Some months ago Pele had the comfortable, rounded look that an extra kilo or two gives to the ex-player. But the man looked almost gaunt last month.
He jumps up from behind the desk of his New York office, and the movement is quick and very, very athletic.
“I have been training,” he says with that beaming smile.
“I weigh 75 kilos now I have lost six kilos since you saw me in Italy, If I’m going to play, I must be fit.
“I was always fit. However I played, nobody could ever say “Pele didn’t run today.”
Pele’s English, once so hesitant, flows smoothly now. He was talking about the game which was organised to celebrate his 50th birthday on 31 October, Brazil against the Rest of the World.
The original idea was to play at Wembley Stadium because I never played there, But they can’t have it there, so now we play in Millan, But it’s not the same.”
Playing for Brazil at SO is that a good idea? Pele dismisses the matter of his age: “Sometimes I don’t really know what age Tam. I live the same life that I did at 25, do the same things except for the playing. think that when I’m 100 Till’ be kicking the first ball at a game in Maracana.”
‘You believe it, Pele will be active when he’s 100 (though Maracana will have fallen down long before that), and he tells you the reasons why.
My family all live a long time. My father’s mother lived to 97, I have an aunt of82, my fatheris73 and still very active. Yes, ‘m going to live to be 100. The only problem is that all my friends will be dead.”
Pele spends four or five months of each year in New York, where he has an apartment, about the slime time at his home in Santos, and the rest traveling in Europe and Asia
“I do more traveling than a lot of pilots,” he says. It’s the result of Pele’s public relations work for Warner Brothers, for FIFA, and for other sponsors such as Umbro and Seiko. He enjoys it as he enjoys life in general. “I would do everything the same again. I’m one of the few who can say I ‘m a happy man.”
If Pele wouldn’t change his life, he would change some things in soccer. He was not happy with the 1990 World Cup, “The level of the game was very low. We had some good species but technically, the football was poor.
Old fashioned: “The sport needs to change a bit, Every other sport, even tennis, which is very old fashioned, has changed. But football wants to be the same as 100 years ago.
Yes, they should experiment with making the goals bigger. And they should ban walls at all free kicks, it must mean more goals and more excitement.
No offside on the throw, that’s good but you can’t throw too far. Let the player kick it into play. Not from the ground that takes time to set up, and you have problems with players blocking the ball.”
Pele releases an invisible ball, drops it, punts it towards some unseen penalty area, “Let him do it quickly, kick it from the air, so that he can clear the ‘other players.
“I don’t like the indirect free kick in the penalty area either. You get all the opposing players lining up on the line, and the referee takes two or three minutes to get them in order.
“No indirect free kicks in the area they should all be penalty kicks.”
Brazil was disappointing in Italia ‘90, but Pele remains optimistic.
Brazil has always sold players even in my time players were going to Europe. The difference now is that we don’t create so many good ones.
You can change the coach, but the problem remains. You have to have a good base, you have to start preparing the team well in advance of competition.
Falcao has the time now, he has the opportunity to build a base
Are there enough good players left in Brazil to do that? “Yes,” says Pele. “There’s no doubt about that. Maybe later Falcao can add one or two from Europe
Soon after Beckenbauer became coach of the West German team, I spoke to him and he said he was losing his hair over it and was going to quit. He stayed, and won the World Cup.
“It’s very difficult to imagine anyone lasting as Brazil coach for four years! But I’m optimistic. The population is 140 million, all soccer crazy. Brazil should have a good team.”
Poverty: Pele, leans forward, the smile gone.
“I have to do something to help the Brazilian people. When I was a player ‘was too busy traveling.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 21, 1990
