pele life biography

A member of three Brazilian World Cup-champion teams, Pelé is considered by many to be the greatest soccer player of all time.

(1940-2022)

Who Was Pelé?

Soccer legend Pelé became a superstar with his performance in the 1958 World Cup. Pelé played professionally in Brazil for two decades, winning three World Cups along the way, before joining the New York Cosmos late in his career. Named FIFA co-Player of the Century in 1999, he was a global ambassador for soccer and other humanitarian causes.

Pelé was born Edson Arantes do Nascimento on October 23, 1940 in Três Corações, Brazil, the first child of João Ramos and Dona Celeste. Named after Thomas Edison and nicknamed "Dico," Pelé moved with his family to the city of Bauru as a young boy.

João Ramos, better known as "Dondinho," struggled to earn a living as a soccer player, and Pelé grew up in poverty. Still, he developed a rudimentary talent for soccer by kicking a rolled-up sock stuffed with rags around the streets of Bauru. The origin of the "Pelé" nickname is unclear, though he recalled despising it when his friends first referred to him that way.

As an adolescent, Pelé joined a youth squad coached by Waldemar de Brito, a former member of the Brazilian national soccer team. De Brito eventually convinced Pelé's family to let the budding phenom leave home and try out for the Santos professional soccer club when he was 15.

Soccer's National Treasure

Pelé signed with Santos and immediately started practicing with the team's regulars. He scored the first professional goal of his career before he turned 16, led the league in goals in his first full season and was recruited to play for the Brazilian national team.

The world was officially introduced to Pelé in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. Displaying remarkable speed, athleticism and field vision, the 17-year-old erupted to score three goals in a 5-2 semifinal win over France, then netted two more in the finals, a 5-2 win over the host country.

The young superstar received hefty offers to play for European clubs, and Brazilian President Jânio Quadros eventually had Pelé declared a national treasure, making it legally difficult for him to play in another country. Regardless, Santos club ownership ensured its star attraction was well paid by scheduling lucrative exhibition matches with teams around the world.

More World Cup Titles

Pelé aggravated a groin injury two games into the 1962 World Cup in Chile, sitting out the final rounds while Brazil went on to claim its second straight title. Four years later, in England, a series of brutal attacks by opposing defenders again forced him to the sidelines with leg injuries, and Brazil was bounced from the World Cup after one round.

Despite the disappointment on the world stage, the legend of Pelé continued to grow. In the late 1960s, the two factions in the Nigerian Civil War reportedly agreed to a 48-hour ceasefire so they could watch Pelé play in an exhibition game in Lagos.

The 1970 World Cup in Mexico marked a triumphant return to glory for Pelé and Brazil. Headlining a formidable squad, Pelé scored four goals in the tournament, including one in the final to give Brazil a 4-1 victory over Italy.

Pelé announced his retirement from soccer in 1974, but he was lured back to the field the following year to play for the New York Cosmos in the North American Soccer League, and temporarily helped make the NASL a big attraction. He played his final game in an exhibition between New York and Santos in October 1977, competing for both sides, and retired with a total of 1,281 goals in 1,363 games.

Later Years, Death and Legacy

Retirement did little to diminish the public profile of Pelé, who remained a popular pitchman and active in many professional arenas.

In 1978, Pelé was awarded the International Peace Award for his work with UNICEF. He also served as Brazil's Extraordinary Minister for Sport and a United Nations ambassador for ecology and the environment.

Pelé was named FIFA's "Co-Player of the Century" in 1999, along with Argentine Diego Maradona. To many, his accomplishments on the soccer field will never be equaled, and virtually all great athletes in the sport are measured against the Brazilian who once made the world stop to watch his transcendent play.

Pelé died on December 29, 2022 in São Paulo, Brazil. He was 82 years old.

QUICK FACTS

• Birth Year: 1940
• Birth date: October 23, 1940
• Birth City: Três Corações
• Birth Country: Brazil
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: A member of three Brazilian World Cup-champion teams, Pelé is considered by many to be the greatest soccer player of all time.
• Astrological Sign: Scorpio
• Nacionalities
• Death Year: 2022
• Death date: December 29, 2022
• Death City: São Paulo
• Death Country: Brazil

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Pelé Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/athlete/pele
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E Television Networks
• Last Updated: December 29, 2022
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014
• I was born to play football, just like Beethoven was born to write music and Michelangelo was born to paint.

Black History

Jesse Owens

Naomi Osaka

Johnnie Cochran

Alice Coachman

Wilma Rudolph

Tiger Woods

Deb Haaland

10 Famous Langston Hughes Poems

5 Crowning Achievements of Maya Angelou

Ava DuVernay

Octavia Spencer

• Tournaments

Home › Players › Pelé

B orn on October, 23, 1940 in Minas Gerais, Brazil, Edson Arantes do Nascimento would become more commonly known around the world as Pelé. His father, João Ramos do Nascimento, played professional soccer himself, but his career never brought him much in the way of money. As the legend goes, Pelé’s family could not even afford to buy a ball for him, so he stuffed socks and molded them into the shape of a ball to kick around.

Basic facts

Birth: 1940 Death: 2022 Country: Brazil Position: Forward

Santos FC (1956-1974) New York Cosmos (1975-1977)

Club football: 694 matches, 650 goals National team: 92 matches, 77 goals

Early career

Although he continued to struggle financially in São Paulo, working a variety of jobs to help his family, the young Pelé found his true talent on the field. Under the tutelage of his father and a former national team player named Waldemar de Brito, Pelé began to mature as a player on the Bauru Athletic Club juniors. Coach de Brito recognized his ability and recommended him for a tryout with Santos FC. The team’s management agreed with de Brito’s assessment and signed Pelé in June 1956. A mere three months later, Pelé scored a goal in his debut match. Although few people knew it at the time, this foreshadowed the success to come in the rest of Pelé’s professional career.

Stardom of a youngster

Only a short year later, Pelé topped the list of scorers in the league. His performance, at the tender age of 17, caught the attention of the national team. He would not disappoint. In his first appearance on the world stage, he scored key goals in both the semifinal and the final match of the 1958 World Cup to win it for Brazil . At this point, he had achieved superhero status in Brazil and became a household name around the world. The Brazilian government honored him as a “national treasure,” which elevated his status at home, but also prevented him from taking advantage of offers a broad.

