How Pele’s 1969 visit reshaped Nigerian football

Pele (right) training with youths in Benin during his visit to Nigeria

In 1969, with a civil war raging, global football’s biggest star arrived in Benin City as part of a visit that would change Nigerian football forever. Those involved still remember the occasion vividly.

“It was all about Pele. Before one o’clock, Ogbe Stadium was jam-packed and it was difficult for people to have seats, because they were anxious to see the artistry of Pele,” Godwin Izilien told BBC Sport Africa.

Izilien had been chosen as captain of a team put together to represent Mid-Western State, an old administrative region that covered what are now Edo and Delta states, in a friendly against Pele’s Brazilian club Santos.

“It was at the peak of the civil war. The day of the match, nobody thought of guns any more,” Izilein added.

With a roster including Pele and the likes of fellow Brazil legends, Carlos Alberto and Pepe, Santos’ so-called ‘Santasticos’ spent much of the 1960s cashing in on their global fame, heading out on exhibition tours across multiple continents.

They made more than one trip to Africa, including the 1969 visit that included stop-offs in Algeria, Congo-Brazzaville, DR Congo, Ghana and Mozambique, in addition to Nigeria.

Aged 28, Pele was already a two-time World Cup winner, having burst on to the scene as a precocious 17-year-old in 1958, scoring six goals as Brazil won their first title in Sweden. The Selecao made it back-to-back World Cups in Chile in 1962, although Pele missed much of that tournament through injury.

Although Santos’ arrival in Nigeria came a year ahead of Brazil’s much-celebrated third world title, claimed in Mexico in 1970, Pele was still seen as an African sporting icon, given his ancestry on the continent.

“It