Pelé: the times the king of soccer played in Peru

Pele always had a close relationship with Peru. Either because of his great friendship with Ramón Mifflin, with whom he was a partner both in Saints like in the New York Cosmos, or that mythical confrontation between Brazil and the ‘blanquirroja’ in Mexico 1970, considered one of the best matches in the history of the World Cups, the gait of Edson Arantes Do Nascimento also passed several times through the gramado of national stadiumHe, who knew how to lay out the red carpet for him.

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Pelé played his entire life for Santos, between 1957 and 1974, which is why he had to go through Peru several times to play friendly matches, at a time when it was very common for the world’s great teams to tour the world. planet and Lima knew how to receive that wonderful ‘Peixe’ on more than one occasion. The cream goals were scored by Ángel Uribe (2) and Daniel Ruiz.

WHAT HAPPENS THE KING

In February 1960, less than two years after Pelé stunned the world at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, the young Brazilian jota, then 19 years old, arrived in Lima to face Sporting Cristal and Universitario de Deportes. On February 18, the Brazilians drew 3-3 with the Rimenses in a great game in which the attacker Pepe, who later was the coach of the Peruvian team in 1989, also shone.

Days later, on February 26, the creams prevailed with goals from Ángel Uribe (2) and Daniel Ruiz.

LIBERATORS CUP

The only time that Pelé’s Santos officially faced a Peruvian team was in the 1965 Copa Libertadores. On February 19 of that year, the ‘albo’ team, which had already won the 1962 and 1963 titles, arrived with a ‘ 10′ who already had two world titles at that time (1958 and 1962).

Universitario de Deportes opened the scoring with a goal from Víctor Calatayud 6 minutes into the match, but the ‘Peixe’ equalized after 14 minutes with a goal from Peixinho, who also scored the second goal for the Brazilians after 39 minutes. The final result was 2-1. In the second leg, played on March 6 in Sao Paulo, Santos also won by the same score. This time Pelé did score one of the goals.

Pelé plays with the cream idol Lolo Fernández, during Santos’ visit to Lima.

PELE AND PARKET

“If ‘Perico’ had been born in Brazil, he would have been the King of football and not me,” Pelé once said of Pedro Pablo ‘Perico’ León, whom he even wanted to take to Santos. The first time they met at the ‘Colossus of José Díaz’ was on February 2, 1963. That day, in a disputed match, the Brazilians won 2-1 with a goal from Edson Arantes, while Víctor ‘Pitín’ Zegarra discounted for the ‘blue and white.

On that tour, Santos had also previously thrashed Deportivo Municipal 8-3.

On February 20, 1967, the two cracks met at the National Stadium in a friendly that the Brazilians won with a resounding 4-1.

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Pelé opened the account and ‘Perico’ discounted a great match in which Teófilo Cubillas, Julio Baylón and Víctor ‘Pitín’ Zegarra also participated.

Pelé was a great admirer of 'Perico' León. — Pelé was a great admirer of ‘Perico’ León.

0′ KING OF FOOTBALL

In 1970, the year in which Pelé would be crowned the definitive ‘king of football’ by winning the ’70 World Cup in Mexico, lifting his third World Cup, Santos faced the ‘U’ twice.

On January 24, Santos thrashed the creams 4-1, who had several casualties, since their main figures were concentrated with the Peruvian team that was going to play the World Cup.

But in their second clash, on November 25, 1970, already with Héctor Chumpitaz, Nicolás Fuentes, Roberto Chale, Luis Cruzado and Oswaldo Ramírez, the ‘U’ won 3-2 in front of 42,248 spectators who filled the National Stadium.