The Pontiff also spoke about football on Tg1, expressing his preferences regarding the three greatest aces of world football
“Between Maradona and Messi, who do I prefer? I’ll say a third. Pelé”: these are the words of Pope Francis during the long interview granted this evening to the director of Tg1 Gian Marco Chiocci. “Maradona as a player is great, a great man. But as a man he failed. Poor guy slipped with the court of those who praised him and didn’t help him. He came to visit me here the first year of his pontificate and then he had the end. He is curious: many sportsmen end badly. Even in boxing. Messi is very correct. He is a gentleman. But for me of these three the great gentleman is Pelé. A man with a heart. I spoke to Pelé, I met him once on a plane when I was in Buenos Aires, we talked. A man of such great humanity. The three are great. Each with their specialty. Messi is good at the moment. And Pelé was good.”
the sea, the war, the future
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Pope Francis opened by telling a lot about himself, from his mother’s passion for classical music to his girlfriend before taking her vows (“She worked in the cinema, I met her years later, when I was archbishop of Rosario, with her husband and children “), the love for the sea (“But I haven’t been there since 1975, in ’76 I couldn’t due to the coup d’état in Argentina, I never went back”), the climate, homosexuals (“Everyone should be welcomed, no one should be excluded”), of the future (“After me, watch out for backward movers to come”) and of the war (“The war in Syria was the most difficult moment for me”).