Struggle with injuries

On an individual level, the next two World Cups turned out disappointing due to injuries. The Brazilian side still won the tournament in 1962, but they fell way short in 1966 without their star player—they were eliminated in the group stage. During this era, though, Pelé continued to excel on his club team, Santos. Consistently a top scorer, he often faced teams who had altered their play specifically to deal with the threat he posed. Despite this, he still managed to score 60 goals in the 1964 season and 101 goals the year after that.

Retirement and comeback

By the time 1970 rolled around, Pelé had reportedly decided to hang up his hat and leave while he was on top. However, he was eventually coaxed into playing one last World Cup for Brazil in Mexico on what many consider as the best team in history. Pelé contributed to Brazil’s tournament win with goals and several important assists, earning himself the Golden Ball award for his play. Pelé continued with the Brazilian team for about another year, finally calling it quits in 1971. A few years after that, he said goodbye to his fans at Santos, too. His days as a player were still not over, though.

Late career

Although he had long said that he would only ever play for Santos, he could not resist answering the call from the New York Cosmos in 1975. The North American Soccer League (NASL) represented a significant step down in terms of the level of play that Pelé was accustomed to. The burgeoning league benefitted greatly from this ambassador of the game, though, and ticket sales rose. The American public, largely unfamiliar with the game, took notice. Pelé led the Cosmos to a championship before retiring for good, an event marked by an exhibition match between his adoptive New York team and Santos.

Legacy and life after the football career

At the time of his retirement in 1977, Pelé had amassed a series of seemingly unbreakable records. He had racked up a total of 1,283 goals in 1,363 matches, making him the top scorer in Brazilian national team history and FIFA history. Just as impressively, he managed to pull off 92 hat-tricks. He also set a record for the most FIFA World Cup wins for an individual, with three medals to his name. His early years should not be overlooked, though. The young Pelé burned bright, becoming the youngest player to score a hat-trick and the youngest player to score in a World Cup final match. Retirement saw “O Rei” go on to campaign for a variety of causes, including poverty reduction, anti-corruption movements, and environmental protection. He also received an honorary knighthood, served as the Minister of Sport in Brazil, and assumed the role of a UNICEF Goodwill ambassador. Of course, he never stopped promoting the game throughout the world, including FIFA events and Olympic ceremonies. Perhaps most memorable of all, he popularized the phrase “the beautiful game” as shorthand for the game he loved so much. Generations of enthusiasts have imagined themselves playing with the grace and beauty of “The Black Pearl.” He could strike the ball with astonishing accuracy or flick it off to a teammate through a thick web of defenders’ legs. His iconic goal-scoring bicycle kick in Belgium in 1968 sent young players from all over rushing outside for hours of painful practice. What dazzled many of his fellow players was his uncanny ability to work his way out of almost any situation with sheer skill. For those who have wondered about the origin of the name “Pelé,” the answer proves elusive. Some have claimed that it came from Pelé’s poor pronunciation of the name of a goalie he admired named “Bilé.” According to this version of events, his teammates half-mockingly gave him the name “Pelé” and he could not shake it. Pelé himself has never given a definitive account of how he got the name. In fact, he claimed he never cared for it much. Like so much else in this superstar’s life, though, the magic lies not in minute biographical details or trivia, but in the legacy that Pelé left on the field. Pelé passed away in december 2022, at the age of 82.

By Rosa Nelson

More articles

› Rivellino – King of the Park › Lev Yashin – The Black Spider › Alfredo Di Stéfano – The Blond Arrow

References: http://www.biography.com/people/pel%C3%A9-39221#more-world-cup-titles http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup/10874465/How-and-why-Peles-mystique-and-reputation-as-the-worlds-greatest-ever-footballer-has-been-overhyped.html http://www.goal.com/en/news/60/south-america/2010/10/21/2176031/70-facts-about-brazil-legend-pele Image source: Image sources: 1, 3 FIFA – World Cup Official Film 1970 2 Scanpix

Football Players

• Marco van Basten
• Franz Beckenbauer
• David Beckham
• Dennis Bergkamp
• George Best
• Zbigniew Boniek
• Bobby Charlton
• Johan Cruyff
• Alfredo Di Stéfano
• Steven Gerrard
• Gheorghe Hagi
• Ruud Gullit
• Thierry Henry
• Michael Laudrup
• Diego Maradona
• Gerd Müller
• Michel Platini
• Juan Román Riquelme
• Arjen Robben
• Hugo Sánchez
• Hristo Stoichkov
• Hakan Şükür
• George Weah
• Zinedine Zidane
• Gianfranco Zola

Biography Online

Pele Biography

“I was born for soccer, just as Beethoven was born for music.” – Pele

Pele was born Edson Arantes do Nascimento on 23 October 1940 in Três Corações, Minas Gerais, Brazil. He was named after the American inventor Thomas Edison (his parents removed the i). In his childhood, he gained a nickname ‘Pele’ – after he mispronounced the name of a goalkeeper ‘Bile’ – Initially Pele disliked it and complained, but the more he complained, the more it stuck. Pele has no meaning and was intended as an insult, though later it was found that the word Bilé is Hebrew for “miracle.”

Pele grew up in poverty in São Paulo. He was taught to play football by his father (who used to play football), but often he had to practise with a sock stuffed with newspapers because he could not afford to buy a football. As well as playing football, he worked as a waiter in local tea shops.

In his youth, Pele played in indoor leagues, and this helped increase his speed of reactions. He rose through the youth leagues and at the age of 15 was signed by Santos FC. He was soon marked out as a future star. By the age of 16, he was the top scorer in the Brazilian league and received a call up for the Brazilian national side. Interest was such that the Brazilian President declared Pele a national treasure to prevent him being bought by foreign clubs such as Manchester United.

Pele’s World Cups

1970 World Cup

Style of play

Pele was relatively short at  5″ 8′, but he more than compensated in terms of speed, power, agility and strength. He was superb with both feet, powerful in the air, great timing and accuracy and an extraordinary perception of the game. He could mesmerise defenders with his eyes and send them the wrong way. He had a scoring ratio of 0.94 goals per game and often rose to the big occasion, scoring at crucial moments in big games. Whilst very competitive, he was also considered to be a fair player with good sense of sportsmanship. A good example was his warm embrace of Bobby Moore, the England caption after England’s defeat in the 1970 World Cup. It is sometimes held up as an embodiment of sportsmanship. Without any doubt, he is universally regarded as the greatest player of the twentieth century – if not all time. He is one of the few sportsman like Muhammad Ali and Usain Bolt, who transcend their sport to become a global icon. French footballer Michel Platini said of Pele.

