Brazil woke up in mourning for the death on Thursday of the star who gave international recognition and his own stamp to his football: Edson Arantes do Nascimento, Pelé. Santos, the city where he shone in sports, as well as the state of Sao Paulo, decreed seven days of mourning.
But, the entire Latin American giant lives until Saturday three days of mourning decreed by the outgoing government before the death of what many consider the best player in history.
The public wake and the funeral reserved for the family will take place between Monday and Tuesday in Santos, a city near Sao Paulo. The ‘Peixe’ stadium, where Pelé played 18 of his 21 years as a professional, will host the public wake from Monday to Tuesday, according to the club.
On Tuesday, he will be buried in a mausoleum in an act reserved for the family, although before that there will be a procession through the streets of Santos that will pass by the house of his mother, Doña Celeste, 100 years old, according to a report from Afp.
“Go with God, my father,” wrote the exporter Edinho, one of his seven children, on Instagram, the family’s favorite social network that was giving news of the last days of the legendary former striker.
We mark the passing of the legendary Pelé, known to many as the king of the “beautiful game.” This image of a spiral galaxy in the constellation Sculptor shows the colors of Brazil. pic.twitter.com/sOYfKdTeAJ
—NASA (@NASA) December 29, 2022
“I came to pay my tribute, my goodbye. The truth is, the ‘King’ never died,” Thiago Lopes, a 30-year-old audiovisual producer, told the French agency outside the medical center that treated the former player.
Tributes to the greatest Brazilian international idol have followed one another both inside and outside the country, going beyond the world of baseball.
The messages of condolences from football figures such as Neymar, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappé, Franz Beckenbauer and Ronaldo Nazário were joined by US President Joe Biden and the elected president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, among many others. .
Even NASA paid tribute to the creator of three of the five stars on the “Seleçao” shield by publishing an image of a galaxy in the constellation Sculptor with the colors of the Brazilian flag.
I have the privilege that the youngest Brazilians do not have: I saw Pelé play, alive, not Pacaembu and Morumbi. Play, no. I saw Pelé give a show. Because when he hit the ball he always did something special, which many times ended in a goal.
?: @ricardostuckert pic.twitter.com/YQs3K119t9
– Lula (@LulaOficial) December 29, 2022
Perhaps it was a wink for a man who in his day said that the only thing he needed to do, after setting several records and breaking hundreds of nets (he claimed 1,283 goals in 1,363 games), was to have gone to the moon.
“He left a great legacy, a very good legacy for Brazil. He was the king of Brazilian soccer », she told Ana Cristina Santos, 47, in the capital, Brasilia.
The Christ the Redeemer, whose arms stretch out over Rio, and the Maracana, where Pelé scored his thousandth goal, were lit up Thursday night in honor of the player who immortalized the ’10’ shirt.
The Vila Belmiro stadium, home of Santos, the club where he forged his legend, projected images of the king’s crown on its giant screen. “Pele is immortal. The Brazilian people are very sad… Pelé is the greatest athlete you can have in the world,” the president of the Albinegro team, Andrés Rueda, told Spanish radio. Chain Being.
Pelé’s body will be veiled in the stadium of Vila Belmiro, in Santos. Cerimônia will be open to the public and will last 24 hours.
➡ Assist ao #GloboNewsEmPonto com @ceciliaflesch: https://t.co/bFwcwLpLU9 #GloboNews pic.twitter.com/FvJmDlIbGE
– GloboNews (@GloboNews) December 30, 2022
The death of “O rei”, creator and main exponent of “beautiful football” in Brazil, occurs at a time when Brazilians celebrate the end of the year, with many of them on vacation. For this reason and because Pelé aroused less popular fervor than other local idols such as the late pilot Ayrton Senna, there are doubts about whether the tributes will be massive, he points out. afp.
The tributes to the former striker could be differentiated from the massive acts rendered two years ago when the Argentine Diego Maradona died, his great adversary for the title of the best soccer player of all time, to which Messi now also aspires.
The only footballer to win three World Cups (1958, 1962, 1970), Pelé was hospitalized a month before he died to reassess treatment for colon cancer that was detected in September 2021.
But his condition worsened as the days went by, coinciding with the end of the World Cup in Qatar, which Pelé still had time to follow to encourage the ‘Canarinha’, until their elimination in the quarterfinals.
“O rei” died at the age of 82 at the Albert Einstein Hospital in Sao Paulo surrounded by his relatives, who accompanied him in recent days as his health condition worsened.
With information from Afp and OGloboNews.
