Pelé becomes the King of New York

Pelé is the first to break into football in the United States, where he finished his career at the New York Cosmos. When he was playing for there, all of his opponents wanted to swap shirts with him. The club had to give each of its opponents a shirt after each game. « Pelé was the main attraction, » said Gordon Bradley, one of the club’s coaches at the time. “Sometimes we had to take 25 or 30 shirts with us for a game – otherwise we would never have come out of the stadium alive. An excellent advertising medium, the biggest player in the world therefore spent the second half of his life playing sales reps for various brands. Without ever really chipping away at its myth, which is no small feat. Because Pelé remains Pelé, whatever he does. There are pros and anti Maradona, idolaters and critics of Cruyff, but none like him unanimously in all circles. Especially among players: all the stars who have been compared to him once said that the greatest of them was Edson Arantes do Nascimento. ES