For Olivier Guez, Brazilian football is the very essence of the beautiful game. His work, Praise of dodging, dwells on the emergence of dribbling in Brazil which allowed the first black players to dodge contact with white defenders after the end of slavery. Consisting of leg crossings and shows, the “Beautiful game” popularized by Pelé, who died on Thursday at the age of 82, marked the whole world.
As a football lover, how did you react to the news of Pelé’s death?
It’s obviously a shock. The definitive end of an era and a myth. Pelé brought football into homes around the world through the first worldview broadcasts. The great ancestor of football has left us. The genesis chapter ended yesterday, Thursday. It is not an upheaval, but rather melancholy. There is even an almost personal question about the passage of time. It’s this kind of legend that has accompanied you since childhood and which one day disappears, especially for my father’s generation. Eventually, the reassuring icons of the past disappear one after another.
Where does this passion for football come from?
I watched my first football game when I was 10. I loved watching the big games, especially during big competitions. Beyond Brazilian football, I am very sensitive to Argentinian and Uruguayan football. Thanks to this sport, I learned the geography and the history of cities. I also met a lot of people. Football is an extraordinary tool for analyzing the contemporary world.
Why is Pelé’s Brazil so special to you?
It is a country apart. For me, Brazil is the idea of the beautiful game [ou jogo bonito], fun and artistic football. A football that does not calculate and it is precisely the one embodied by Pelé. I spent a lot of time in Rio writing my book Praise of dodging. Watching each other on the beaches of this tropical city, I realized that the dribbling was very much associated with the fantastic attackers of Brazil. This comes in particular from a time when the country was emerging from slavery and when white and black players could not play together. Black players who were scouted instinctively developed techniques to avoid white players. Behind the dribbling instinct, there is the history of segregation. When you are weaker, you have to find a way to overcome it. That’s what makes Brazil so special. Pelé represented this football wonderfully. I have always been impressed by his athletic qualities. He knew how to do everything. I will also remember a smiling player with big velvety eyes. I think that’s the idea he always wanted us to keep.
Pelé never played in Europe and most of his matches in Brazil were not shown. Did this feed his legend?
Totally, there was this rumor that a mythical player barely 20 years old was wreaking havoc on Santos. We were going to see Pelé play like we were going to see a diva at the theatre. As the only player to win the World Cup three times, Pelé has become Brazil’s ambassador. In 1958, the whole world discovers a true 17-year-old prodigy during the victory of the Seleção [il termine meilleur buteur de la compétition avec six réalisations, ndlr]. During the 1962 edition, he played little because of an injury, but it was really during the 1970 World Cup that he settled at the table of the greatest sportsmen of all time.
The world of football had already lost an icon with Maradona in 2020… What sets them apart?
Pelé and Maradona played in two different eras and it is impossible to decide between them. It should also be added that people have seen more Maradona playing on television than Pelé. These two players played twenty years apart. What is certain is that they are two genius footballers with very different personalities. Politically, Pelé never committed himself against the Brazilian dictatorship, he had good relations with Fifa and became a minister. Let’s say he never spat in the soup. Maradona, he said everything and its opposite. He did not hesitate to criticize George Bush and to appear alongside Fidel Castro, which is much simpler than denouncing the Argentine dictatorship. The difference between these two players is that Pelé had much better control of the devil he had in him. Maradona was a whimsical character, which Pelé was not, like his haircut which never changed. Over time, he remained on his throne like a king, as when he came out of retirement to land at the New York Cosmos in 1975. Only he could establish football in the United States.