“There’s Pelé the man, and then Pelé the player. And to play like Pelé is to play like God.

In the domestic league, Pele made his debut for Santos aged just 16. He played for Santos in the Brazilian league from until the 1972-73 season.

Pele finished his career in the lucrative US league. In 1975, he signed for New York Cosmos and played three seasons. He led the New York Cosmos to the US title in 1977 – the year of his retirement.

Personal life

Pele was married three times and had several children, some out of wedlock. In 1970, he was investigated by the authoritarian Brazilian government for suspected sympathy to left-wing political prisoners. Pele was investigated for handing out leaflets calling for the release of political prisoners. After the investigation, he did not get involved in politics again.

After retiring has gone on to be a great ambassador for football and sport in general. In 1992, Pelé was appointed a UN ambassador for ecology and the environment. He was also appointed a UNESCO goodwill ambassador. He is not only one of the most gifted footballers of his generation, but, also a mild-mannered man who used his fame and prestige for a positive effect.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “Biography of Pele”, Oxford, UK. www.biographyonline.net. Last updated 8 March 2020. Originally published 18 April 2010.

Some Highlights of Pele’s Career

• Athlete of the Century , by Reuters News Agency: 1999
• Athlete of the Century , elected by International Olympic Committee: 1999
• UNICEF Football Player of the Century : 1999
• TIME One of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century : 1999
• FIFA Player of the Century : 2000

Pele – autobiography at Amazon

Related pages

Skills, charisma, mysticism: The life of football legend Pele

The world bids farewell to one of the greatest footballers ever seen.

Santos, Brazil – A famous sports writer once said that “if Pelé had not been born a man, he would have been born a football”.

Pelé – real name Edson Arantes do Nascimento – one of the greatest footballers the world had ever seen, died on Thursday at the age of 82.

Keep reading

Brazilian football legend pele dies at age 82 brazilian football legend pele dies at ..., pele, brazilian football ‘phenomenon’, leaves unparalleled legacy pele, brazilian football ‘phenomenon’, ..., photos: ‘the king’ pele, a lifetime of football memories photos: ‘the king’ pele, a lifetime of ....

Born in the state of Minas Gerais in 1940, Pelé’s family moved to a nearby city called Bauru looking for a better life. He grew up in poverty and his parents could not even afford a football. An old sock filled with newspapers was the first “ball” his magical feet kicked but it was enough for him to fall in love with the game and for people to start noticing he was different.

When Pelé was 15, a local coach, Waldemar de Brito, took him to play for the football club Santos. Upon arriving in the city that shares the name with the club, Brito told the coach, “This kid will be the best in the world.”

Within minutes, the coach was impressed with Pelé and signed him on the spot. This was 1956. Two years later, Pelé would be in Sweden, spearheading Brazil to a World Cup title, the first of six for the team. He scored two goals in the final against Sweden. He was still 17.

At the final whistle, the wonder kid fainted on the field while being carried by the celebrating crowd.

Pelé was famously easy-going, kind, joyful, and a reliable friend.

“Pelé was always a very nice guy. We would spend so much time talking. He didn’t have any star attitude,” Didi, 84, one of Pelé’s oldest friends and his barber of 55 years, told Al Jazeera.

“I tell my grandchildren that I had one client more famous than anyone else. This is a man who is known more all over the world than Coca Cola. So I feel proud of it and it’s very rare for someone to have a client like this.”

Pelé had a certain way of speaking Portuguese, something he would turn into a trademark. He would constantly finish his sentences with “entende?” which means “understand?”.

It seems he always wanted to make sure to facilitate conversations, just like he would smooth out his teammates’ game.

In addition to skills and charisma, a certain mysticism always surrounded the character of the King of Football. Pelé was from a city called Três Corações, which translates to Three Hearts.

One of his many famous quotes, made at his last match ever played in 1977 in New York, was honouring children and with his limited English, he just said “love, love, love.”

On the pitch, Pelé became an instant celebrity following the 1958 World Cup triumph. Upon returning to Brazil, he helped Santos build a dynasty, winning 25 titles in the 1960s. Despite being world-famous, Pelé kept living a down-to-earth life in Santos. He would share a guest house with other players and cycle around the city.

“The pay was pretty bad but he did it for love of the game and we had so much fun,” Carlos “Lala”, 86, a goalkeeper and Pelé’s former Santos teammate, told Al Jazeera.

Despite being a widely diverse country ethnically, Brazil is not often represented by people of colour. So having someone Black as its biggest celebrity and star had a cultural impact on the country.

Aside from being the world’s best footballer, Pelé also ventured into showbusiness. A lover of music, he recorded an album with Brazilian legendary singer Elis Regina and acted in a handful of movies, making him a pop star as well.

In 1962, Brazil won a second successive World Cup with an injured Pelé supporting the team.

It was in 1970, at the first World Cup broadcasted in colour, that Pelé put the cherry on top of his football legacy. The team that had Clodoaldo, Rivelino and Tostão, put in one of the most celebrated World Cup performances in history.

In the final, a 4-1 win over Italy, Pelé scored a header – the team’s opening goal – that some people said he managed by freezing midair. He celebrated the goal in his typical manner: Jumping and punching the air.

“I told myself before the game that Pelé is made of skin and bones just like everyone else. But I was wrong,” said Tarciso Burnigch, the Italian defender appointed to mark Pelé in the final.

That was Pelé’s 12th and final World Cup goal.

In 1969, he had become the first player to score 1,000 goals. The 1,000th goal was at the Maracanã, in Rio de Janeiro, known as the Mecca of Football.

In 1974, he left Santos and played his final years in New York, at a club called Cosmos.

It was the only team he played for other than Santos and Brazil’s national side.

“As we [the security team] were always with the team, traveling, at the games, we had a lot of contact with them, so we developed a friendship,” Pedro de Liberato, Pele’s security guard, and then his neighbour, told Al Jazeera.

“Pelé was always very joyful, always joking with people,” the 90-year-old added.

Pelé wore the number 10 jersey but he did not know which number he would have and was assigned 10 randomly.

The number 10 jersey has since then become associated with the world’s best – Maradona, Roberto Baggio, Zinedine Zidane and Lionel Messi are just some of them who have worn it.

