A younger Brazilian reporter. that's what he wrote today.
For more than 60 years, Brazilians who wanted to win the sympathy of their foreign interlocutors used and abused Pelé's name. In the last four, if they wanted to attract the pity of others, they cited Bolsonaro's - but this is another story that ends in less than 48 hours.
Starting a conversation talking about the football of Ronaldo, Ronaldinho Gaúcho, Romário and Zico has always opened doors to us in difficult journalistic coverage held outside the country. For me, however, no "keyword" was able to unlock paths like Pelé's.
Covering the war for the independence of Timor-Leste, a small and brave country in Asia, in 1998, I spent unharmed in Indonesian Army checkpoints in the interior of the island on behalf of the king of football.
When they stopped the car I was in and pointed rifles at me when they realized that I was a foreigner in the wrong place, I confess that I said "Saya tingal di Brasil! Saya teman di Pelé!" - something like "I'm from Brazil! Pelé's friend!" It may sound ridiculous, but these are the phrases I needed to know in Indonesian bahasa.
Of course I never had the pleasure of knowing the myth, but they didn't know it.
No matter the place, from the dirt roads of the Maubessi valleys, passing through the highway to Baucau to the entrance to the Ermera market, the invading soldiers knew the king. And they liked to hear about him. With the help of a Timorese who spoke Portuguese, one of the official languages of the country, I entertained them, talking about Edson that I never had the pleasure of seeing play.
For the most difficult cases, I adopted a secret weapon: a handful of national team shirts (unofficial, of course, sucks CBF), with the number 10 and the name of Pelé, which I had taken from Brazil. An old military man who received one of them was so grateful that he even warned where the other checkpoint would be later.
It's amazing how a brand like Pelé's is linked to joy, being able, for a moment, to make people forget what they were doing there. And we are talking about an Army that helped in one of the greatest genocides of the 20th century, with estimates of deaths that reach more than 40% of the population at the beginning of the conflict, which lasted 24 years.
Or if they remembered where they would, in fact, like to be.
In 100 years, the term "Pelé" will continue to be synonymous with good things, opening doors and being a reason for celebration, a fact for which we Brazilians should be proud.
With his death, the world, which turns in solidarity with us, remembers that the meaning of Brazil is the joy provided by the king, and not the depression caused by the false myth.
www.foxnews.com
