionate involvement in spectators that no other sporting code can equal, Pele became the post globally recognized athlete.

Martin Luther King Jnr preached politics of peaceful defiance to attain freedom, Muhammed Ali used his fists to demand respect and dignity for Black people all over the world, but Pele used his feet to demand acceptance and the respect showing that black people can also play the game at the highest level and succeed.

While Martin Luther King Jnr gave that moving speech that “I have a dream…..” Pele inspired millions of kids across the world to dream that they could actually use football as a vehicle to also get out of the grinding poverty of ghetto life.

But the most important lessons some of us learned from Pele was to always keep your head on your shoulders, your feet firmly planted on the ground and to always remain humble at all times.

In spite of attaining global status and recognized as the best footballer of all time, someone who was dined and feted by Prime Ministers, Sheiks, and State Presidents, Pele remained humble to a fault and continued to mix with the ordinary and downtrodden folks and was accessible as he had time to chat with everybody.

When he arrived in South Africa at the invitation of sport apparel Umbro during 1994, I was Soccer News magazine editor and received the privilege to interview him. I asked him a couple of hard and awkward questions and rather than rebuke me or act in a condescending manner like most superstars would, Pele answered all my questions with candour and the honestly that was refreshing.

At the end of the interview, he told me on the side-lines that he was also a keen guitar player, a music writer and composer as well as a keen fisherman.

The King is dead, long live the King!