{"id":650143,"date":"2025-01-03T14:47:57","date_gmt":"2025-01-03T19:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=650143"},"modified":"2025-01-03T14:47:57","modified_gmt":"2025-01-03T19:47:57","slug":"what-if-pele-joined-bayern-munich1959","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/01\/03\/what-if-pele-joined-bayern-munich1959\/","title":{"rendered":"What If Pel\u00e9 Had Joined Bayern Munich in 1959?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to a new series of articles from Last Word on Football. During the coming days and weeks, we will be looking back at some of the historical moments in football and asking \u201cWhat if?\u201d Today, we ask what if Pel\u00e9 joined Bayern Munich in his late teens.<\/p>\n

What If Pel\u00e9 Joined Bayern Munich in 1959<\/h2>\n

Pel\u00e9 to Bayern<\/h3>\n

Pel\u00e9, to date the only player to win three World Cups and named the best player of the 20th century, was a folk hero in his native Brazil and particularly Santos, the club in which he played from 1956 to 1975. He only left them at the tail end of his career, to join the New York Cosmos in the North American NASL.<\/p>\n

Read More: <\/strong>What if Pel\u00e9 Had Played in Europe?<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite never making the transfer to play there, the man born with the name \u00c9dson Arantes do Nascimento was much sought after in Europe during his prime, including by Bayern Munich.<\/p>\n

What Really Happened<\/h3>\n

As noted above, Pel\u00e9 played for and stayed with Santos throughout the team\u2019s golden years, as they won six Brazilian championships, two Copa Libertadores titles, and two Intercontinental Cups.<\/p>\n

It Could Have Been So Different<\/h3>\n

It could have gone so differently \u2013 had Pel\u00e9 joined Bayern in his late teens.
\nIn 2012, long after he had ended his playing career, the Brazilian went on a football talk show on the German subscription channel \u201cSky\u201d, and confirmed<\/a> that while he had offers from clubs in Milan and Madrid, the most concrete proposal came from the Bavarians.<\/p>\n

Read More: <\/strong>What If J\u00fcrgen Klopp Became Bayern Munich Coach in 2008<\/a><\/p>\n

In fact, the Bayern front office, led by club president Roland Endler were quite eager to get the then-young World Cup winner to Munich. They even arranged for him to spend the 1959 summer break in Bavaria, so he could decide to join the club, but he quickly became homesick, optinh to stay in Brazil in the end.<\/p>\n

What If Pel\u00e9 Joined Bayern Munich<\/h3>\n

in the late 1950s and early 60s, the Bundesliga hadn\u2019t been founded yet. Bayern were instead part of a complex system of regional leagues, the best teams of each of those, would then compete for the national title at the end of each season.<\/p>\n

When the league began in 1963, Bayern were controversially denied entry in favour of local rivals 1860 Munich. But had Pel\u00e9 signed for them and stayed a few seasons, he may have played with the likes of Sepp Maier, Gerd M\u00fcller, and his later Cosmos teammate Franz Beckenbauer. What an incredible side that would have been!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to a new series of articles from Last Word on Football. During the coming days and weeks, we will be looking back at some of the historical moments in football and asking \u201cWhat if?\u201d Today, we ask what if Pel\u00e9 joined Bayern Munich in his late teens. What If Pel\u00e9 Joined Bayern Munich in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4762,"featured_media":650179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1364,4,1829],"tags":[53,328,31830],"class_list":["post-650143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bayern-munich","category-bundesliga","category-history","tag-bayern-munich","tag-pele","tag-what-if"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4762"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650143"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":650180,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650143\/revisions\/650180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}