Creator of Pele’s toupee
Didi’s hairdresser, 84, has the air of a museum, dedicated almost exclusively to the man who internationalized Brazil and its soccer. His sign, black, with white letters and two Santos shields, give clues to what customers can expect: “Pelé’s hairdresser and you too.”
Crack’s friendship with the barber lasted 66 years. When he was 16, the future ’10’ searched the port city for someone to shape his curly black hair. And he found it in a fan of the eleven albinegro and compatriot from the state of Minas Gerais.
“I remember him when he arrived, he was a little boy, nobody gave anything for him, we thought he was just a good player, not a king. But the guy became a king and died a king,” says Didi.
The teenager Edson Arantes do Nascimento left his first date with his classic toupee, a hairstyle that accompanied him for a good part of his life, even when he won the first two world titles in Brazil (1958, 1962), an unequivocal feat of his legend along with third raised in 1970.
“He liked it a lot and then I cut his hair until he died,” says the hairdresser, who at the time worked in the same establishment today.
The barber calculates that he took care of Pelé’s hair more than a thousand times, almost like the 1,283 goals claimed by the Brazilian idol.
The former player visited him in the small premises, with classical decoration, almost stopped in time, drawing the attention of passers-by. When his health deteriorated, Didi went to his house, in the neighboring municipality of Guarujá.
“He always called me”
The last time he placed his hands on the “king’s” head was last year, before the health of the only footballer to win three World Cups began to deteriorate due to colon cancer that was detected in September 2021. .
“He always called me and I went, but from time to time it was very bad and I no longer went,” he explains, recalling the conversations “about football” he had with the exastro while he attended him in his old chair.
The photographic and video cameras of a handful of journalists record his delicate movements and monkish concentration in the final stretch of a cut, days before Pelé is fired forever in the city that became famous for its soccer stunts.
Didi says that she feels “sadness” for the departure of her friend and loyal client, who, like anyone else, charged 40 reais (about seven dollars) for her services.
“I never had two prices,” he says, before launching a new snip.