Legend throws some light on matters

MARY HANNIGANhears why the Brazilian master believes the notion that a replay of our World Cup qualifier against France was never a possibility

WHEN FOOTBALL Association of Ireland president David Blood introduced Pele to his audience in Dublin yesterday he spoke of how the artist formerly known as Edson Arantes do Nascimento has, through his life, “used his name to help others”.

If it was a gentle nudge it fell on deaf ears, the Brazilian legend, now 69, spurning the opportunity to pledge to chain himself to Fifa’s headquarters in Zurich until they order a replay of that game against France.

In Ireland to raise funds for Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin and the Little Prince Children’s Hospital in Brazil, Pele dismissed, with all the empathy he could muster, the notion that a replay was ever a possibility.

“Listen, it would be very complicated,” he said. “You have a lot of other matches which were almost the same – different fouls, different calls, but almost the same. And to have a replay you need to have new rules. Would it be two games or one? Extra-time or no extra-time? Penalty kicks or no penalty kicks? It would be very difficult.”

It being Pele there was no mass walkout at that point, even FAI chief executive John Delaney remained in his seat beside him, although he might have been tempted to examine the ceiling when the guest insisted that Thierry Henry’s reputation had not been damaged by the incident.

“No, it was only a mistake. I think he did it accidentally. I don’t believe he was thinking: ‘Okay, I’m going to wait for the cross, I’m going to use my hand to cross the ball for us to score’. He never thinks like that. But unfortunately it happened.

“I saw the match, Ireland played very well. The result was unfair, no doubt, but unfortunately you cannot change that. Maybe the linesman could have helped, but he didn’t see it either.

“Everybody can make a mistake. It was just something that happened in one second.”

The suggestion that this sort of chicanery is new to the game brought a smile to Pele’s face, the temptation to remind his questioners of a 23-year-old misdemeanour proving irresistible.

“Before that, you had worse, you had Maradona score a goal in the World Cup with his hand,” he said, calling to mind his recent tribute to his old nemesis: “Maradona could not kick with his right foot and did not score with his head. The only time he scored an important goal with his head, he used his hand.”

“But these things happen,” he said. “Players have always tried to do this (cheat). This is normal. It depends on which country you play in. In Europe, it was always more honest than the Latins – to play in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay was more complicated. Always you’re going to have someone who will try to do something like that, but that is life.”

He did, though, have sympathy for the Republic of Ireland manager, even if their meetings as players were, well, sometimes painful.

“We look forward to reacquainting Giovanni Trapattoni and Pele off the pitch – no kicking tonight,” said Delaney, previewing last night’s fundraising dinner in Dublin.

“Fair Play!,” a laughing Pele declared.

Trapattoni recently recalled his two games against Pele in 1963, one for Italy in a friendly, the other for AC Milan against Santos in the Intercontinental Cup. “I would invite them to dribble past me,” he said of his brushes with “famous” players like Pele, “ . . . but I would not let them.”

Is it true, like he says, that he did very well against you?

“I have to admit it, yes. I used to say to Trapattoni, ‘listen, look at my wife, I go now, go away for a little bit and he say ‘no, I have to mark you, I have to stay close to you’,” he laughed, leaving his audience with the image of Trapattoni, still bedecked in his kit, playing gooseberry while the Brazilian attempted to romance his beloved. Glen Whelan and Keith Andrews are certainly wholehearted, but perhaps not quite that committed to the cause.

“Yes, he was very difficult to play against. I talked to (Delaney), he said Trapattoni will be here – I say ‘then I don’t go’. But we are good friends now.”

Pele reminisced more fondly about his World Cup memories, recalling how he dried his father’s tears in 1958 by helping Brazil atone for their defeat to Uruguay, on home soil, eight years earlier.

“The first World Cup I remember I was 10 years old, Brazil lost the final in the Maracana. My father had prepared a big party because, like all Brazilians, he said ‘Brazil are going to win’. When I saw my father at the end of the game he was crying.

I said ‘what happened?’ and he said ‘Brazil lost’.”

In 1958, at just 17, Pele, scored twice in the final when Brazil beat Sweden 5-2.

“When we won the World Cup the king of Sweden came on to the field to shake our hands. When he shook mine I wanted to know if my father knew. At that time we didn’t have television. Or radio. I had to wait until the next day to call him. ‘Father, did you see me with the king?’ ‘Yes!!,’ he said. We waited in line with the other players to make the calls home. Today you have the cell phone. That is modern life.”

Just time for some myth-busting: “Pele”, alas, was not given his nickname by Irish missionaries who recognised his footballing talent. What is true, though, is that his father named him after the inventor of the light bulb, Thomas Edison, the “i” getting lost in its travels.

“I was very proud because Edison was a very important man at the time. But the children in the street, who I started to play with when I was nine or 10 years old, called me Pele. I don’t understand why. I fight with them, I say ‘no, my name is Edson’. I fight with them in school and was suspended for two days.

“I tell my parents, ‘I don’t know what it means, Pele, I don’t like the name’. Today? I love it, of course.”

Do you know the Irish word for football is peile?

“Oh yeah? That is a BIG responsibility,” he smiled.

He’s borne it well.