| | | The Babe Ruth of soccer. RIP
I was lucky enough to see Pele in action. My dad (an English ex-pat and soccer nut) and I (a gringo teenager) watched a semi final World Cup match between Brazil and Uruguay down in Guadalajara, Mexico back in 1970.
A memorable family vacation trip in many ways, but staying on topic, the cab driver taking us to the stadium was a total maniac. Even the busses moved out of his way. At the stadium, we had seats directly in front of a major aisle and there was a guy standing behind us chanting "Brah - Zeel", "Brah - Zeel" while waving a huge Brazilian flag back and forth and whopping me upside the head with it. Latin fanatics, LOL.
Brazil won the match 3 -1. Pele didn't score but treated us to some of his magical moves..
During that match, Pelé made one of his most famous plays. [2] Tostão gave Pelé a through ball, and Uruguay's goalkeeper Ladislao Mazurkiewicz took notice of it. The keeper ran off of his line to get the ball before Pelé, but Pelé got there first and fooled the keeper by not touching the ball, causing it to roll to the keeper's left, while Pelé went right. Pelé went around the goalkeeper and took a shot while turning towards the goal, but he turned in excess as he shot, and the ball drifted just wide of the far post.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_at_the_1970_FIFA_World_Cup |
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