“I DIDN'T PLAY THE 1974 CUP DUE TO DISGUSMENT WITH THE POLITICAL REGIME OF COUNTRY”: THE MILITARY DICTATORSHIP AND PELÉ'S BIOGRAPHICAL REPRESENTATIONS.

Abstract

This article builds an analysis from the survey of narratives about the football player Edson Arantes
do Nascimento (Pelé) and his relationship with the power structures of the Brazilian military regime
(1964 - 1985). From the crossing of historically compared narratives, it was possible to detect
different readings about his role as a Brazilian idol who experienced his professional peak during
the years of military rule. The narratives involve disputes of memory and different representations
of the idol who, in the field of discourses, stands out as an allegory of the nation. At the ends of the
debate, the aim is now to empty its historical weight and reduce it to the figure of a “collaborator”,
now to celebrate it as “subversive”.