Iconic Moments In Football No. 21
This week’s Iconic Moment In Football comes from the 1970 World Cup in Mexico.
Gordon Banks, the world’s greatest goalkeeper at the time provided what was later described as the ‘Save of the Century’ against Pele, the world’s greatest player.
Brazil were playing against World Champions England in the group stages in Guadalajara and in the first half, Carlos Alberto set Jairzinho free down the right wing.
Jairzinho got past Englnd’s left back Terry Cooper and whipped the ball across goal to the far post where Pele was waiting.
Pele outjumped Alan Mullery at the far post and headed the ball down. Gordon Banks in the England goal was scrambling back from his near post, dived down and got a hand to Pele’s header as it bounced up off the turf.
According to Mullery, Pele had already shouted “Gol!” but the England keeper had managed to get enough on the ball to get it over the bar. It took a couple of seconds for everyone in the stadium to fully grasp that the ball hadn’t gone in.
Brazil ended up winning the game 1-0 after Jairzinho scored on 59 minutes. Normally the winning goal would be what would be remembered in a game that finished 1-0 but this save was the moment that everyone was talking about. 50 years on, it is still spoken about regularly and was given a lot of extra coverage last year when Grdon Banks passed away at the age of 81.
The save began a wonderful friendship between Pele and Gordon Banks and they met regularly as you can see from the photo at the top of the article. I went to an FA Trophy Final at the old Wembley in 1997 and the two were the guest appearances for the game!
When asked about the save, Pele said “I am glad he saved my header – because that act was the start of a friendship between us that I will always treasure. Whenever we met, it was always like we had never been apart “
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