The Soccer Phenomenon of the 1990s: How Ronaldo became a star and how soccer became an art form: what his legacy was, what he wanted, and what they had to say
Something deeper is at play. The 1990s were a good time that happened long ago, but it seems like it was yesterday, according to the author. Many of its cultural touchstones — “The Simpsons,” “Friends,” the German pop sensation Haddaway — remain so familiar as to feel almost (but not quite) current, while much of its reality seems impossibly distant. People did not have the internet in the 1990s. They purchased CDs.
They are important ones, too, because it is in soccer’s long 1990s that we see the roots of the game as we experience it today. It was not just the era in which soccer fully fused with celebrity for the first time, when the final vestiges of isolationism and national identity were abandoned, when transfer fees and salaries spiraled out of control, when what had been sport became entertainment.
We are our successors and we weren’t exposed to those stars as much as they were. The 1990s were a decade in which you could watch everything, and never see it again.
But at least part of it was embodied by Ronaldo. As his former teammate Christian Vieri puts it in “The Phenomenon,” soccer had “never seen a player like” Ronaldo when he first emerged: a player of the finest, most refined technique, but one who also possessed a startling burst of speed, a ferocious shot, and a rippling, brutish power. There was only one forward line that was by itself.
It was also, in a sporting context, when the ideas that would shape the game’s future took hold. Some of that was administrative, and the change in the backpass law was necessary for pressing to come into being, but there was some thinking behind it, like the thought ofJohan Cruyff.
What is often overlooked in those discussions, however, are the players’ intangible achievements – how they make fans feel and the emotions they stir up when they take to the pitch.
Few nationalities feel soccer more than Argentines, which has been abundantly apparent during the national team’s run to Sunday’s World Cup final, with an estimated 40,000 fans, vociferous in their support, traveling to Qatar for the tournament.
After Argentina was eliminated from the semifinals by Croatia, the journalist from TVP decided to give Messi a message instead of asking him a question.
Even though all of us want to win the World Cup final, there’s something that nobody can take away from you, and that’s what you have touched every single one of us, that’s what I wanted to say to you, but I also wanted to tell you that
“There is no child that doesn’t have your jersey, be it authentic or a fake, truly you have touched everyone’s lives and that, for me, is bigger than winning a World Cup. Nobody can take that away from you.
The fact that he has accomplished something so far at the World Cup, and the fact that his fiercest critics have been clamoring for him to become, is a sign that he can solve every single game for Argentina and always deliver.
Three defeats in major finals in the space of just three years – the 2014 World Cup and 2015 and 2016 Copa Américas – unsurprisingly wounded Messi, causing him to announce his retirement from international football.
Messi has been compared to Diego Maradona, who led La Albiceleste to a World Cup triumph in 1986, and the comparisons didn’t help that since his national team debut.
Despite many denials, the rumor remained that Messi contemplated representing Spain over Argentina. “I never doubted for a second,” Messi once told TyC Sports.
Fans organized marches and demonstrations in the streets, train and road signs were changed to plead with him to return and even then-president Mauricio Macri personally phoned Messi to try and get him to change his mind.
“But by winning the World Cup, that would put him on another level … that would mean he would complete his career at that point. It’s the one trophy that he has always been looking for.
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Ossie Ardiles, who played in the Argentina World Cup winning team in 1978, says these comparisons are unavoidable.
“And yet they were very different in terms of personality. Diego was very forceful, charismatic and sometimes aggressive. Messi was very timid and did not say a lot. People were always looking for a leader like Maradona, but Messi was not that person.
Perhaps, the weight being lifted at last year’s Copa América has unburdened and unleashed Messi in Qatar. Or perhaps, it’s just knowing that Sunday’s final will be the last chance he gets to achieve his lifelong dream with Argentina, but Messi has certainly played like a man on a mission at this World Cup.
If you ask them, they’ll tell you that Messi will never reach that because they feel like he was not as close to the people as Maradona was.
People have paid respects to the legendary soccer player. On the day of the news, the club responded with the words “eternal”, which was next to a crown.
Health problems persisted for much of Pelé’s later life. He underwent surgery in September of 2021 to remove a tumor from his right colon, after he was filmed pushing a walker around with disdain in a documentary released last year.
His dribbling skills and personality made him a cult figure and he helped the Yankees win the 1977 World Series before retiring from football.
“As different from Portuguese as the language was, foreigners from the four corners of the planet soon found a way to pronounce the magic word: ‘Pelé,’” Lula added.
The wake at Vila Belmiro will continue until Tuesday 10 a.m. local time (8 a.m. ET), after which a funeral procession will carry Pelé’s coffin through the streets of the city of Santos, including the street where Pelé’s 100-year-old mother, Celeste Arantes, lives.
