When asked which team he would choose had he been given a chance to come to the Premier League, Pele said, as quoted by the Telegraph, “Arsenal is a good team to play with”.
Advertisement
“Barcelona are the closest in style to Santos and are nearly the same style as Brazil in 1970”. Subsequently, both Arsenal players were given marching orders that left Arsene Wenger’s side being reduced to nine men in their 2-0 loss at Stamford Bridge.
Pele met with members of the Arsenal team at Highbury in 1981 as part of a sponsorship with an Atari Championship soccer game. “They are the same style as Santos and Brazil of my day”.
Brazilian football legend Pele has admitted that if he was playing in the modern game, he would choose to join Arsenal over Chelsea.
“I don’t think he always used to play like that”.
Pele has now jumped to his defense, saying he prefer the erratic behaviour of Costa to the biting of former Liverpool star Luis Suarez.
It is not the first time the snarling centre-forward has fallen foul of the football authorities, but Pele, famously kicked out of the 1966 World Cup by Portugal’s Joao Morais, said Costa’s crimes were nothing compared to the punishments meted out to him during his extraordinary career.
Advertisement
‘He didn’t get a red card, but he was charged. “I suffered all my life with good marking”. It was dirty. So many things like this happen on the pitch and this is not good. That’s clear. It is not good for football.
