CNN
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Brazilian football player Dani Alves is under investigation for an alleged sexual assault that took place in Barcelona last month, the Catalonia Higher Court of Justice confirmed on Tuesday.

“Barcelona investigating magistrate’s court number 15 has opened proceedings for an alleged crime of sexual assault due to a complaint presented by a woman against a football player for events that allegedly occurred at a Barcelona nightclub this past month of December,” the court’s statement reads.

“The matter is in the investigative phase and at this time we do not have more information.”

A spokesperson for the court confirmed to CNN the allegations concern Dani Alves.

CNN reached out to Mexico’s UNAM, Alves’ current club, for comment from the team and player but did not immediately hear back. Alves denies any wrongdoing, per Reuters.

Alves is one of the most decorated football players of his generation, having won domestic titles in Spain, Italy and France. He also won three Champions League titles with Barcelona.

Alves won the Copa America with Brazil in 2007 and 2019. At 39 years old, he became Brazil’s oldest player to feature at the World Cup while appearing for the national team in Qatar when his team played Cameroon.

CNN
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Born into poverty – he used to kick a grapefruit around Brazil’s Minas Gerais state – Pelé finished his career as arguably soccer’s greatest ever player.

He was that rarity; like Muhammad Ali, Pelé was a sports star, who transcended his sport.

The Brazilian brought joy and creativity to a sport often stuck in rigidity and personified o jogo bonito – “the beautiful game.”

“Pele changed everything,” wrote current Brazil international Neymar Jr. after Pelé’s death was announced.

“He turned football into art, into entertainment. He gave a voice to the poor, to Black people and especially. He gave visibility to Brazil.”

From dazzling as a 17-year-old in 1958 on his way to his first World Cup success to claiming the Golden Ball award as player of the 1970 World Cup as he won a third global title, “O Rei” (“The King”) achieved almost everything possible in the famous yellow and blue of Brazil.

And there were goals – lots of them.

Pelé scored 757 goals in 812 official matches for club and country. However, there is disagreement over just how many goals he scored in his career. According to Reuters, Brazil’s football association and Santos say Pelé scored 1,283 goals in 1,367 matches, though FIFA puts the number at 1,281 goals in 1,366 games.

But it wasn’t just the phenomenal number of goals he scored. As Neymar suggests, Pelé was also an artist on the pitch.

“Even if he did not use a brush, or a pen, but simply had a ball at his feet,” says CNN Sport’s Don Riddell.

The world first got a glimpse of Pelé at the 1958 World Cup.

“When we arrived in Sweden, no one knew what Brazil was. They know about Argentina … Uruguay. It was a surprise for us,” Pelé told CNN in 2016.

At the age of 17 years and seven months, Pelé became the youngest person to play in a World Cup, a record the Brazilian held until Northern Ireland’s Norman Whiteside took that landmark in 1982.

Almost 15 years after leaving the world agog at the 1958 World Cup, Pelé hung up his boots for the Seleção, bequeathing his nation the legacy as the most successful in World Cup history and the most feared team in international football.

Pelé’s crowning moment for Brazil came at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, a tournament further romanticized by being the first World Cup broadcast in color.

Throughout that tournament, Pelé blazed a trail of technicolor splendor, a blur of yellow and gold, beguiling and bewitching opposition teams.

His four goals earned him player of the tournament, capped by an assist to Carlos Alberto’s breathtaking goal in the final against Italy.

“We won the World Cup, and I think in my life in sport (that was the pinnacle), no doubt,” Pelé told CNN.

Italian defender Tarcisio Burgnich summed up Pelé’s superhuman genuis fittingly: “I told myself before the game, he’s made of skin and bones just like everyone else. But I was wrong.”

Even moments when Pelé didn’t score helped cement his legend status – notably England goalkeeper Gordon Banks’ incredible block from the Brazilian’s powerful header in a group game, which is widely considered to be the greatest save of all time.

“The save was one of the best I have ever seen – in real life and in all the thousands of games I have watched since,” wrote Pelé in a 2019 Facebook post in tribute to Banks following the goalkeeper’s death.

“When you are a footballer, you know straight away how well you have hit the ball. I hit that header exactly as I had hoped. Exactly where I wanted it to go. And I was ready to celebrate.

“But then this man, Banks, appeared in my sight, like a kind of blue phantom.”

Despite playing all but three years of his club career with Brazilian side Santos, Pelé’s dynamism, majesty with the ball and lethality in front of goal ensured he became one of football’s first Black global stars.

Pelé admitted to CNN in 2015 that he had plenty of interest from Europe to make the move across the Atlantic, but chose not to out of loyalty and “love” for Santos; yet another reason why he is so beloved in his native country.

“In the past, it was a profession filled with love, now it’s just a profession,” Pelé said.

