Memories aplenty as Brazil bids final farewell to Pele

Amid a media scrum outside the Vila Belmiro, Santos’s delightful retro stadium, Antonio Lima, a flux octogenarian, Santos legend and Pele’s brother-in-law, told Dawn that there would never be a second Pele again.

Lima spoke from a position of privilege he played alongside Pele in peak physical fitness in the early 60’s, Santos’ golden era. At times, the voice of Lima, remembering those moments of sporting glory and kinship with Pele, broke up.

And so it was, here on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in Santos, where for decades letters mailed to ‘Pele, Santos, Brazil’ arrived with the addressee, that time seemed stretched; at the turn of the year, Brazil welcomed Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva again as president and yet for the first time in history the South American nation was without the boy that had conquered the Vila Belmiro, stormed onto the world stage at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden and then cemented his place in the pantheon of the legends as well as Brazil’s claims to be the futebol nation twelve years later at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico.

To the tunes of ‘Eu Sou Pele’ (I am Pele), mourners and supporters passed the Pele’s coffin, often dressed in the shirt of Santos, sometimes in the yellow of Brazil.

There were flip-flops and shorts in a funeral procession that had distinct coastal features as well as tears and those kissing the grass of the field where Pele had won just about everything all those decades ago.

Some had come with their own memories chugging a beer, Demer, a former Santos player, had seen Pele ‘illuminate play’ in the stands of the Pacaembu stadium, a former Flamengo president recalled the wonder of watching Pele in the 1969 World Cup qualifiers and Fabio claimed his grandfather had welcomed Pele multiple times at his restaurant ‘Bar Central’ in Bauru, the village where the number ten was born.

But most, with their phones in hand in this social media age, came to witness and partake in history.

Pele, argued Vinicius, who had travelled 700 kilometres from Uberaba in Pele’s native state Minas Gerais, deserved it — this outpouring of love and admiration because he was the ultimate football player and Brazil’s greatest ambassador.