"Many say that football is the most beautiful game in the world. I think so too," Pope Francis once declared - and throughout his papacy, he lived those words.
From the streets of Buenos Aires to the halls of the Vatican, the late Pontiff’s love for the beautiful game was no secret. A lifelong San Lorenzo supporter, Jorge Mario Bergoglio consistently brought his passion for football to the highest office in the Catholic Church.
When news of his passing was confirmed on Monday morning, Italy’s Serie A acted immediately, postponing all matches scheduled for Easter Monday, with games now going ahead this evening (23 April.)
It was a poignant gesture - one that reflected the pope's deep bond with the sport, which he viewed as a symbol of camaraderie, fellowship and teamwork. “Soccer is a team sport. You can’t have fun alone,” the pope told a crowd of Italian youth, soccer players and coaches at the Vatican in 2019. “And if it’s lived like that, it can do good for your mind and your heart in a society that is exasperated by subjectivism.”
Like most Argentine children, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was immersed in the world of football from a very early age. He played for hours with friends on pavement or dusty pitches known as “potreros” in his native Flores neighborhood of Buenos Aires.
However, according to his own assessment, he was not that good... In his recently published autobiography “Hope,” Francis said his skills were so poor that he was nicknamed “hard foot.”
Like many in his family, he became a devoted supporter of San Lorenzo, a club founded by priest Lorenzo Massa in 1908. The team won its first Copa Libertadores, the top club tournament in South America, in 2014 - a year after he became pope. The club’s board of directors and a group of players took the trophy to the Vatican.
But for Pope Francis, football was more than just sport. It was a vehicle for peace, connection, and humanity. In 2014, he organised the Vatican’s "Interreligious Match for Peace", inviting players from around the world to participate in a tournament.
That same year, he shared an emotional meeting with his compatriot Diego Maradona, who he described as the "poet of soccer". This came six years before the legendary player’s death in 2020.
Throughout his pontificate, Francis also met with Lionel Messi, who many consider to be the best to ever kick a ball, and welcomed a long list of other footballing greats to the Vatican, from Ronaldinho, Mario Balotelli, Gianluigi Buffon and Andrea Pirlo, to the Croatian national team ahead of UEFA EURO 2024.
The Holy G.O.A.T
In an interview with Italy’s RAI television in 2023, Francis gave his view on who is the greatest football player of all time.
Asked to pick between Maradona and Messi, both generation defying World Cup winning captains, Francis’ opted for another fan favourite.
“I will add a third,” he said. “Pelé."
He met the Brazilian great, a devout Catholic and three-time World Cup winner, before he was elected pope.
“Maradona, as a player, was great. But as a man he failed,” Francis said about the 1986 World Cup winner, who struggled with cocaine use and health issues and died in 2020 at 60. Maradona was celebrated by people who in the end didn’t help him, the pope added.
He described Messi, who lifted the World Cup trophy in 2022, as “very correct” and a gentleman.
“But for me, among those three, the great gentleman is Pelé,” the pope said.
In a message read during a tribute to Pelé in Rio de Janeiro a year after his death in 2022, Francis said “many of the necessary virtues to perform a sporting activity, such as perseverance, stability and temperance, are also part of Christian virtues. Pelé was undoubtedly an athlete who manifested these positive characteristics of sport in his life.”
His love for the sport also inspired pop culture. In The Two Popes, a 2019 biographical drama film starring Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, there’s a touching scene where Francis and Benedict watch the 2014 World Cup Final together - Germany versus Argentina - their theological differences momentarily eclipsed by a shared love for the game.
San Lorenzo, which announced last year it would name its new stadium in his honour, posted an emotional tribute to him on social media following the news of his passing, stating: "He was never just another, and he was always one of us. A Cuervo (nickname for a San Lorenzo fan) as a child and as a man… a Cuervo as a priest and as a Cardinal… a Cuervo even as Pope….."
Several Serie A fixtures, rescheduled from Monday (23 April), go ahead this evening - sure to be marked by moving tributes to the pope who never stopped loving the beautiful game.