“There isn’t that love of playing for my club, playing for my country. Clearly, a footballer needs to make a living from the game. It’s different from my time.”

Such was his impact as a soccer player, Pelé also became the symbol of a new country, according to a recent Neflix documentary.

“To cope with that, I think he creates this Pelé character, someone who almost kind of forgoes his own identity to become Brazil essentially,” Ben Nicholas, co-director of the documentary about the Brazilian’s life, told CNN.

As well as shouldering the burden of a country’s aspirations on the world stage, the ascension of the Brazilian military in 1964 that showed interest in football as a tactical and political strategy – in particular, targeting the 1970 World Cup as a “government issue” – presented a problem for the apolitical Pelé, according to the Netflix documentary.

“There’s a really telling line at the end of the film,” the other director of the documentary, David Tryhorn, said, “where you’re expecting Pelé to give us perhaps a ‘Pelé-ism,’ where he would talk about joy and happiness, but he actually talks about ‘relief.’”

The footballing GOAT debate is one which will rage on until the end of time – is it Pelé? Or is it Diego Maradona? Or Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo?

But, Brazil’s pure love and adoration for Pelé cannot be matched and is one which extends further than just an excellent footballer, but to a totem pole for a nation.

CNN
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When dreams clash with reality; when life reaches a daunting crossroads; when we must decide whether to be or make history.

Right now Neymar is at the crossroads.

A 21st century football brand fueled by endless promise; a nouveau-riche social, commercial and cultural phenomena; a superstar who’s no stranger to the scrutiny of the public eye.

Yet when it comes to the bright lights of European football’s biggest stage – the Champions League – he’s trapped in a perpetual cycle of repetition.

A one-time winner, yes – but for some ably assisted by his supremely skilled South American counterparts – Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez – in the once famed ‘MSN’ triumvirate at Barcelona.

On two occasions misfortune has conspired to subvert the Brazilian prodigy’s chances of grabbing the competition by the scruff of the neck in the red and blue colors of Paris Saint-Germain.

So here we are in 2020. Is it third time lucky? Is this Neymar’s moment of truth?

Three games now stand between the ‘Red Pill’ of European enlightenment or the ‘Blue Pill’ of another footnote in the 28-year-old’s lengthening Wikipedia page.

“This is the year that he can really redeem himself […] These three games can change everything […] I don’t believe he’s going to have another opportunity like this one,” Brazilian football journalist Fernando Kallás tells CNN Sport.

Since planting their flag in the cobbled Parisians streets in June 2011, PSG’s Qatari investors have made no secret of their ultimate goal – continental supremacy.

Domestically it’s been an era defined by unrelenting dominance. Seven top-flight league titles and five French cups, including four trebles in six seasons.

But if Europe is a combination lock, they’ve been interminably searching for the locksmith with the elusive key. Seven times they’ve tried and failed to crack the complex code – each failure more painful and bitter than the last.

“A specific timeline was set and once you get past that timeline each season it goes on it seems like PSG are getting further and further away so there’s a weight of history that’s bearing down,” explains French football expert Jonathan Johnson.

The world record signing of Neymar from Barcelona in August 2017 – for a still mind-bending $263 million – was intended to deliver that knight in shining armor.

No longer the back-up singer to Messi and Suarez but now the leading performer with a license to thrill and become the best in the world.

For some it was a game-changer; for Kallás it remains “the biggest mistake in the history of sports.”

READ: How billionaire owners changed European football

Reflecting this past week on the three-year anniversary of his move, the striker wrote that “(these) came with a lot of knowledge. I’ve lived times of joy and some complicated ones.”

His bond with supporters in the city of love has undulated its way through the full gamut of Facebook relationship statuses: From ‘Married’ to ‘Separated’ to ‘It’s complicated.’

All with the allure of a former lover in Catalonia lingering in the background.

A long drawn-out, but ultimately unsuccessful, serenade last summer to woo the Brazilian back to the Camp Nou brought simmering tensions in Paris to the boil.

The love-hate dynamic around the polarizing figure was perhaps best encapsulated in the superstar’s first league appearance of the 2019-20 season.

Relentlessly booed for 90 minutes before delivering a sublime match-winning bicycle kick at the very death – half the naysayers enraptured; the other half enraged.

Kallás paints a picture of jury similarly split down the middle along generational lines in Brazil – the young pretenders who adore “the image, the smile, the tattoos” contrasted with the old guard who are “really concerned about him.”

The Cold War in Paris has since thawed, along with the realization that going back to the future is – for now – not an imminent prospect.

“He has shown on the pitch and off it that he’s committed to the project […] He really has to embrace the challenge of being a PSG player and achieving something, notably in the Champions League, in Paris,” says Johnson.

Whilst a new leaf may have been turned on the pitch, questions remain off it.

