The 2022 Football World Cup has just finished with Argentina's talismanic striker Lionel Messi being hailed by many as the "G. O. A. T." or Greatest Of All Time for his performances throughout the competition. This documentary on a different generation's superstar, Brazil's Pelé, makes a different and I would say stronger case for the title with a player his countrymen called The King. This Netflix production, with Pelé an active participant, relates his remarkable story rising from poverty to becoming one of the most successful and wealthy sportsman of his time with Mohammad Ali his only comparable contemporary in terms of worldwide reach.
The film concentrates on his international career and particularly his exploits at the World Cups of 1958, 1962, 1966 and of course his climactic final appearance at the 1970 tournament held in Mexico. This is the first World Cup I personally remember watching as a boy. The matches were played in fantastic-looking stadia, there were great teams competing with great players - besides Brazil's all-stars, there were strong representatives from Europe, like England, the holders, Italy and Germany (or West Germany as they were then) and from South America Peru and Uruguay. My parents had just got our first ever colour television and the teams in their classic strips positively glowed out from the small screen into our living room. The football was fantastic too, with Pelé the undoubted star of the show.
Aged 29, at his professional peak and determined to wipe out the memories of the team's ignominious exit from the 1966 tournament in England at the group stages, Pelé in 1970 delivered so many iconic moments during the competition, two towering headers, one bringing about England goalkeeper Gordon Banks' fantastic reflex save, the other beating another goalkeeping great Dino Zoff at his near post in the actual final, his killer passes to Jairzinho and Carlos Alberto to score memorable goals in the same two games, the attempt from half-way against Czechoslovakia, the return volley and runaround-dummy both against Uruguay. All these done by the one player, in the top competition, in successive games.
Okay, so I'm satisfied that he was a truly great, if not the greatest ever player but the film goes a little deeper into the man's personal life and there I'd have to say the jury is still out. He candidly admits he never loved his wife before this narrative promptly disappears from view and then more pertinently and slightly more stringently, he's questioned about his passive some would say open-armed acceptance of the dictatorship which overturned democracy in Brazil from 1968 - 1985. We see him cosying up to the junta's president and retrospectively attempting rather unconvincingly to play the "sports and politics don't mix" card to absolve himself from any complicity with the harsh crackdowns perpetrated on his fellow countrymen and women by the military. It's quite an eye-opener to see one of his fellow-teammates of the time, Paulo Cesar lambast his footballing idol for his human failings. Pelé tries disingenuously to claim that he did more for his people as a sportsman than many politicians ever did, but of course he's side-stepping the issue. I accept he was in a tricky position but a bigger and braver man could and maybe should have said or done something rather than just kow-tow to the authorities in photo-ops with the pres. In the film he's thus compared unfavourably to Ali, who of course defied the American courts and risked his career in the process.
In the end, I left this film a greater admirer of Pelé the footballer but a somewhat lesser one of him as a man. As brave as a lion on the pitch, what a shame he was as meek as a mouse off it.
