Back to the Soccer Newsfeed

Neymar makes football fun

"Pele ... racing into space ... and he's going to get a fourth ... oh, what ... what genius! ... And he's missed it!"

That's how British television commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme described Pele running through in the final minute of Brazil's 1970 World Cup semifinal against Uruguay when he produced that bit of skill, allowing the ball to go one side of bamboozled goalkeeper Ladislao Mazurkiewicz while he went the other.

Imagine, though, that instead of "what genius!" Wolstenholme had spat out "what a disgrace!"

Imagine if, on another channel, the England captain Bobby Moore had not called what Pele did not an act of "fantastic skill and appreciation", but one of "provocation" or if his co-commentator had not said "now we know why they call him the King", but "now we know why they call him a troublemaker.