By David Gold
April 16 – Santos is celebrating its 100th anniversary with a series of commemorative matches between players of past and present, including the legendary Pelé.
The striker is synonymous with the Brazilian club he spent almost his entire career with, winning two Copa Libertadores titles for the great Santos team of the Sixties, which also won the FIFA Club World Cup twice – against Benfica in 1962 and AC Milan 1963 respectively.
Pelé (pictured centre) appeared for Santos in 605 games, netting an incredible 589 goals between 1956 and 1974; he is also his international team’s all-time top scorer with 77 goals from 92 games.
Several players from Santos – Zito, Carlos Alberto Torres and Clodoaldo in addition to Pelé – also represented the great Brazil team of the period which won a hat-trick of World Cups between 1958 and 1970.
Due to the team’s success and popularity it embarked on a series of world tours.
During one in Congo, during that country’s civil war, the arrival of the team in 1969 helped partly to resolve the conflict as Santos agreed to play a friendly game only once a ceasefire had been agreed.
The club was established on April 14, 1912 – just hours before the Titanic sank in the Atlantic Ocean – at a meeting led by three leading local sportsmen: Raymundo Marques Francisco, Mário Ferraz de Campos and Argemiro de Souza Junior.
A hundred years later, a number of leading former players are coming together to take part in an exhibition game before the current Santos team, featuring Brazilian stars striker Neymar (pictured below) and midfielder Paulo Henrique Ganso, will take to the field to compete against 100 children.
Pele will be among those at the club’s Estádio Vila Belmiro stadium for the celebrations which, after the football, will then culminate in a fireworks display and a concert on the Gonzaga beach.
The reigning Copa Libertadores champions and 19-times Campeonato Paulista winners, Santos enjoyed the distinction of being the first team in world football to score 10,000 goals – with over a thousand coming from the boot or head of Pelé.
“Many congratulations to Santos Futebol Clube on its centenary, one of the most famous names in football,” FIFA President Sepp Blatter said on Twitter yesterday.
Speaking at the launch of a book to coincide with the centenary, Pelé said: “I thank God for having put me in Santos. I was able to enjoy Santos promoting Brazil throughout the world.
“Certainly outside Brazil Santos is loved by everyone.
“In Brazil, they’re everyone’s second [favourite] team.
“The only place Santos haven’t been to is the moon.”
Neymar, the 20-year-old Pelé hailed this week as better even than three-times World Player of the Year Lionel Messi of Argentina, added that he was “proud to be part of history and be at Santos today.
“In the Sixties I would have no place among so many superstars.”
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