The day that I didn't get to see Pele.

Day -125 WorldCup2018

A funny thing happened today. Almost remarkable. In what started as a conversation with my family about my Dad being visited in hospital by the President of Malta led to the discovery that Pele visited Malta in the 1970s. And my brothers saw him. And not only did I not go, but until today I never heard this story. The number of times we have recounted memories and in 30-something years I did not know about Pele being in Malta. So take that Tony Soprano: there is value in sharing old memories.

Yes, Pele really was in Malta. The real Pele. There is video evidence.  If you do search on youtube do not be distracted by the videos of the Maltese cliff diver, Pele, and his diving dog, "Titti".
There were other parts to the "Pele in Malta" revelation. My brothers were also present when my Dad had a conversation with the great Sir Stanley Matthews in Malta. I did realize later that I do remember that Matthews was in Malta. But a bit of research revealed a few more details I did not know. Matthews moved to Malta with his second wife, a Communist spy working in the American Embassy in Prague. He also coached Hibernians in Malta and won three trophies in the 1970-71 season. Also, that season, Hibs drew 0-0 with Real Madrid in the European Cup Winners' Cup, probably one of the best ever results for a Maltese team.

And the conversation got broader. We shared memories of trips to the old Empire Stadium in Malta. My earliest memory was of not going to the stadium. It's a story I've shared before of how I waited for my Dad to come home to pick me up to take me to "the match". It was December 1980 and Malta were playing Poland in a World Cup qualifier, but my Dad never came for me. In the end he said it was a good thing because there had been some serious crowd trouble.Today I re-visited the full story. Malta were putting up a strong fight against the Poles and at 1-0 down had a couple of good chances to score. But they didn't and Poland scored a second. But it was highly controversial. The scorer thought he was offside and didn't pay much attention as he tapped the ball into the net. The linesman thought he was offside and raised his flag. But the referee didn't and awarded the goal. The Maltese fans were outraged and vented their anger by throwing missiles of all sorts onto the pitch and towards the Polish bench. The match was abandoned and the Maltese FA feared a huge fine and lengthy stadium ban from Fifa would follow. Luckily, it was only a one match ban.

That one match was the European Championship qualifier in 1982, a somewhat famous 2-1 win against Iceland, played in Messina, Sicily. Qualifying schedules for the World Cup and the Euros were very different back then. Malta didn't play a home qualifier between December 1980 and June 1982.

That previous bit of information of debatable use or uselessness led me to something else. In June 1981 Malta competed in the President's Cup in South Korea. They beat Thailand and Indonesia, drew against Liechtenstein and club side Vitoria of Brazil, and lost to Uruguay's Danubio to finish third in their group. And who won the tournament? Nobody. South Korea and Racing Cordoba, of Argentina, drew 2-2 in the final and everybody went home happy.

Malta played an international tournament in South Korea in 1981. Stanley Matthews left his first wife for a Czech spy. Malta played a match in Sicily because of the anger caused by a Yugoslavian referee. Pele in Malta dives off cliffs with his dog, Titti.

And I found all this out because my brothers never told me that they saw Pele in Malta.