"I am going to ask each country to baptize at least one stadium with the name of Pelé," said Gianni Infantino in Santos, where a massive 24-hour wake is being held between Monday and Tuesday to bid farewell to the world soccer legend. , who died last Thursday at the age of 82.
“So the children will know who he was.
Unlike my father, and like millions of others, I did not see him play.
But
few people had his gift
, and that gift excites and reaches the hearts of the people," added the FIFA president, who spoke for a long time with Marcia Aoki, Pelé's partner for the last six years.
Close to him was the president of the South American Football Confederation (Conmebol), Alejandro Domínguez: "Anything we do in his tribute will be little compared to what he gave to football."
The car that was transporting Pelé's body left at 1:56 in the morning this Monday for Santos, a city where it arrived two hours later.
In part of the journey, people were seen saying goodbye to the idol waving flags and T-shirts.
In the middle of the night there were already fans queuing
up to be among the first to say goodbye to Pelé, some had even been there since Sunday.
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Writing: ORFEO SUÁREZ
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Brazil rediscovers Pelé.
"This country is like that, it remembers its idols when they die"
Writing: SEBASTIÁN FESTBrasilia
"This country is like that, it remembers its idols when they die"
The night before, a special moment had been experienced on Santos beach:
80 drones
directed by artificial intelligence drew luminous figures in the sky that recalled milestones in Pelé's career and symbols identified with him.
The magic of the drones allowed, among other things, to see the image of the idol raising the world champion trophy.
The emotion overflowed.
Thousands of fans at Pelé's farewell.
Santos, Brazil's main port, is a city of 400,000 inhabitants which, with the suburbs, reaches 1.9 million.
Less than two hours away is Sao Paulo, the largest urban agglomeration in the West in a country of 215 million people.
26 people per minute
It is summer, there are more than 30 degrees and high humidity.
The turnstiles of Vila Belmiro, the Santos stadium, where the wake is being held, register 26 people per minute.
Until four in the afternoon on Monday, more than 8,000 people passed by the box
, located in the middle of the grass under a tent, to say goodbye to the protagonist of one of the most extraordinary stories in football.
"In our hearts, he will never die," said Cosmo Damiao, head of one of Santos' fan groups, sobbing.
"From the Vatican to heads of state, the repercussions were immense," said Mauro Silva, that great star of Super Depor, today vice president of the São Paulo Football Federation.
Gianni Infantino, next to Pelé's coffin. Sebastião MoreiraEFE
More than a thousand journalists were accredited for the farewell, while the stadium was an
incessant parade of flowers and crowns
.
In the stands there was a flag that crossed one of the funds from end to end: "The only one to stop a war."
The legend refers to a tour of Africa by Santos in 1970. During the stopover in Nigeria, the war conflict for the emancipation of the Biafra region was stopped, although the anthropologist Jose Paulo Florenzano said in statements to ESPN that it was all about a myth.
Since the death of the three-time world champion was announced on the eve of New Year's Eve, Brazil has been preparing to give Pelé a farewell worthy of his history.
The family's first decision was to postpone the wake until Monday, after the inauguration ceremony last Sunday of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for the third time as president of Brazil.
Lula
, who yesterday held bilateral meetings throughout the day,
plans to visit Vila Belmiro this Tuesday
, before the wake ends at ten in the morning.
Once this happens, the coffin will be moved along two kilometers along the Santista beach and will stop in front of the house of Doña Celeste, Pelé's mother, who at one hundred years old faces logical mobility problems.
Odair Hellmann, current coach of Santos, believes that the idea of retiring the
10
shirt is not the best.
«I will respect the decision of the club and the family, but
the number 10 must be revered
, and nothing better for it than to do it on the field.
We will always remember who wore Pelé's number 10 shirt."
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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