Pele Forever: Movie aims to capture the famous Brazilian footballer's journey

By Faizal khan

When he was only 10 years old, Edson Arantes do Nascimento saw his father cry for the first time. It was the day of the 1950 World Cup final between his native Brazil and neighbour Uruguay at the new Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro. The Brazilian team, who were the favourites to win the biggest prize in football, had just been beaten by a struggling Uruguay, long written off by their own people. The young boy, who would be called Pele, told his father not to cry. “I promised my father that I was going to win a World Cup for him,” recalls Pele in the Brazilian movie Pele Forever that opened an exclusive festival for football films in New Delhi last week.

After an inexplicable 7-1 loss to Germany at home in the 2014 World Cup semifinal, the life and goals of Pele are providing the much-needed solace to the Brazilian society, which is so deeply linked to football. As the Selecao limp back to normal under new coach Dunga, the Brazilians are peering into the past to find pride, lost in a barrage of goals from the Germans. That pride is palpable in the mammoth footage assembled for Pele Forever, premiered at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, and 1958 — The Year When The World Discovered Brazil, about the first World Cup victory of Brazil.

Eternal Hero

The journey of Pele from a boy reassuring his weeping father to an emotional elderly man himself is the story of Pele Forever by Anibal Massaini Neto, part of the Soccer Film Festival at India Habitat Centre. The 118-minute film takes place mostly on the pitch as the sporting legend amasses goals, first for his club, then his country and later for New York City’s Cosmos. Shot as a conversation between Pele and his family, repeatedly joined in by his Santos FC and Brazil teammates, the film traces Pele’s journey as a professional footballer from the day, in 1956, he arrives with a sports newspaper in his pocket at the Santos stadium from his native Minas Gerais, the Brazilian region known more for its colonial architecture than football prowess.


While Pele and Garrincha fashioned the first World Cup victory of Brazil in 1958, an injury forced the former to miss the final against Czechoslovakia in Chile 1962, which Brazil won. Both were so successful an attacking pair in the Brazilian team that they played 40 matches together without losing a single one. And Pele didn’t have to go to Europe to be successful too — he won the World Cup, South America Cup, Club World Cup, Brazilian League with Santos and even South American Armed Forces Cup as a sentinel, with peers saying he came to the world “to rewrite the Bible as soccer”. He became such a terror for opposition teams that he was followed everywhere on the field, even when he went to tie his shoelaces. Though he was featured in ads and books on him became bestsellers, Pele never slept well, turning into a sleepwalker when he couldn’t sleep and shouting ‘Goal!’ when he did. “All his success was because of his black family which helped him to glory,” says Mario Filho, the football writer, in his book Pele. (The Maracana Stadium is officially known as the Estádio Jornalista Mário Filho in honour of the writer.)

As years went by and he became the target of vicious tackles, Pele even learned to cleverly return the favour and fabricate penalties. When he was inching towards his 1000th goal, Brazilian politicians fought with each other to stage his matches in their cities. When the sacramental goal came in the match between Santos and Vasco in 1968, Pele says about the penalty that led to the landmark: “For the first time, I trembled in a game.” His “most beautiful goal” was, however, never filmed. That goal came in the match between Santos and Juventus in Italy on August 2, 1959. It was a goal provoked by the fans because Pele wasn’t playing well. After the goal, following four flicks over the heads of rival defenders, the stadium gave him a 10-minute standing ovation. He received a bigger ovation at the Maracana when he retired from international football on July 18, 1971, playing against Yugoslavia. Pele was 34, had played 18 seasons and scored 95 goals for Brazil and in all 1,091 goals from 1,115 matches. Pele then left Brazil to create football in the US, where the saying went that even the ball asked for his autograph.

“What do you miss the most?” Pele’s wife asks him in the last scene of the film. “My friendship with the people from Santos,” an emotional Pele replies. This time, it is his young daughter, who is consoling the father: “Hey daddy, don’t cry.”



​ Original El Clasico

The South American pride in their football legacy is also narrated in Argentina Futbol Club, a documentary on the football rivalry between Buenos Aires teams River Plate and Boca Juniors that precedes the El Clasico of Real Madrid and Barcelona. “It is a historic match originally based on class distinctions,” says its director Juan Pablo Roubio. “Boca had working class fans from the port and River had wealthy fans though that is not the case today,” Roubio explains. “The rivalry is extremely rich culturally and forms an indivisible part of the identity of Argentine football,” he adds. “It is folklore.”

Another Argentine film, Argentina and Its Football Factory by Sergio Iglesias, portrays the ‘football rush’ by parents fighting to sell their kids to clubs. As Argentina closes its factories, multi-million-dollar player deals become breaking news on TV. Ironically, each child player is a number in the country’s football factory whittling ‘crack players’ or those born with a gift. At one point during a children’s match, the referee tells an interfering parent: “It’s the children’s game, not yours.” Maracana, the entry from Uruguay made almost entirely with archival footage, tells a similar tale, but of big men who staged a seven-month strike against its football federation to stop them being treated as slaves. With no backing from their country, they go to Brazil and win the 1950 World Cup, defeating the hosts in the Maracana stadium.

(The writer is a freelance journalist)