Neymar’s personal life has – at times – borne the hallmarks of a gripping telenovela – filled with intrigue, and all supported by an ensembled entourage.

Last year he was cleared of wrongdoing after a Brazilian model accused the former Brazil captain of rape and assault.

This year he was forced to miss a league match through injury – two days after hosting a lavish birthday party in a Paris nightclub.

Those willing him on to succeed despair: Will the boy ever become a man?

“In Brazil we have an expression that says that he (Neymar) is an endless promise […] That he is “Menino Neymar” (“Baby Neymar”) – He’s not a boy […] He needs to be in reality […] He has to grow up,” says Kallás, who has followed the Brazilian’s trials and tribulations on and off the pitch.

“When he’s on the pitch he delivers […] I have never, never heard one complaint from a coach or another player about his attitude in training, in the locker-room.”

And for all the goals, assists and silverware to date, history and biology have dealt the twinkle-toed star a cruel hand – starving him of the opportunity to have his say at the business end of European football’s elite club competition.

Curtailed seasons in 2018 and 2019 due to injuries coincided with dramatic exists for PSG from the round of 16 stage at the hands of Real Madrid and Manchester United, respectively.

“That’s what makes the remainder of this campaign so important and why he’ll be under such close scrutiny,” says Johnson.

The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly – and perhaps favorably for PSG – changed the dynamic for the finale of this year’s tournament.

Gone are the two-legged knockout affairs from the quarterfinal stages onwards, replaced instead by single-leg shoot outs – all within the bubble of Lisbon.

Without the departed sharpshooter Edinson Cavani and the recently sidelined Kylian Mbappé, the floor is Neymar’s.

First the surprise package of Atalanta awaits in the quarterfinals; Then a potential clash with the battle hardened Atlético Madrid in the semifinals and, after that, who knows in a winner-takes-all final.

Whilst progress in the competition would – according to Johnson – “really give the (Qatari) project the shot in the arm that it’s needed after a few years of massive disappointment,” for Kallás, this month could be the beginning of a career defining two years for the individual at the heart of the narrative.

With the Brazilian’s contract set to expire in 2022 and a World Cup in Qatar that same year, which is likely to be his last in a Brazil jersey, it’s quite simply “make or break.”

“We always say ‘This is going to be the year. No – This is going to be the year. No – This is going to be the year’ […] He’s 28-years-old, he should be in the peak of his career but he’s not […] It’s his last chance.”

The telenovela has had its unforeseen plot twists, its moments of madness and its bursts of brilliance. Now it’s in the hands of its lead protagonist to script its showpiece ending.

CNN
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Brazil’s bright yellow jersey is a symbol that unites the country through a love of football and national pride, but over the past two years the shirt’s adoption by right wing supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, who wear it at protests and rallies to show their political allegiance to the Brazilian president, is causing controversy.

That famous yellow jersey was burnt into the imagination of a global audience in the 1970 World Cup. Inspired by the spelbinding performances of Pelé – he wore the number 10 jersey – the yellow shirt has represented Brazil’s success on the pitch and created a positive image worldwide for the past five decades.

That 1970 national team also became embroiled in politics, notably ahead of the World Cup in Mexico when General Medici, the president of a nation under military dictatorship, played a key role in the removal of the coach – Joao Saldanha – who had overseen a perfect qualification campaign.

Fast forward to 2020 and critics of Bolsonaro say the iconic yellow jersey has now become tainted by its close association to the Brazilian president.

Walter Casagrande, a former footballer for the Brazilian national team and the São Paulo club Corinthians, remembers the feeling of scoring a goal while wearing the yellow jersey in his first match with the “selecao” in 1985.

“It was a magical thing,” Casagrande told CNN Sport, “like an enchanted object that gave me huge emotion.”

Casagrande’s sentiments lie on the left side of the political chasm separating Bolsonaro’s supporters and opponents, and he feels an item he cherishes is being misrepresented.

“Now I consider the Brazilian yellow jersey to have been kidnapped and appropriated by the right wing, so we cannot use it.”

Casagrande said that for him the power of the yellow shirt used to be that it represented democracy and freedom.

“Brazil is appearing horribly to the world right now,” he said. “It’s the first time in my life I’m seeing the yellow jersey being used against democracy and freedom.”

READ: 50 years on, 1970 World Cup-winning team remains Brazil’s greatest ever

As quick as the left is to criticize Bolsonaro, his supporters aren’t slow to counter punch.

Cosmo Alexandre, a Brazilian fighter who holds multiple world titles for Muay Thai and Kickboxing believes the left is conflating their many issues with Bolsonaro, and using the jersey as just another way to air grievances.

