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The Time a Soccer Icon Stopped a War
If only for a little while
“My name is Ronald Reagan, I’m the President of the United States of America. But you don’t need to introduce yourself, because everyone knows who Pelé is.” — U.S. President Ronald Reagan to soccer legend Pelé in 1982.
The combination of the soccer World Cup starting this weekend and the holiday season approaching has caused a historical story about the Beautiful Game to resurface. Several of the articles I’ve read have called it the time soccer stopped a war, referring to the match played between British and German troops on Christmas Day 1914, during an informal cease-fire in the first year of World War One.
It’s a remarkable story, and one that deserves to be retold as long as we foolishly continue to wage war on each other, but in this case, soccer did not stop the war. The cease-fire was due to Christmas, with the soccer match simply part of that impromptu celebration. In case you’re curious, the Germans won by a score of 2 to 1.
There was, however, a time when a soccer match did stop a war, if only for around 48 hours, and it was due solely to the presence of the greatest player in the history of the game, Brazilian star Pelé.
In 1969, Pelé and his team Santos were on a world tour designed to showcase their amazing team and make as much money as possible for their owners in the process. They had dominated both Brazil and South America and wanted to extend their reach, so in 1966 they had toured the United States and in 1967 toured Italy and Germany.
In 1969 they were touring Africa at a time when civil wars raged across the continent. One intended stop was Nigeria, where two years before a bloody conflict had erupted between that nation and the secessionist state of Biafra. During the course of the war, which Nigeria ultimately won in 1970, more than 2 million people died.
Pelé and Santos arrived right in the middle of the civil war. If it had been any other team, and any other star, the game would have simply been cancelled. But this was Pelé. Amazingly, the two warring sides agreed to a 48-hour ceasefire in order for everyone to be able to watch Pelé and Santos play an exhibition match in Lagos, which was then still the capital city of Nigeria, against the…
