The first time I met Pelé, I, like most mortals, had no real idea what to say. An American publisher had hired me to help him write a book for the 2014 World Cup, which Brazil was hosting, but they didn’t want just another traditional soccer memoir recounting long-ago goals and other glories. (Pelé had already published two such books in English–the first in 1977, the year he retired from the New York Cosmos and also, coincidentally, the year I was born.) So when we sat down at his office in Santos, surrounded by aging photos and trophies, I decided to try a different, more personal approach:
“Pelé, I saw a photo from the 1970s of you sharing a table at Studio 54 with Rod Stewart, Mick Jagger, Liza Minelli and Andy Warhol. What was that like? What do you remember?”
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