Opinion by Mac Margolis: Pelé showed Brazil the beauty of a level playing field
But soccer is not a ledger, and Pelé’s magic doesn’t fit in a trophy room. When colon cancer finally killed him Thursday at age 82, the country lost a bit of its soul. From 1956 to 1977, he brought grace and majesty to the world’s most popular sport. He also became Brazil’s most enduring brand, the boyish star with a halogen smile, who put soft power in short pants and joyfully conflated the country’s name with his own.
Ask the Nigerians, who saw combatants in their bloody civil war briefly put down their weapons to watch Pelé perform in a 1969 exhibition game. Or the Brazilian-led United Nations peacekeepers who in 2004 promoted a “” in strife-torn Haiti, parading their national team stars atop armored cars through the streets of Port-au-Prince — a brazen bet on the sort of football diplomacy that Pelé invented.
In the 1980s, Brazilian cinemas would play grainy reels of classic soccer matches, scored to the infectious sound of, or “how beautiful it is.” This was the game and the beat that would define Brazil, and Pelé would be its icon. Pelé never leveraged his charisma for political ends. He repeatedly declined invitations to run for office or even join a party. That suited the generals who ran Brazil from 1964 to 1985, who wanted an authentic cultural hero to add a popular sheen to their brass. It was Pelé’s bad luck that his reign on the pitch coincided with the gutting of democracy. He was constantly feted by the ruling junta, most of all by Gen.
Yet if Pelé never demurred to the generals, neither did he shill for them. And while his accession to their entreaties frustrated the country’s democratic opposition, Pelé always made his most eloquent statements on the pitch.And so Pelé’s greatness outshone his murky politics. Playing brilliantly, he arguably helped mend divisions that the dictatorship had inflicted.
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