Pelé retired after playing 1,363 games, winning 37 titles, scoring 1,281 goals, including 92 career hat-tricks.

He spent his post-football life involved in social activism, including being a UNESCO goodwill ambassador.

In 1995, he took public office as minister of sports, introducing the legislation that grants players their own rights after a certain age. Pelé also commented on games for television.

In recent years, Pelé struggled with his health. Aside from battling cancer, he also suffered from severe hip pain and spent most of his last years in a wheelchair.

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Pelé, the Global Face of Soccer, Dies at 82

Pelé, who was declared a national treasure in his native Brazil, achieved worldwide celebrity and helped popularize the sport in the United States.

By Lawrie Mifflin

Pelé, one of soccer’s greatest players and a transformative figure in 20th-century sports who achieved a level of global celebrity few athletes have known, died on Thursday in São Paulo. He was 82.

His death was confirmed by his manager, Joe Fraga. The Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein in São Paulo said the cause was multiple organ failure, the result of the progression of colon cancer.

Pelé had been receiving treatment for cancer in recent years, and he entered the hospital several weeks ago for treatment of a variety of health issues, including a respiratory infection.

A national hero in his native Brazil, Pelé was beloved around the world — by the very poor, among whom he was raised; the very rich, in whose circles he traveled; and just about everyone who ever saw him play.

“Pelé is one of the few who contradicted my theory,” Andy Warhol once said. “Instead of 15 minutes of fame, he will have 15 centuries.”

Celebrated for his peerless talent and originality on the field, Pelé (pronounced peh-LAY) also endeared himself to fans with his sunny personality and his belief in the power of soccer — football to most of the world — to connect people across dividing lines of race, class and nationality.

He won three World Cup tournaments with Brazil and 10 league titles with Santos, his club team, as well as the 1977 North American Soccer League championship with the New York Cosmos. Having come out of retirement at 34, he spent three seasons with the Cosmos on a crusade to popularize soccer in the United States.

Before his final game, in October 1977 at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., Pelé took the microphone on a podium at the center of the field, his father and Muhammad Ali beside him, and exhorted a crowd of more than 75,000.

“Say with me three times now,” he declared, “for the kids: Love! Love! Love!”

In his 21-year career, Pelé — born Edson Arantes do Nascimento — scored 1,283 goals in 1,367 professional matches, including 77 goals for the Brazilian national team.

Many of those goals became legendary, but Pelé’s influence on the sport went well beyond scoring. He helped create and promote what he later called “o jogo bonito” — the beautiful game — a style that valued clever ball control, inventive pinpoint passing and a voracious appetite for attacking. Pelé not only played it better than anyone; he also championed it around the world.

Among his athletic assets was a remarkable center of gravity; as he ran, swerved, sprinted or backpedaled, his midriff seemed never to move, while his hips and his upper body swiveled around it.

He could accelerate, decelerate or pivot in a flash. Off-balance or not, he could lash the ball accurately with either foot. Relatively small, at 5 feet 8 inches, he could nevertheless leap exceptionally high, often seeming to hang in the air to put power behind a header.

Like other sports, soccer has evolved. Today, many of its stars can execute acrobatic shots or rapid-fire passing sequences. But in his day, Pelé’s playmaking and scoring skills were stunning.

Early Success

Pelé sprang into the international limelight at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, a slight 17-year-old who as a boy had played soccer barefoot on the streets of his impoverished village using rolled-up rags for a ball. A star for Brazil, he scored six goals in the tournament, including three in a semifinal against France and two in the final, a 5-2 victory over Sweden. It was Brazil’s first of a record five World Cup trophies.

Pelé also played on the Brazilian teams that won in 1962 and 1970. In the 1966 tournament, in England, he was brutally kicked in the early games and was finally sidelined by a Portuguese player’s tackle that would have earned an expulsion nowadays but drew nothing then.

With Pelé essentially absent, Brazil was eliminated in the opening round. He was so disheartened that he announced he would retire from national team play.

But he reconsidered and played on Brazil’s World Cup team in Mexico in 1970. That team is widely hailed as the best ever; its captain, Carlos Alberto , later joined Pelé on the Cosmos.

“I wish he had gone on playing forever,” Clive Toye, a former president and general manager of the Cosmos, wrote in a 2006 memoir. “But then, so does everyone else who saw him play, and those football people who never saw him play are the unluckiest people in the world.”

Edson Arantes do Nascimento was born on Oct. 23, 1940, in Três Corações, a tiny rural town in the state of Minas Gerais. His parents named him Edson in tribute to Thomas Edison. (Electricity had come to the town shortly before Pelé was born.) When he was about 7, he began shining shoes at the local railway station to supplement the family’s income.

His father, a professional player whose career was cut short by injury, was nicknamed Dondinho.

Brazilian soccer players often use a single name professionally, but even Pelé himself was unsure how he got his. He offered several possible derivations in “Pelé: The Autobiography” (2006, with Orlando Duarte and Alex Bellos).

Most probably, he wrote, the nickname was a reference to a player on his father’s team whom he had admired and wanted to emulate as a boy. The player was known as Bilé (bee-LAY). Other boys teased Edson, calling him Bilé until it stuck.

One of Pelé’s earliest memories was of seeing his father, while listening to the radio, cry when Brazil lost to Uruguay, 2-1, in the deciding match of the 1950 World Cup in Rio de Janeiro. The game is still remembered as a national calamity. Pelé recalled telling his father that he would one day grow up to win the World Cup for Brazil.

He signed his first contract, with a junior team, when he was 14 and transferred to Santos at 15. He scored four goals in his first professional game, which Santos won, 7-1. He was only 16 when he made his debut for the national team in July 1957.

A New Way to Play

When Brazil’s team went to the World Cup in Sweden the next summer, Pelé later said, he was so skinny that “quite a few people thought I was the mascot.”

Once they saw him play, it was a different story. Reports of this precocious Brazilian teenager’s prowess raced around the world. One account told of how, against Wales in the quarterfinals, with his back to the goal, he received the ball on his chest, let it drop to an ankle and instantly scooped it around behind him. As it bounced, he turned — so quickly that the ball was barely a foot off the ground — and struck it into the net. It was his first World Cup goal and the game’s only one, and it put Brazil into the semifinals.

“It boosted my confidence completely,” he wrote in his autobiography. “The world now knew about Pelé.”

