The painful fall of Santos – 12/09/2023 – Juca Kfouri

The boy was eight, nine, ten years old, and he woke up early even during school holidays in December and January to be the first to pick up the newspaper at the door of his house in Itaim Bibi.

He was a Corinthians fan, but, in the days when the news didn’t arrive quickly, the boy wanted not to read in the pages of the sports section (yes, in 1958/59/60, there were sports sections in the newspapers) that Pelé had been sold to Real Madrid, Benfica or Milan, who kept announcing their interest in signing him.

A child was worried that the best player on a rival team might miss him.

It should be said that in those times the Brazilian team had as great an importance as those sports notebooks, and, all things considered, the same thing happened with the yellow shirt team.

Let’s go back.

Pelé and Santos were two sides of the same coin, and supporting the team in immaculate white shirts was mandatory for anyone who liked football.

Because there has never been a team like that in the history of football at its peak, at the beginning of the 1960s.

Real Madrid is the biggest football club in the world, it’s undeniable, but like Santos who defeated Benfica 5-2 in the World Cup final, at the Estádio da Luz, in Lisbon, in 1962, there has never been anything like it.

Time passed, and Vila Belmiro witnessed other great squads, champions, although nothing even similar.

It is possible to say that Santos is so big, so big, that his greatness is only surpassed by that of King Pelé.

Alfredo Di Stéfano is not bigger than Real Madrid, Lionel Lionel Messi is not bigger than Barcelona, ​​Diego Maradona is not bigger than Boca Juniors, Zico is not bigger than Flamengo, etc.

Pelé, had he played for any of these giants, would have been bigger than them.

Because Pelé is just not bigger than football itself, his twin brother and synonym.

Pelé is the Pelé of Pelés, like Michael Jordan is the Pelé of basketball and Muhammad Ali is the Pelé of boxing.

The boy grew up, and Santos do Rei went 11 years without losing to his team.

He stacked cups and cups while Corinthians fasted for an incredible 23 years.

The world revered Santos like no other Brazilian team then — and even today.

Only the white Santos shirt rivaled the Madrid team’s white shirt in terms of excellence. No others.

Summarizing it to Pelé would be, in addition to being unfair, inaccurate, especially because nothing can be summed up in Pelé, everything extrapolates.

And Dorval, Mengálvio, Coutinho and Pepe. And Gylmar, Cejas and Rodolfo Rodrigues. And Carlos Alberto Torres, Mauro Ramos de Oliveira, Calvet, Ramos Delgado, Zito, Pagão, Jair Rosa Pinto, Clodoaldo, Edu, Giovanni and Paulo Henrique Ganso. And the Meninos da Vila, and those who came later in 2002, Diego, Robinho, Elano and Neymar.

None of them, for everything they have done around the world, deserves the pain of relegation.

The top hats, yes, they did so much that they deserved it, some should even be behind bars, vampires of Santos greatness.

Of course, as the rare reader knows, the boy was me.

Furthermore, he owes Santos two years of health without cigarettes, with the promise, during half-time of the 1963 World Cup final, at Maracanã, against Milan, 2-0 for the Italians, to stop smoking if Santos turned around.

Well, it turned around, 4-2, without Pelé, injured, and immortalized Almir, the Pernambuquinho, who would never allow the great Santos to be relegated.

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