God of a great game

It was vintage Pele who held sway in Kolkata, a city immersed in its love for football from those hoary days in which the local derby among Mohun Bagan, East Bengal and Mohammedan Sporting seemed the finest sporting spectacle. To see the world’s greatest ever soccer player, who helped Brazil win the Jules Rimet trophy permanently with a hat-trick of triumphs completed in 1970, come back to India a few days short of his 75th birthday is to help celebrate the spirit of football of its heyday even as the sport is facing its worst ever administrative crisis. It is not easy to compare players across eras.

However, there has always been a universality of opinion about the “Black Pearl” having been the most gifted ball player in history. Old timers may speak of his colleague Garrincha in the same breath, but the sheer statistics of Pele’s goals and what he has achieved as an ambassador of the sport endear him even more.

The charming Pele speaks highly of Lionel Messi as the best player in the last 10 years but rates Diego Maradona higher on game skills. It was in perfect good humour that he once said when his popularity was compared with that of Jesus Christ — “There are parts of the world where Jesus Christ is not so well known.” Out here in the new India with a popular ISL, Pele is still god of the great game.