« Pelé boit du café du Brésil »

Pelé has always signed autographs graciously, smiling and inscribing numerous photographs throughout his long career, first as a player, then as Minister of Sport, businessman and sporting ambassador. The most sought-after signatures are those linked to the World Cup finals he won with the Seleção (1958, 1962, 1970), and, more generally, those given before 1970.

This is the case with the present piece: a postcard-format portrait of Pelé, issued by the Brazilian Embassy in Algeria. An early example of soft power, Pelé graciously agreed to sign a number of these cards, distributed by the embassy. It shows the player drinking Brazilian coffee and wearing the Santos jersey. Pelé has affixed his rare full signature to it.

This series was specially printed in spring 1965, on the occasion of the Brazilian team’s visit to Europe and Africa on a preparatory tour for the 1966 World Cup in England, where the team already hoped to secure a third consecutive title. The full squad was present: Pelé, Garrincha, Vavá, Bellini, and others, led by Vicente Féola, the coach who had brought the first star to the yellow jersey in 1958. In Algeria, the visit of the double world champions — the last national team to have achieved back-to-back titles — caused immense excitement. Ahmed Ben Bella, the first president of the Algerian People’s Democratic Republic, went down to the Seleção’s locker room at halftime on the evening of the match (won 3-0 by Brazil) to greet Garrincha, Pelé and their teammates; Ben Bella himself had been a professional footballer in Marseille, France, in 1940, scoring a goal as a starter.

Behind this friendly atmosphere, no one suspected that on that day, 17 June 1965, at the Ahmed Zabana Stadium in Oran, Ben Bella was living his last moments at the head of the young nation: this trip to western Algeria would prove fatal, as Colonel Houari Boumédiène and his lieutenant Abdelaziz Bouteflika overthrew him two days later. On 18 June, the Brazilians left Oran for the capital, Algiers, where they were due to play a second match on 20 June. It never took place, amid the greatest political upheaval the young Algerian Republic had yet known.

Algeria would retain a certain sense of dark humor: the Oran stadium, site of this famous and only Algeria-Brazil match, was later renamed “Stade du 19 juin 1965,” in commemoration of Houari Boumédiène’s coup.