The world now knew about Brazilian soccer, too. Pelé undoubtedly benefited from playing alongside other remarkably gifted ball-control artists — Garrincha, Didi and Vavá among them — as well as from Europe’s lack of familiarity with the Brazilian style.

Most European teams used static alignments; players seldom strayed from their designated areas.

Brazil, though, encouraged two of the four midfielders to behave like wingers when attacking. This forced opponents to cope quickly with four forwards, rather than two. Making things more difficult, the forwards often switched sides, right and left, and the outside fullbacks sometimes joined the attack. The effect dazzled onlookers, not to mention opponents.

After the semifinal against France, in which Pelé scored a hat trick in a 5-2 Brazil win, the French goalkeeper reportedly said, “I would rather play against 10 Germans than one Brazilian.”

The team went home to national acclaim, and Pelé resumed playing for Santos as well as for two Army teams as part of his mandatory military service. In 1959 alone, he endured a relentless schedule of 103 competitive matches; nine times, he played two games within 24 hours.

Santos began to capitalize on his fame with lucrative postseason tours. In 1960, en route to Egypt, the team’s plane stopped in Beirut, where a crowd gathered threatening to kidnap Pelé unless Santos agreed to play a Lebanese team.

“Fortunately, the police dealt with it firmly, and we flew on to Egypt,” Pelé wrote in his autobiography.

He had become such a hero that, in 1961, to ward off European teams eager to buy his contract rights, the Brazilian government passed a resolution declaring him a nonexportable national treasure.

Soccer Diplomacy

When Pelé was about to retire from Santos in the early 1970s, Henry A. Kissinger, the United States secretary of state at the time, wrote to the Brazilian government asking it to release Pelé to play in the United States as a way to help promote soccer, and Brazil, in America.

By then, two more World Cups, numerous international club competitions and tireless touring by Santos had made Pelé a global celebrity. So it was beyond quixotic when Toye, the Cosmos’ general manager, decided to try to persuade the player universally acclaimed as the world’s best, and highest paid, to join his team.

The Cosmos had been born only a month earlier, in one afternoon, when all the players had gathered in a hotel at Kennedy International Airport to sign an agreement to play for $75 a game in a country where soccer was a minor sport at best.

Toye first met with Pelé and Julio Mazzei, Pelé’s longtime friend and mentor, in February 1971 during a Santos tour in Jamaica. It took dozens more conversations over the next four years, as well as millions of dollars from Warner Communications, the team’s owner, for Pelé to join the Cosmos.

During that period, he became the top scorer in Brazil for the 11th time, Santos won the 10th league championship of his tenure, and Pelé took heavy criticism for retiring from the national team and refusing to play in the 1974 World Cup, in West Germany.

Toye made his last pitch in March 1975 in Brussels. Pelé had retired from Santos the previous October, and two major clubs, Real Madrid of Spain and Juventus of Italy, were each offering a deal worth $15 million, Pelé later recalled.

“Sign for them, and all you can win is a championship,” Toye said he told Pelé. “Sign for me, and you can win a country.”

To further entice him, Warner added a music deal, a marketing deal guaranteeing him 50 percent of any licensing revenue involving his name, and a guarantee to hire his friend Mazzei as an assistant coach. Pelé signed a three-year contract worth, according to various estimates, $2.8 million to $7 million (the latter equivalent to about $40 million today).

He was presented to the news media on June 11, 1975, at the “21” Club in New York. Pandemonium ensued: Fistfights broke out among photographers, and tables collapsed when people stood on them.

The hubbub continued when Pelé played his first North American Soccer League game, on June 15 at Downing Stadium on Randalls Island in the East River. It was a decrepit home; workers hastily painted its dirt patches green because CBS had come to televise the big debut. More than 18,000 fans, triple the previous largest crowd, shouldered their way in to watch.

At every road game during Pelé’s three North American seasons, the Cosmos attracted enormous crowds and a press contingent larger than that of any other New York team, with many journalists representing foreign networks, newspapers and news agencies. Movie and music stars — including Mick Jagger, Robert Redford and Rod Stewart — showed up for home games, lured by Warner executives’ enthusiasm for their hot new talent.

The Cosmos moved to Giants Stadium in Pelé’s final season, 1977, and there, in the Meadowlands, reached the pinnacle of their — and the league’s — popularity. For a home playoff game on Aug. 14, a crowd of 77,691 exceeded not only expectations but also capacity, squeezing into a stadium of 76,000 seats.

That season, the Cosmos had added two more global superstars, Franz Beckenbauer of West Germany and Carlos Alberto of Brazil. (Later, in 1979, the Los Angeles Aztecs lured a third, Johan Cruyff of the Netherlands, to the league.) Soccer seemed poised to enter the American mainstream.

But as it turned out, professional soccer was not yet ready to blossom in America, not even after the Cosmos won the 1977 league championship, in Portland, Ore., or after Pelé’s festive farewell game in October, when he led the “Love!” chant and played one half for the Cosmos and the other half for the visiting team, his beloved Santos.

The league had expanded to 24 teams, from 18, and lacked the financial underpinnings to sustain that many games and that much travel. Nor could other teams match the Cosmos’ spending on top-quality players. The league went out of business after the 1984 season.

But at the grass-roots level, and in schools and colleges, soccer did take off. In 1991, the United States women’s national team won the first women’s World Cup. (The United States has won it three times since.) In 2002, the men’s national team made it to the quarterfinals of the World Cup. And Major League Soccer has established itself as a sturdy successor to the N.A.S.L. (In 2011, the inaugural season of a new minor league with the N.A.S.L. name included a New York Cosmos team, of which Pelé was named honorary president.)

In June 2014, the city of Santos opened a Pelé Museum just before the start of the World Cup, the first held in Brazil since 1950. In a video recorded for the occasion, Pelé said, “It’s a great joy to pass through this world and be able to leave, for future generations, some memories, and to leave a legacy for my country.”

Advocate for Education

Pelé met Rosemeri Cholbi when she was 14 and wooed her for almost eight years before they married early in 1966. They had three children — Kely Cristina, Edson Cholbi and Jennifer — before divorcing in 1982.

After his divorce, Pelé often appeared in the gossip pages, partying with film stars, musicians and models. He acted in several movies, including John Huston’s “Victory” (1981), with Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone.

It also emerged that he had fathered two daughters out of wedlock. One, Sandra, whom he had refused to acknowledge, later sued for the right to use his surname. She wrote a book, “The Daughter the King Didn’t Want,” which he said greatly embarrassed him. She died of cancer in 2006.

