Third day of mourning for Pelé, tributes from European football
Brazil observes Saturday its third day of national mourning after the death of the legendary Pelé, to which the main European football championships pay tribute.
In Pelé’s hometown of Tres Coracoes, Brazil, on December 30, 2022.
AFP
A three-day national mourning had been decreed on Thursday, the day of the death of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known as Pelé, at the age of 82 in a hospital in Sao Paulo, surrounded by his relatives, following cancer. of the colon. The funeral will take place Tuesday in the intimacy of the family, after a procession following the coffin in the streets of Santos, which decreed a mourning of seven days.
In this coastal town, where the eternal number 10 shone from 1956 to 1974 at Santos FC, residents had hung flags in the club’s colors from their windows or balconies, bringing color to a gray and cloudy day.
Near the Vila Belmiro stadium, where Pelé’s coffin will be displayed on Monday for a 24-hour funeral vigil, Caroline Fornari, a housewife, pays tribute to the man who made Brazilians “the pride”. “Since I was very young, I heard my father, who was his age, talking about him,” she told AFP, “it’s very sad.”
A few meters from the stadium, his appointed hairdresser for sixty years deplores the loss of “a great symbol” for Brazil and for the whole world. “And I lost a great client and a great friend,” says AFP Joao Araujo, nicknamed “Didi”, whose living room has become a place of pilgrimage.
Pelé, the only player in history to have won three editions of the World Cup (1958, 1962, 1970), was hospitalized at the end of November in the middle of the World Cup in Qatar, which he was still able to follow in part. television.
Unique and iconic
As of Thursday, tributes from the main football personalities and heads of state multiplied everywhere. By the end of the weekend, the major European championships will salute his memory.
In France, the Professional Football League (LFP) has requested that a minute of applause be organized before each match in the Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 championships from Friday to Monday. A photo of Pelé lifting the World Cup trophy after Brazil crowned them in 1970 will be projected on giant stadium screens at the same time.
In Marseille on Thursday evening, before the match between OM and Toulouse (6-1), the Stade Vélodrome stood up, at the request of the stadium announcer, as one man and applauded wildly for a good minute , while chanting the name of Pelé.
In Spain, a minute of silence must be observed before each league match, from Thursday to Saturday evening. In England, it will be a minute of applause before the matches of the 18th day. Players and referees will wear black armbands and a photo of Pelé will be shown on stadium screens. In Italy, the minute of silence will be for next Wednesday, during the next day of Serie A.
Some protagonists of these European championships have already evoked the memory of Pelé, such as Antonio Conte, the Italian coach of Tottenham, England: “The first person who spoke to me about Pelé was my father. He was crazy about Pelé, whom he saw as the best player in the world, and he often talked about it.
On Friday, all the major newspapers on the planet made their front page on the death of Pelé. The most diffused photo was the iconic one, where we see Pelé all smiles raising his right arm, carried by his teammate Jairzinho seen from the back with his number 7, during the 1970 World Cup final. Spanish sportsman AS made original by publishing a snapshot of Pelé’s feet, taken by the famous American photographer Annie Leibovitz.
Emotion à Tres Coracoes
Pelé, voted Athlete of the Century by the International Olympic Committee in 1999, was an outstanding athlete. There is his record of goals -1281 in 1363 matches in the jerseys of Santos, Seleçao and New York Cosmos (1975-77), a record approved by the International Federation (Fifa).
In his hometown of Tres Coraçoes, in Minas Gerais (southeast), surrounded by coffee plantations, the emotion was palpable, even if Pelé, born into a poor family, had left this city very young.
At 17, Pelé had dazzled the 1958 World Cup in Sweden with his goals and his class. In tears, he is carried in triumph by his teammates. He was again titled in 1962, even if his tournament was cut short by an injury – another also shortened his participation in the 1966 edition. The 1970 World Cup, the first broadcast in color on television, marked his apotheosis.
His notoriety will also push him towards other fields – cinema, song and even politics – in parallel with an eventful personal trajectory – three marriages, seven children and a life as a telenovela.
AFP
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