It was still early afternoon when Brazil’s TV stations suddenly interrupted their programs on Thursday. “Sad news has just reached us,” said a serious presenter at Canal Globo, one of the country’s biggest broadcasters. “Pelé has died. The king is dead”. It was the news that many in Brazil had been expecting for days, but that nobody wanted to hear.
The death of the 82-year-old has plunged the country into deep mourning: For many fans around the world, Pelé may have been the greatest soccer player of all time, a talent of the century, three-time world champion. For many Brazilians, however, he was much more than that, not just an athlete, but also a role model and a national hero. One that everyone could agree on in an otherwise grotesquely unequal and deeply divided country.
And so Brazil knew no other topic than Pelé on Thursday. A few weeks ago, the 82-year-old was taken to a hospital in São Paulo, he was fighting colon cancer, and the chemotherapy didn’t work. Fans suffered with him, there were prayers and well wishes from all over the world, but it was basically clear: Pelé’s death was only a matter of time. And when he actually died on Thursday, the obituaries had long since been written, the photo spreads built, the clips with the best goals edited and ready to be broadcast.
And yet: none of this changed the pain.
Mourning fans gathered in front of the hospital in São Paulo. In Rio, they laid flowers in front of the Maracanã Stadium, where Pelé scored his 1000th goal on November 19, 1969. In Santos, the port city where Pelé played for almost two decades, people made pilgrimages to the local football club’s stadium.
Mourning for Pelé at the stadium in Santos.
(PHOTO: AMANDA PEROBELLI/REUTERS)
Vigil and procession through Santos
A public memorial service is to be held there in consultation with the relatives on Monday. The preparations for this have also started days ago: tents were set up on the lawn, procedures were defined. The fans will have 24 hours to say goodbye to the coffin. Afterwards there is a procession through the streets of Santos – also passing Canal 6, where Pelé’s mother Dona Celeste lives. She recently turned 100 years old.
Pelé’s body will then be imprisoned Memorial Necropole Ecumênica, a kind of cemetery skyscraper. There has According to Pelé, he reserved a place almost 20 years ago – on the ninth floor because that was the shirt number used by his father during his playing career and with a direct view of the Santos stadium where Pelé played so many games.
The funeral service is so well planned that newspapers in Brazil are already comparing it to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II: Huge queues of people formed in London in September, and thousands of mourners wanted to say goodbye to the monarch in person. Something similar should now be done in Santos with “oh dear” happen to King Pelé.
Pelé, here in 1975, was 82 years old.
(Photo: AP/AP)
Athletes, celebrities and politicians are also expected to attend the funeral service. After Pelé’s death, almost all major Brazilian football clubs issued expressions of condolence, including even old adversaries like Corinthians São Paulo: “In this moment of mourning, there is no rivalry,” according to the association on the internet. “We applaud you, Your Majesty.”
Brazil international Neymar wrote on Instagram that before Pelé, football was just a sport, but then everything changed with him: “He turned football into an art, into entertainment, he gave a voice to the poor, the black people and above all, he gave visibility to Brazil.”
Brazil’s elected President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva also expressed his sadness online. He posted pictures showing him together with the football star, under which the left-wing politician wrote that he had the privilege of seeing him play at the stadium: “Thank you, Pele”.
Lula da Silva will take office in early January
At this point at the latest, the footballer’s death also reaches a political level, as it hits Brazil at a time of great tension. After an extremely polarizing election campaign and a narrow victory at the polls, Lula da Silva will take office as President of South America’s largest democracy at the beginning of the year. For weeks there have been repeated demonstrations by supporters of right-wing incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. In front of barracks they demand military intervention, the protests repeatedly turn violent and the fear of attacks is great.
The fact that Pelé’s funeral service takes place almost half a week after his death also has something to do with all of this: the inauguration will first take place on January 1st. After that, one of the first acts of new President Lula da Silva will probably be to bury one of Brazil’s greatest national heroes.
Meanwhile, the incumbent right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro has also a brief statement of grief was published online. His government has declared three days of national mourning.