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"My Santos is sensational." Only the Saints ended the war … ", excerpted from a song chanted by Santista supporters during the team's matches, paying tribute to the episode where the club had provoked a ceasefire during a major conflict in Nigeria, 50 years ago
The controversy is gaining momentum with the special report ESPN (video), "The Saints Arrested a War", published by the University of São Paulo at the University of São Paulo on February 2.
The team and Pelé's company toured Africa between January and February 1969, at a time when Nigeria was in civil war.The conflict began after a wave of violence between different ethnic groups, which resulted in the creation of the republic. independent of Biafra, the oil-rich region of the Nigerian territory, in May 1967.
Planning across the country Ays was not planned by Santista but after two friendlies in Congo, the club and the players were convinced to accept the Nigerian government's invitation.
The Santos faced Nigeria's selection in the city of Lagos on January 25, 1969. The match ended in a tie at 2. 2, with two goals from Pele for the Brazilian squad. Dalí, the team left for what is now known as Mozambique for another performance, before returning to Nigerian soil for the clash that the club and its supporters would remember.
On February 4, 1968, the Santos team was received under much of the population of the city of Benin, which, according to Florenzano's studies, was no longer under the control of the forces of Biafra.
"When Santos plays in the city of Benin, the territory of Biafra is reduced to a quarter of what it originally was when she declared her independence. She had no exit to the sea. It was surrounded territorially, with the airspace guarded.In the other side of the Niger River, more than a hundred kilometers away, we have the city of Benin.No army was fighting militarily for the control of this city ", explains the professor, who is preparing a book on the tour of the team in Africa and has published a series of texts on the subject in the newspaper.
Florenzano recognizes that Santos and Pele were celebrated wherever they went. The proof is in the reports of Gilberto Marques for the newspaper A Tribuna. He was the only Brazilian journalist to have accompanied the team's tour.
Florenzano's studies on the subject developed throughout his postdoctoral project for the USP. For the author, the match between Santos and the selection of the Central West State, in the Ogbe stadium – taken by the Brazilian team by 2 against 1 – was used as war propaganda. by the Nigerian military government.
"If you ask, from the point of view of the Nigerian government, what interest would it bring to Santos in a city that he does not control, that he would need to negotiate a cease-and-desist? What kind of message would it convey to Nigerian society and to the world? It would be a counterclaim, an absurdity in terms of war propaganda. It would be the same as saying that they do not want to do anything about it. had not recovered this key region of the conflict. "
The saints were considered an badet of the Nigerian government, according to the professor, the world public opinion being opposed to the violence of the Nigerian troops in the conflict. Artists such as John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix, for example, constantly protested the end of the clashes. It is estimated that the Biafra war, which lasted until January 1970, resulted in the death of 2 million people.
The story that the Paulista club had ended a war did not appear in the accounts of Gilberto Marques newspaper A Tribuna. According to Florenzano, the first disc of the national press would have appeared in a column of Armando Nogueira, in October 1970, in Jornal do Brasil. The first news of this story probably came after the triumph of the Brazilian championship in 1970, while Santos was on tour in the United States.
. An interpreter from the Santista delegation reportedly told an American journalist that Pele was responsible for stopping the Biafran war. Armando Nogueira himself, while recognizing the strength of the player and the team alvinegra, gives this information in the form of folklore, exaggeration. "
Years later, reporters and former players told the story.Pelé himself, most often with inaccuracies, with the mix of events occurring in Congo, for example, during this same excursion. "The press noticed years after Santos had stopped the war between the Congos, something that did not exist. There was a diplomatic crisis between the countries, but there was never a war between the Congos. "
At least, says Florenzano, the Baixada Santista team was responsible for negotiating between the two Congos so that they could cross the two country's rivers, banned because of a diplomatic conflict. A relevant fact, provided by the Saints
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