Die Arminiageschichte Part 2: "He only scored on on us Once? Not too shabby..."

With the international break upon us, there is no match this weekend for me to get heartburn over, so that means that it would be a good time to delve into a little Arminiageschichte. Now, in the last edition of Die Arminiageschichte, the subject of Bielefeld's very existence was questioned, but this time the metaphysical will be cast aside in favour of a football player who was truly a force of nature, and his run-in with Arminia Bielefeld on a pitch in a rather unlikely place. Perhaps you've heard of this fellow?

Some folks say this guy was pretty good.

Yes. Pele. Everyone loves him, and everyone knows he scored a metric ton or two of goals in his career for FC Santos, the Brazilian national team, and the New York Cosmos, but what most folks don't know is that Pele, as a player for Santos, played against Arminia Bielefeld in a friendly in the United States on 10 June 1973.

I ran across this story on the rather exceptional Arminia Bielefeld blog Blog5 (Blog auf Deutsch), who gave a link to the story surrounding this match from the Vlothoer Anzeiger, the newspaper of record from Vlotho, a town of around 20,000 about a half hour to the northeast of Bielefeld. The story (Link auf Deutsch) is based on Vlotho resident Dieter Preis, who got to play in the Bielefeld-Santos match during his short stint with the club.

Lucky dog.

In the aftermath of the 1971-72 Bundesliga Bribery Scandal (a subject of a future die Arminiageschichte), Arminia Bielefeld was tossed down to the third division of German football, and the young Preis was signed up for the squad. His career with die Blauen ended a bit ignominiously when, despite a ban on alcohol during preseason training, the manager caught him in a tavern with a beer glass in his hand. Despite it being filled with an innocent soft drink, he got the axe. I guess that's a footballer's life for you.

Sitting in the Regionaliga West in the second season after their forced drop, which they finished 11th, the club managed to arrange a friendly with Brazilian giant Santos, led by, of course, Pele. This friendly would, of course, not be held in the cozy Almstadion, but rather the John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as a part of Santos' tour of the US. Bielefeld would get money for the appearance, and the semi-pro players (When Preis wasn't milling about for die Blauen, he was an electrician.) would get their chance to play against Pele and Co.

In front of a crowd of over 60,000 (JFK Stadium's capacity was 75,000), the friendly got underway with Preis sitting on the bench. In the 10th minute, defender Wolfgang Mittendorf had to be replaced because of stomach cramps, and Preis got the unenviable job of defending against Pele. Of course, Preis noted how Pele was a step ahead of everyone else--even at age 34--and at one point slipped through a slew of defenders to score a goal in Santos' 5-0 rout of Bielefeld. After the match, Pele came to the Bielefeld locker room and talked to the players and signed autographs, which Preis showed in his photo above.

Nowadays, Preis is a tennis player for VfL Herford, and recently won the district championship in his age category. However, to Preis, this pales in comparison to the day he shared the pitch with a force of nature in, of all places, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.