Pel learned the game from his father, who used a stuffed sock or a fruit as a ball. In 1958, at just 17 years old, he erupted on the international pitch, becoming the youngest to score in a FIFA World Cup match and, with victory over host Sweden in the final, he put Brazil on the global sports map – an international icon born.
The genesis of the nickname Pelé are unclear, even to the footballer. In the British newspaper The Guardian he wrote that it probably started when classmates at school teased him for mangling the nickname of another player. Whatever the origin, the moniker stuck.
As a child, his first taste of soccer involved playing barefoot with socks and rags rolled up into a ball – a humble beginning that would grow into a long and fruitful career.
“He was famous in Brazil, in Minas Gerais. He was a good role model for me. I always wanted to be like him, but what happened, to this day, only God can explain.”
When the World Cup was won, everybody knew about Brazil, he said. We were widely known after that World Cup so this was the most vital thing I gave to my country.
Another World Cup victory came in 1962, although an injury sidelined Pelé for the tournament’s later stages. After Brazil exited the competition in 1966 due to injuries, redemption came in 1970.
“Pelé was saying that we were going to win, and if Pelé was saying that, then we were going to win the World Cup,” Brazil’s co-captain Carlos Alberto said about the tournament.
Brazil scored arguably the most famous World Cup goal of all time, a sweeping length-of-the-pitch move involving nine of the team’s 10 outfielder players, in the final against Italy.
The end of the game was when Pelé set upAlberto, who hit the ball into the net. Brazil’s mantra of jogo bonito (the beautiful game) has never been better encapsulated.
The Italian defender Tarcisio Burgnich had talked before the match about the similarities between Pelé and the rest of us. “Later, I realized I’d been wrong.”
The tournament capped Pelé’s World Cup career but not his time in the spotlight. In 1975, he signed a $1.67-million-a-year contract in the United States with the New York Cosmos.
The league, which attracted further big names like Giorgio Chinaglia and Franz Beckenbauer, wouldn’t last, ultimately folding in 1984. But around the world, Pelé’s influence endured.
He was an advocate for the poor in Brazil and remained in the public eye through endorsements. He was an ambassador for the UN Children’s Fund for many years.
“This debate about the player of the century is absurd,” said Zico, who represented Brazil in the decade after Pelé’s retirement. “There’s only one possible answer: Pelé. I might add, he is the greatest player of all time.
The Guinness World Records tally for the total number of goals Pelé scored during his career can not be stated with certainty, and many unofficial scores are being looked at.
Pelu Was The Greatest Of All Time ctprBass: How Pelu Came to the United States in 1976-77
He told The Talks that he would be happy if he died one day. It was the biggest sport in the world that gave me the freedom to do so much.
With Pelu’s death, there is a chance that the transfer of power will be put on hold, giving us time to remember the legend, who was the original international superstar, and to think a bit about what it means.
But as news of his death at 82 began to spread throughout the world, it seemed as though there was nothing to write that hadn’t been written; nothing to say that hadn’t been said.
Indeed, Pelé, observes historian Brenda Elsey in an essay about South American soccer, “transcended national identity to embody an image of Pan-African success,” perhaps especially when members of Santos FC toured Nigeria and Mozambique in the 1960s. “That the leaders of the Brazilian team also came from impoverished neighborhoods and difficult circumstances,” argues Elsey, “created solidarity with players across the Global South.”
He scored 663 goals in 661 games for Brazil’sSantos FC despite lucrative offers from the likes of Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid, and a scrapped deal from Inter Milan because of fan protests in Brazil.
Rather than fully retire once his time with Santos and the national team was done, he brought his talents to New York, playing for the Cosmos from 1975 to 1977, his celebrity bringing new fans and huge crowds to North American Soccer League matches.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/30/opinions/pel-was-the-greatest-of-all-time-ctpr-bass/index.html
What was Ali’s first accomplishment? A reminiscence about his father, Ted Pelmé, and his legacy as the GOAT
There is no clear criteria for GOAT, and there are arguments about what it means to be the best after a victory, retirement or death. Can you tell me if the GOAT is the most decorated? The person with the longest number one ranking? Is that about statistics? Brilliance? Creativity? The most titles over time? Did you know that there are the most titles in a year? The most titles in one day? The biggest paycheck? What about the most endorsements?
Ali at one point owned the rights to the company created by his wife, called “G.O.A.T., Inc.” Ali then sold it for some $50 million to entertainment firm CKX in 2006, which bought an 80% interest in Ali’s name and likeness.
Fernando Kalls wrote on Thursday that a reference to Pelmé as one of the greatest is disrespectful. If you don’t want to refer to him as the GOAT, then just be sorry for his loss and talk about his accomplishments. He was the GOAT, don’t use his death to question that.