Pepe is 41 years, three months and 29 days old. He is not quite older than water, but he is older than one-third of the nations at this tournament.
Against Turkey, he broke his record for the oldest player to appear at a European Championship.
And remember, Pepe was not supposed to be here.
At 17, growing up in far north-east Brazil, the centre-back had signed a pre-contract agreement with Maritimo in Portugal. This was his big chance to make it in Europe. With five minutes left in his final match at now-dissolved Corinthians Alagoano — not the Corinthians you have heard of — his ankle was snapped by an out-of-control challenge. Weeping, he begged Maritimo’s president to let him join and complete his rehab.
Nine years later in 2009, and by now at Real Madrid, he lashed out at Getafe’s Javier Casquero, lying on the ground, kicking the midfielder in the leg, the back, stamping on his ankle, before punching another Getafe player, Juan Angel Albin, on his way off the pitch. There were calls for Real to cut him loose.
The 2014 World Cup came and went quickly, with Pepe sent off against Germany in the group stage for a headbutt on Thomas Muller. Portugal failed to qualify, pipped by the United States and Ghana. At 31, some thought his international career was over, because hotheads are not still playing after another decade, they combust and retire while they still have knee cartilage. It is not sensible to be playing at 41, but when has Pepe ever been that?
In 2018, he tore his thigh muscle and was released by Turkish club Besiktas with a year and a half left on his contract. They were done with him, but sometimes the greatest quality a footballer can have is not to listen.
Pepe continued to impress against Turkey (Patricia De Melo Moreira/AFP via Getty Images)
Watching Pepe, it sometimes feels like setbacks are what keep him going, an anti-Tinkerbell, his grim determination to cling on and prove the football world wrong.
“I’ve already been dead,” legendary American football coach Pete Carroll once told interviewers, having recovered from two career-shredding sackings. “You can’t kill a dead man.”
Or perhaps there is a strange Benjamin Button quality to his career, a delayed onset to his ageing. A mother’s boy, at 17 he was still sleeping in his parents’ bed — by the time he’s 82, he is probably planning to become the first Portuguese astronaut to spacewalk.
If the longevity of 39-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo is all about clinical efficiency, there is a magical realism to Pepe’s journey. Shaven-headed, jut-jawed and snarling, he is less One Hundred Years of Solitude, more One Hundred Years of Solidity. There are still 59 to go. The boy from Maceio is straight out of Macondo; Love in the Time of Speed and VAR.
The reality is more prosaic. Pepe’s best work is done far away from the pitch on Tuesday lunchtimes and Thursday evenings, in early nights and with plenty of vitamins.
“He uses 24 hours to be a professional,” said Portugal manager Roberto Martinez after their 3-0 win over Turkey. “We know players who prepare for two hours a day, and the rest is life. He makes sure he recovers, he gets the right sleep patterns. The focus is to play another year, another year.
“And the other factor is love. He lives for the game. His genetics, I don’t think you can buy anywhere, but he’s an example of how you can extend your career by preparing for 24 hours a day.”
The surprise about Martinez picking Pepe — a man who is seven years older than the Spaniard was when he began his managerial career — is that it is not a shock. Pepe made 34 appearances this season for Porto, with his distribution still among the best in Portugal’s highly technical Primeira Liga.
Now, he lets his defensive partners be the aggressors in open play. In Manchester City’s Ruben Dias, Pepe has the perfect foil, a centre-back prepared to get grass on his shorts. Once, that was him.
Saturday was his fifth appearance in Dortmund, a veteran of almost a dozen Champions League campaigns. This was slightly different, the Yellow Wall filled instead with Turkish red. Every name on Portugal’s teamsheet is jeered, but this is a man immune to boos at this stage of his career.
During the warm-up, he never moves more quickly than a fast walk, expending most of his energy in three bear hugs with his fellow defenders — Dias, Nuno Mendes, and Joao Cancelo.
In the opening minutes, Turkey’s right side are having their way with Mendes. Pepe is exposed. Yunus Akgun plays a one-two with Zeki Celik and races around Pepe, who thunders after him. The funny thing is that coordination goes first with fear; it is why the prey of tigers and bears are so often found on the ground. Akgun slips — because of course it wasn’t the grass — and Pepe recovers. He heads Celik’s follow-up cross away for good measure.
When Turkey go close again soon after, with Celik’s cross bundled away at the far post by Cancelo, Pepe does not react. He stoops down, and rolls the ball back to his goalkeeper. He’s seen this all before.
There is a quiet studiedness to his game now, but you know what Pepe is capable of, like Clark Kent once he puts on his glasses. That faint menace remains — and you fear for the pitch invader that approaches him rather than Ronaldo.
Pepe is two years older than Ronaldo, 39 (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)
He spends most of the game pointing, directing team-mates. Mendes is his marionette — it is notable that while the 22-year-old struggled in the opening 30 minutes, his positioning improves throughout the match.
When Bernardo Silva opens the scoring, Pepe is the last over, jogging not sprinting, the first time he stopped pointing all match.
Other gestures soon joined the throng. When he received a pass he did not like — from Ronaldo — he stopped, put his studs on the ball, and gestured his faint disgust with two open palms.
If those are Pepe’s soft skills, here is his hardware. After 37 minutes, with Turkey holding an overload in Portugal’s box, he reads Kerem Akturkoglu’s cross and moves to intercept. There are three quick steps, then a right foot like a fencing hammer.
Deep into the second half, with 77 minutes gone and Portugal three goals up, he begins to enjoy himself, strolling upfield with the ball at his feet, moving 30 metres to the verge of the Turkey box. Pedro Neto fails to make anything of the eventual pass, so Pepe wins it back, and gives him another go.
Three minutes later, for his final act of the day, he heads away successive Turkish corners, and is lucky that the ball does not have the wherewithal to sue for common assault.
Antonio Silva is being readied on the touchline. The Benfica defender is 20 and precociously talented, but could still count his age on his hands when Pepe first played for Portugal. This will be his shirt one day.
Pepe was the future once. He’s still the present. Good luck telling him that he’s the past.
(Top photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
Gregory Daniels is your guide to the latest trends, viral sensations, and internet phenomena. With a finger on the pulse of digital culture, he explores what’s trending across social media and pop culture. Gregory enjoys staying ahead of the curve and sharing emerging trends with his readers.