His son, nicknamed Edinho, was a professional goalkeeper for five years before an injury ended his career. He later went to prison on a drug-trafficking conviction.

In 1994, Pelé married Assiria Seixas Lemos, a psychologist and Brazilian gospel singer; their twins, Joshua and Celeste, were born in 1996. They divorced in 2008. In his later years he dated a Brazilian businesswoman, Marcia Aoki, and he married her in 2016.

Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.

His brother Jair Arantes do Nascimento, who was known as Zoca and also played for Santos, died in 2020.

Children always responded warmly to Pelé, and he to them. Neither big nor intimidating, he had a wide, easy smile and a deep, reassuring voice.

“I have never seen another human being who was so willing to take the extra second to embrace or encourage a child,” said Jim Trecker, a longtime soccer executive who was the Cosmos’ public relations director in the Pelé years.

Pelé was sensitive about having dropped out of school (he later earned a high school diploma and a college degree while playing for Santos) and often lamented that so many young Brazilians remained poor and illiterate even as the country had begun to prosper.

Indeed, the day he scored his 1,000th goal, in November 1969 at Maracanã stadium in Rio before more than 200,000 fans, Pelé was mobbed by reporters on the field and used their microphones to dedicate the goal to “the children.” Crying, he made an impromptu speech about the difficulties of Brazil’s children and the need to give them better educational opportunities.

Many journalists interpreted the gesture as grandstanding, but for decades, as if to correct the record, he cited that speech and repeated the sentiment. In July 2007, at a promotional event in New York for a family literacy campaign, he said, “Today, the violence we see in Brazil, the corruption in Brazil, is causing big, big problems. Because, you see, for two generations, the children did not get enough education.”

(On the subject of correcting the record, research for his 2006 biography turned up additional games played, and the authors concluded that the famous 1,000th goal was actually his 1,002nd.)

In London during the 2012 Olympics, Pelé joined a so-called hunger summit meeting convened by the British prime minister at the time, David Cameron, whose stated goal was to reduce by 25 million the number of children stunted by malnutrition before the Rio Olympics in 2016.

Business and Music

Pelé’s own venture into government began in 1995, when he was appointed Brazil’s minister for sport by then-President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Pelé began a crusade to bring accountability to the business operations of Brazil’s professional teams, which were still run largely as gentlemen’s clubs, and to reform rules governing players’ contracts.

In 1998, Pelé’s Law, as it was known, passed. It required clubs to incorporate as taxable for-profit corporations and to publish balance sheets. It required that players be 20 before signing a professional contract and gave them the right of free agency after two years (instead of after age 32).

Many of the provisions were later weakened, and corruption continued, but Pelé said he took pride that the free agency clause had survived.

Business deals gone awry plagued him throughout his life.

He himself said he was often gullible, trusting friends who were less competent than they appeared. In 2001, a company he had helped found a decade earlier, Pelé Sports and Marketing, was accused of taking enormous loans to stage a charity game for Unicef and then not repaying the money when the game failed to happen. Pelé shut down the company; Unicef said there had been no wrongdoing on his part.

While continuing to promote educational programs throughout his life, Pelé also pursued his musical avocation. He was never far from a guitar, and he carried a miniature tape recorder to capture tunes or lyrics as the mood struck him.

He composed dozens of songs that were recorded by Brazilian pop stars, usually without his taking credit.

“I didn’t want the public to make the comparison between Pelé the composer and Pelé the football player,” he told the British newspaper The Guardian in 2006. “That would have been a huge injustice. In football, my talent was a gift from God. Music was just for fun.”

As he grew older, he often spoke of the difficulty of distinguishing between two personas: his real self, and the soccer superstar Pelé. He often referred to Pelé in the third person.

“One of the ways I try to keep perspective on things,” he wrote in his autobiography, “is to remind myself that what people are responding to isn’t me, necessarily; it’s this mythical figure that Pelé has become.”

His face remained familiar around the world long after his retirement from soccer. In 1994, when the World Cup was about to be played in the United States, Pelé sat in Central Park in New York waiting to be interviewed for ABC News. A teenager passed, did a double-take and then ran off; within minutes, people were streaming across the park to see him.

“There were hundreds of them,” Toye wrote in his own memoir. “Seventeen years after he last kicked a ball, this dark-skinned man is sitting in deep, dark shade under the trees — but he is still recognized, and once recognized, never alone in any country on earth.”

An earlier version of this obituary misstated the location of the 1977 North American Soccer League championship game, which Pelé’s team, the New York Cosmos, won. It was in Portland, Ore., not Seattle. The earlier version also misspelled the given name of one of Pelé’s daughters. She is Kely Cristina Nascimento, not Kelly.

How we handle corrections

Pele Biography Facts, Childhood, Career, Personal Life

Edson Arantes do Nascimento (born 23 October 1940) popularly known as Pele, is a retired Brazilian footballer who played football professionally for 21 years. During those years, Pele established himself as the best in the world, and to date, only a very few players have carried the same momentum as Pele did during his football days. Pele is regarded by pundits as one of the best players in the history of football. From his youth to his retirement, Pele was a sight to behold on the pitch. Even after his exit from the pitch, Pele still remains a noteworthy figure in football as his performance is often used as a sort of benchmark for young stars dominating football in the modern age. In this article on Pele biography facts, childhood, career and personal life, we’ll review the life of the football legend

Table of Contents

Pele’s Biography Facts, Age, Quick Info

Here are some quick facts that you need to know about the retired Brazilian football legend.

• Full Name: Edson Arantes do Nascimento
• Nicknames: Pele, Dico
• Date of Birth: 23 October 1940
• Age: 83 years old
• Place of Birth: Três Corações, Brazil
• Nationality: Brazilian
• Zodiac sign: Libra
• Height: 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m)
• Weight: 73 kg
• Father: João Ramos do Nascimento
• Mother: Celeste Arantes
• Siblings: Zeca Nascimento (brother), Maria Lúcia Nascimento (sister)
• Wife: Marcia Aoki (married 2014)
• Sons: Edson Cholbi Nascimento, Joshua Nascimento
• Daughters: Sandra Regina Arantes do Nascimento, Kelly Cristina Nascimento, Flávia Christina Kurtz Nascimento, Celeste Nascimento, Jennifer Nascimento, Sandra Machado

Pele’s Early Life & Childhood

Edson Arantes do Nascimento is the eldest of two children born on 23 October 1940, to Dondinho and Celeste Arantes in Três Corações located in Brazil. Pele whose father was a footballer grew up in a poverty affected area, precisely in Bauru in Brazil. He was named after the renowned inventor, Thomas Edison. His parents decided to remove the ‘i’ in his name. But mistakes made in his birth certificate showed his name as Edison. 

