In the first lines of the preface to “Pelé – o Negão Planetário”, anthropologist Antonio Risério clarifies that this is not another biography of the player. It is “a space where I think, portray and examine aspects of Brazilian realities through the figure and performance of Pelé”.
The initiative is welcome because there are still few projects with a more essayistic nature about Brazilian football. “Veneno Remédio” (2008), by José Miguel Wisnik, and “Dando Tratos à Bola” (2017), by Hilário Franco Júnior, are among the good publications in this area launched in the last two decades.
Risério’s book is not up to par with these two, but some essays lead to pertinent reflections on the athlete’s life and career. One of these texts is “The Brazilian School of Football”, in which the author addresses topics such as the intelligence of the body, which brings Pelé closer to the North American boxer Muhammad Ali and the Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky.
But the key point of the essay is in the excerpt in which Risério takes as a basis the classic “O Negro no Futebol Brasileiro”, by Mario Filho, to highlight the turning point represented by Pelé as a black man.
Until his rise, it was very common for players to hide their Afro-Brazilian origins. Arthur Friedenreich, who worked from the 1900s to the 1930s, tried to straighten and tie up his curly hair in the locker room “so as not to be seen by the crowd as the mulatto he was”, as the anthropologist records.
In Mario Filho’s track, Risério emphasizes that Pelé was proud to be a black man. He did not make speeches against racism, but his genius on the field contributed to the self-esteem of black people in Brazil and abroad.
In the essay “The Racial Question”, the author says that “Pelé did not treat the black problem as something exclusive to race. Instead, he saw that the need to reduce social distances and offer opportunities for everyone placed all poor people on the same horizon, regardless of their color.”
The following text, “Diamante Negro”, reminds us that Pelé said he had never been a victim of racial prejudice. It wasn’t true, as Risério shows. In “My Life and the Beautiful Game”, a 2007 biography, the player recalls an episode as a teenager in Bauru (SP), in which his first girlfriend’s father called him a “black bum”. In the biographies released in the following years, according to Risério, this episode was no longer mentioned.
Despite ambiguities like this, Pelé represented “a black, immense, formidable, spectacular victory”, according to the anthropologist. It gives, among other examples, the effusive admiration of South Africans Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu for the star.
Like Pelé, Risério does not escape contradictions, but his arguments that elevate the athlete to a symbol of blackness deserve to be read carefully.
The book is not restricted to racial issues. One of the curious essays is “O Duplo e o Topete”, in which the anthropologist comments on nuances of the player’s habit of distinguishing Pelé from Edson Arantes do Nascimento. “Edson is everyday sameness, Pelé, the lightning of the gods”, he writes.
In “Technical and Human Quality”, the author details how Dondinho, Pelé’s father, was the greatest influence on the best player in history. A striker known for his headed goals, Dondinho played for teams from Minas Gerais, such as Atlético Tricordiano, from Três Corações, and Bauru Atlético Clube between the 1930s and 1950s.
In addition to teaching his son how to head and shoot with the inside of his foot, he gave off-field tips. How to behave when faced with aggressive fans? Ignore them, advised Dondinho.
One problem with publishing is the excess of digressions. In many moments, Risério moves away from issues more directly linked to Pelé to attack what he calls the “plague of woke identitarianism”, the theme of his previous books, such as “The Crisis of Identity Politics” (2022). The book is 464 pages long and would be better if it was half as long.
In the preface, Risério again accuses the Sheet of censorship. In January 2022, the newspaper published an article entitled “Racism of blacks against whites gains strength with identitarianism”. In the text, the author stated that “black racism is a fact” and disagreed with the definition that there is only racism when there is oppression.
In the following days, the newspaper published texts that contested Risério’s thesis. Upset by the criticism, he approached the newspaper to publish a reply and says he was then censored.
According to Vinicius Mota, the newspaper’s editorial secretary, “the Sheet Twice he offered Antonio Risério space to express himself about the criticisms of his initial article in Ilustríssima. On both occasions, he published the texts first on his social networks, which made publication on the website unfeasible. Sheetwhich only accepts unpublished articles”.