As a Bolsonaro supporter, Alexandre brushes off accusations that the jersey’s symbolism is being manipulated, and says the reason for supporters to wear a yellow t-shirt is simple: everyone in Brazil has a yellow t-shirt.

He points out that supporters don’t always wear the Brazilian team jersey specifically, and rallies are full of people wearing yellow t-shirts of all kinds.

Alexandre says there is a separation between the jersey’s sporting reputation and associations from what it politically represents.

“Around the world everybody knows about the Brazilian soccer team, so even if I go to a fight and I use the yellow soccer team shirt, everyone knows it’s Brazil,” he said. “So it’s not about politics – it’s just that the world knows about soccer in Brazil.”

It may be easier for some than others to isolate football and politics in a country where football is God.

Josemar de Rezende Jr. is a football fan who co-founded a Bolsonaro volunteer group in his city before the election. He said he’s proud of the Brazilian team’s global reputation for winning, and to him the yellow jersey “means love for the country, leadership, achievement and pride.”

READ: The mystery of the 1998 World Cup final

White and blue kit campaign

Nonetheless, the subject of the yellow jersey has become so divisive that a campaign is underway for Brazil to play in a white shirt.

João Carlos Assumpção, a Brazilian journalist, filmmaker and author of “Gods of Soccer,” a book about the political, sociological and economic history of Brazil, is leading a campaign for the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) to abandon the yellow jersey altogether and go back to the classic white and blue kit from when the program started in 1914.

CNN reached out to the CBF who responded that they choose not to comment on this matter, “as it is a very unique issue.”

“People used to love Brazilian soccer because we used to play very well,” Assumpção said, “and if we play well with the white shirt in 2022 I think everybody’s going to buy a white shirt. It’s going to be very difficult to change, but I think it’s not impossible.”

The white and blue jersey was deemed unlucky when Brazil lost the World Cup at home to Uruguay in 1950 so they switched to the yellow jersey, and won five World Cups wearing it – a finals record that still stands today.

Assumpção’s vision for changing the color of the kit is to say to the world that Brazilians want change in the country. “Not the changes that this government is doing,” Assumpção clarified.

On the other side of the political spectrum, the color yellow, including the yellow jersey, represents a positive change in the country. Bolsonaro supporter Rezende Jr. believes the attempt by the left to reclaim the yellow jersey is an effort to “mischaracterize the government,” which he describes as a “patriotic government that represents and has support from all social classes throughout the nation.”

READ: A pig’s head and riot police: Football’s most controversial transfer

Political turmoil in the country mirrors the fierceness between inter-city football rivalries all across Brazil. Except it is not contained by city boundaries and in recent months has brought fans together.

São Paulo is home to four main clubs: Corinthians, Palmeiras, São Paolo, and Santos. The rivalry between Corinthians and Palmeiras is especially intense, and in June groups from each club joined together in the streets to counter-protest Bolsonaro’s supporters.

Sociologist Rafael Castilho, a Member of the Collective Corinthian Democracy and Coordinator of the Corinthians Study Center said that for Brazil to overcome the current political situation, it will have to “unite different ways of thinking and accept the contradictory.”

Castilho explains the civic responsibility rival clubs feel to support each other and join with civil society movements, “as the country experiences a crisis of party representation and social movements have been intimidated by police action,” he said, adding that “the attitude of fans has gained sympathy because part of society feels represented by the courage of the fans.”

The Corinthians have a history of mixing football and politics. In the 1980s during the pro-democracy movement called Diretas Já, the club team was led by national team leaders Socrates and Casagrande.

The two intertwined football with politics when the team wore jerseys during a game in 1982 displaying the words “VOTE on 15th,” in an effort to motivate their fans to vote in the São Paulo state government election.

Two years later the Corinthians were the center of a movement called Democracia Corintiana, which Casagrande said put more than one million people in the streets dressed in yellow.

“It was a very important moment for Brazilian democracy, and this yellow jersey was central to that movement,” Casagrande said.

The yellow jersey was back on the streets in the 2013 protests against ex-President Dilma Roussef and against corruption. A year before the World Cup was to take place in the South American country, conservative protesters wore shirts that represented the colors of Brazil, while leftist protesters used other colors.

Alexandre and Rezende Jr. both say that yellow is an improvement from the red t-shirts government supporters used to wear when the left was in power, alluding to an underlying support of communism.

“When Bolsonaro started running, his supporters used the yellow color to show I’m Brazilian and I don’t want communism in my country,” Alexandre said.

The fight for the yellow jersey leaves some longing to reclaim a victorious past, while others push forward to create new meaning for the iconic symbol. In a country so deeply rooted in football, it’s an issue that’s unlikely to go away.

Assumpção thinks it’s only possible for the football community and Brazilians not associated with the far right to recover the jersey “maybe in five years or 10, but not now. Not now.”