Edson Arantes got the moniker ‘Pele’ after he mispronounced the name of a player he adored, goalkeeper of Vasco da Gama, Bilé. After he repeatedly mispronounced the name, he was named Pele, and despite efforts to make his peers stop calling his nickname, they continued and thus the name stuck. 

Pele was trained to play football by his father. But because he could not afford a ball, he placed socks in newspaper and attached it a string or grapefruit. As he grew Pele joined local football teams such as Bauru Athletic Club juniors, where he went on to win two Sao Paulo Youth Championship. He played in various local football competitions against adults and in one of those competitions, despite concerns that he was too young, Pele dominated and thus ended up as the tournament top scorer. 

Pele’s Professional Football Career

Santos fc (1956–1974).

• Appearances: 638

Pele’s coach at youth team Bauru Athletic Club juniors, Waldemar de Brito, took 15 years old Pele to a tryout for Santos FC. Brito told Santos executive that Pele will be the greatest player in the world. Pele convinced Santos coach during the tryout and he signed a contract with the club. Santos prided Pele as a star to the media and he confirmed that by his performance. 

Following the 1962 World Cup, where Pele was amazingly brilliant, top European clubs such as Real Madrid tried to sign him. Inter Milan succeeded in getting a regular contract with him, but following the intense protest of Santos fan, former owner of Inter Milan, Angelo Moratti tore the contract following the request of Santos coach. Pele’s popularity was so much that the government, especially, ex-President, Jânio Quadro declared Pele a national treasure, so as to prevent him from bing transferred away from Brazil. 

He earned his first trophy with Santos in 1958, the Campeonato Paulista. He finished as the tournament top scorer with 58 goals, a record which has not been broken till date. He continued in top form, helping Santos claim several trophies. In 1962, he won the first most prestigious title in South America, the Copa Libertadores. He went on to win the title the next year, but following the 1964 Copa Libertadores, Santos began experiencing a decline in form but Pele’s form remained intact. Despite the fact that Pele was not playing in top European leagues, his fame was widely proclaimed. In 1967, at the height of the Civil war in Nigeria, a ceasefire was announced for 48 hours, just to watch Pele play an exhibition game in Lagos, Nigeria.

New York Cosmos (1975–1977)

• Appearances: 56

After playing for 19 seasons for Santos, he retired from Brazilian club football in 1974, but two years later, he went on to play for New York Cosmos in the North American Soccer League (NASL). Pele’s presence in America increased interest in football in America. While he played for Cosmos, he played in exhibition matches in various countries such as in Lebanon, weeks before the Civil war began. He played for Nejmeh against the Lebanese league stars. About 40,000 gathered to watch the game. In his final season at Cosmos, he led his team to win the NASL championship. As he decided to retire from football, an exhibition match was held between Santos and Cosmos in front of a sold-out crowd at the Giants stadium.

Pele’s International Career

Brazil national team (1957–1971).

• Appearances: 77

At the age of 16, Pele earned his first international goal and thus became Brazil youngest goalscorer, a record he still holds. At the 1958 World Cup, Pele was the youngest in the tournament and had performed brilliantly helping Brazil trash Sweden 5-1 in the final. He became the youngest player to play in the final of a world cup and was named the tournament’s best young player. He was granted the no. 10 jersey in the tournament following disorganisation which led FIFA to hand out jersey numbers. 

At the 1959 South American Championship, he was in amazing form as he emerged the best and top scorer in the tournament. In the 1962 World Cup, he was in astounding form as he led Brazil to another World Cup title. In the 1966 World Cup, Brazil was not successful, but Pele who was in amazing form became the first player to score in three successive World Cup tournaments. In a game against Portugal which Brazil lost, Pele was subject to fouls, but the referee did not send the player off, which led him to declare he’ll no longer play football again, a decision he later rescinded. 

In the 1970 World Cup, Pele who initially refused to play in the tournament led Brazil to victory once again. In the final of the tournament, Pele was involved in what is known as the greatest team goal history. He was awarded the Golden ball title. He played his last International game against Yugoslavia in Rio de Janeiro in 1971.

Pele’s Personal Life, Wife, Marriages

Pele has been unsuccessful in two marriages. He married Rosemeri dos Reis Cholb in February 1966. The couple who divorced in 1982, gave birth to three children. The Union’s only son, Edson Cholbi Nascimento, a former goalkeeper was convicted of money laundering from drug trafficking and was sentenced to 33 years in prison, which was later reduced to 12 years. In 1994, Pele got married to Assíria Lemos Seixas, and they gave birth to twins in 1996. In 2008, they divorced. In 2016, he got married to Marcia Aoki. 

Pele is said to be the father to Sandra Machado, the daughter of a housemaid, who Pele had relations with. Pele refused to submit to DNA testing and also refused to acknowledge that he was her father even after her death in 2006. Courts, however, ruled that he is her father. In 1970, the Brazilian Military dictatorship investigated him for sympathies towards the leftist. 

In 1976, a coup occurred in Nigeria and Pele was in the country on a trip which was sponsored by Pepsi. He went on to stay at the residence of the Brazilian ambassador before he left the country disguised in pilot’s clothing. 

Pele’s right kidney was removed in 1977. In 2019, Pele had urinary tract infection. 

In 2020, his son, Edson, revealed he could no longer walk. 

SEE MORE: Biography facts, early-life, careers and personal life of famous footballers .

Facts Check

At SportyTell.com, we strive for fairness and accuracy.

If you have concerns about something that doesn’t look right in this Pele Biography Facts, Childhood, Career, Personal Life, please don’t hesitate to contact us .

About The Author

SportyTell Editors

This article was created by a combination of a few writers and editors from Sporty Tell. It's not rare for our writers and team members to collaborate and work together to create the articles you read on the site. This is just one of these examples. This is why you don't see just one author for this article.

