Pele: Arabs mourn the king of football

SAO PAULO: Football legend Pele, who died on Thursday aged 82, was as much a hero among Arabs as he was among Brazilians.

It is “very common” for Arabs to root for the Brazilian team during World Cups — “the main reason for that was the 1970s squad led by Pele,” Mustafa Dahla, a Brazilian-born lawyer who lives in the Palestinian city of Beitunia, told Arab News.

That squad won the World Cup in Mexico, and is considered by analysts as one of the best of all time.

Dahla said many Palestinians joined the Brazilian community in Beitunia and cheered for the Latin American country during the recent World Cup in Qatar.

Born in Sao Paulo in 1971, Dahla never saw Pele in action, only in videos, but his Palestinian father and grandfather always told him that he was unparalleled.

On many levels — not only as a footballer — he was indeed incomparable. The king, as he was called by Brazilians, scored 1,281 goals, and won two Intercontinental Cups with the club Santos and three World Cups with the Brazilian team.

He left Santos to retire but ended up joining the New York Cosmos in 1975, a club owned by Warner Communications, and acted as the face of US soccer for a couple of years.

After his retirement, he continued to be a celebrity involved in multiple causes. He attended humanitarian events, promoted social campaigns in several countries, and remained connected to the football world. In the 1990s, he was even Brazil’s sports minister for a few years.

His ties with Arab nations were established since his younger days as a footballer. In his autobiography, Pele describes one of Santos’ tours in Europe that ended up being extended to Egypt.

“On our way there (…) on a stopover in Beirut, an enormous crowd stormed the airport