Tributes pour in before Pelé farewell
SANTOS, Brazil — A day after Pelé’s death, fans of Brazil’s greatest soccer star took to the streets to mourn their hero and celebrate the man they called “The King of Football.”
On Monday, a wake will be held at Estádio Urbano Caldeira, known popularly as Vila Belmiro, in Santos, where Pelé shot to stardom and spent almost his entire career. His body will remain at midfield for 24 hours, until Tuesday morning, to allow what is expected to be a throng of mourners to pass by.
The coffin will then be taken through the streets of Santos to the Ecumenical Necropolis Memorial for a private interment.
Before the official farewell, grief-stricken fans were quick to gather at soccer’s major landmarks in Santos, a Brazilian port city of 430,000, to pay homage to Pelé, who was declared a national treasure and rose to a level of global stardom that few athletes have known.
Across the street from the stadium, Eva de Souza Nunes, an 84-year-old retired nurse, hung two oversize flags bearing the Santos FC’s crest from her balcony. “I’m in mourning today,” she said. “And it’s not just me — Brazil is in mourning, the whole world is in mourning.”
Fondly, she remembered Pelé visiting her home; her husband, José, used to fix the soccer legend’s television, she said. “He wasn’t my family, but at the same time, it felt like he was.”
Across town, fans flocked to a bronze statue depicting Pelé’s famous “air punch” goal celebration, laying flowers and snapping selfies. Rafael Barbosa, a 32-year-old bar owner, and his daughter Livia, 10, drew close to the statue for a picture, lifting their fists and striking the iconic pose.
“Pelé is our king,” said Barbosa, who had traveled more than 300 miles from the city of Paraguaçu Paulista to pay his respects. “He’s history. He lives on in our memories, in the memories of our grandparents.”
“Before Pelé, football was just football,” his cousin André Barbosa, a 23-year-old agricultural engineer, chimed in. “After ‘The King,’ football became this incredible spectacle.”
Pelé’s impressive athleticism and unrivaled creativity on the field have become the stuff of legend, leaving a lasting mark even on those who never witnessed his mastery of the sport.
“I never saw him play,” Thiago do Santos, a 37-year-old real estate agent, said as he took a selfie with his two dogs in front of the statue. “But I was in the crowd outside the stadium when he came out after a ceremony one time. And he hugged me. ‘The King’ hugged me! I’ll never forget it.”
Vilma Mattos de Lima, a 69-year-old special-education teacher, donned a white Santos FC jersey signed by Pelé and laid a hand on the statue with reverence. She had never missed a game, she said as she clutched a pair of old photos of herself next to her idol.
“I was 10 years old when I saw him play for the first time. And I was enchanted from that moment,” she said. “Losing him is heartbreaking.”
At a Santos-themed bar, lifelong fans reminisced about Pelé’s masterly passes and dazzling goals, which popularized Brazilian soccer around the world and ushered in a new form of the sport that he called “the beautiful game.”
“What I liked was that, every game, he did something new,” said Carlos Eduardo Fernandes, 69, owner of the bar, which is
adorned with faded images of Pelé. “We were dying to see what wild play he had come up with.”
But Pelé’s reach went far beyond the field. In a deeply unequal Brazil, his meteoric rise from poverty to global stardom made him a national symbol, beloved by the country’s poor and marginalized.
“What made Pelé so popular was his simplicity,” said Sérgio Luiz Alonso, 61, a retired oil rig worker. “He came from humble beginnings. He was just like us, like the people.”