It was 1970 and when a TV comes into your kitchen, with Pelé inside, that marks you for life. I cried with emotion

Pelé is an idea of perfection for me. The relationship you have with football depends in part on your age of discovery, and television came into my home with the Mexico World Cup in 1970. I was 14 years old and my mum gave me this gift, a homage, of buying a television set so that I could watch the World Cup, alone in the kitchen at home. When a television comes into the kitchen of your home, with Pelé inside, that marks you for life. I cried with emotion, with happiness, because of that Brazil team.

Not long ago I watched a documentary about Pelé that was very focused on the 1970 World Cup. At the end, he said that when the tournament came to an end and he was in the dressing room, he cried because he felt that he had finally lifted from his shoulders the weight of the whole of Brazil. And watching that, I couldn’t help feeling that I was there at home crying from happiness because of what this guy had done for us, and there he was at the same time, but also crying with anguish because he had finally been liberated from the pressure.

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