Related Posts

A young talent

Edson Arantes Do Nascimento, who took the name Pelé, was born on October 23, 1940, in Tres Coracoes, Brazil, the son of a minor league soccer player. Pelé grew up in an extremely poor neighborhood, where one of the only sources of entertainment for a poor boy was to play soccer, barefoot and with a makeshift ball. Many players on the Brazilian soccer fields gained nicknames that had no apparent meaning. His father was dubbed "Dondinho" and young Edson took the name "Pelé," though he does not recall how or why he picked up the name.

Pelé was coached by his father and the hard work soon paid off, for when he was eleven Pelé played for his first soccer team, that of the town of Bauru, Brazil. He moved up in competition with outstanding play and soon was one of the best players on the team. At the age of fifteen his mentor (an advisor), former soccer star Waldemar de Brito, brought him to Sao Paulo to try out for the major league teams. Pelé was quickly rejected. De Brito then took Pelé to Santos where he earned a spot on the soccer team. There, Pelé earned nearly five thousand cruzeiros (about sixty dollars) per month to play soccer. He soon received broader exposure when he was loaned to the Vasco da Gama team in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

International play

In 1958 Pelé went to Stockholm, Sweden, to compete in the World Cup championship, the soccer championship that brings together all of the soccer-playing nations for one tournament. His play there helped his country win its first title as Pelé scored two goals in a dramatic 4-2 win over Sweden. He returned to Santos, and his team went on to win six Brazilian titles. In 1962 he again played on the Brazilian team that won the World Cup, but an injury forced him to sit out the contest.

Soccer is a low scoring game, but on November 19, 1969, before a crowd of one hundred thousand in Rio de Janeiro, Pelé scored his one thousandth goal. He lead the Sao Paolo League in scoring for ten straight seasons. He was not only a high scorer, but a master of ball handling as well. It seemed the ball was somehow attached to his feet as he moved down the field.

In 1970 Pelé again played for Brazil's World Cup team, and in Mexico City, Mexico, they beat Italy for the championship. It was Pelé's play, both in scoring and in setting up other goals, that won them the title. When he announced that he would retire from international competition after a game to be played July 18, 1971, plans were made to televise the event throughout the world. By the time he left the game he had scored a total of 1,086 goals.

After Pelé retired, he continued to play until he was signed to play for the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League for a reported three-year, $7 million contract. A year later New York was at the top of their division, and in 1977 the Cosmos won the league championship. Pelé retired for good after that victory, but continued to be active in sports circles, becoming a commentator and promoter of soccer in the United States. When the World Cup was played in Detroit, Michigan, in 1994, Pelé was there, capturing the hearts of millions of fans around the world. Later that spring, he married his second wife, Assiria Seixas Lemos. In May of 1997, he was elected Minister of Sports in his home country of Brazil.

On December 11, 2001, the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) named Pelé, along with Argentina's Diego Maradona, as the men's players of the century.

For More Information

Bodo, Peter, and David Hirshey. Pelé's New World. New York: Norton, 1977.

Canazares, Susan, and Samantha Berger. Pelé, the King of Soccer. New York: Scholastic, 1999.

Harris, Harry. Pelé: His Life and Times. New York: Parkwest, 2002.

Marcus, Joe. The World of Pelé. New York: Mason/Charter, 1976.

Pelé. My Life and the Beautiful Game. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977.

User Contributions:

Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic:.

Pelé, Brazil’s mighty king of ‘beautiful game,’ has died

Brazilian soccer legend Pelé has died in São Paulo at the age of 82.

FILE - Brazil’s soccer legend Pele attends the opening of an exhibit about his life titled King’s Marks, in Brasilia, Brazil, June 25, 2008. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)

• Copy Link copied

FILE - Brazil’s Pele wears his national team’s jersey in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, May 25, 1962. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - Brazilian soccer legend Pele smiles during a media opportunity at a restaurant in London, March 20, 2015. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)

FILE - Soccer star Pele, of the New York Cosmos, listens to the star-spangled banner prior to a playoff game between the Cosmos and the Rochester Lancers in Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey, Aug. 24, 1977. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo/Ray Stubblebine, File)

FILE - Brazil’s Pele is hoisted on the shoulders of his teammates after Brazil won the World Cup final against Italy, 4-1, in Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca, June 21, 1970. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - Argentine soccer star Diego Armando Maradona, left, rests in a hammock with Brazilian soccer star Pele, during a meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, May 13, 1995. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo/G. Copolla, File)

FILE - Brazilian soccer star Pele relaxes after a workout in Santos, Brazil, June 3, 1975. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - Soccer superstar Pele, waving the flags of Brazil and the U.S., is carried off the field in driving rain by players of both teams at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., after his final game, Oct. 1, 1977. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

FILE - Brazilian soccer legend Pele waves prior to the African Cup of Nations final soccer match between Ivory Coast and Zambia at Stade de L’Amitie in Libreville, Gabon, Feb. 12, 2012. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo/Francois Mori, File)

FILE - Brazil’s Pele scores past Venezuela’s goal keeper Fabrizio Fasano in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Aug. 24, 1969. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - Soccer player Pele embraces boxer Muhammad Ali during a ceremony honoring the Brazilian soccer star of the New York Cosmos at Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, N.J., Oct. 1, 1977. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

FILE - Brazil’s soccer star Pele bicycle kicks a ball during a game at unknown location, Sept. 1968. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo File)

FILE - Brazil’s 17-year-old Pele weeps on the shoulder of goalkeeper Gylmar Dos Santos Neves after Brazil’s 5-2 victory over Sweden in the final of the soccer World Cup in Stockholm, Sweden, June 29, 1958. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo File)

FILE - Pele reacts after heading the ball during a soccer match between the Cosmos and the Toronto Metro-Croatia in New York’s Downing Stadium, June 19, 1975. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo/ Richard Drew, File)

FILE - Brazilian soccer star Pele waves to admirers, as he and his bride Rosemeri ride in a traditional horse-drawn carriage as they tour Salzburg, Austria, Feb. 25, 1966. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo/Klaus Frings, File)

FILE - Brazilian soccer star Pele and his wife Rosemeri pose for a photo with their daughter Kelly, in an unknown location, June 1967. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - Brazilian soccer great Pele, and English soccer star David Beckham pose for photos during a U.S. Soccer Foundation fundraising gala, in New York, March 19, 2008. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow, File)

FILE - Brazilian soccer star Pele, his wife Rosemeri pose for a photo with their daughter Kelly, and newborn son Edson, in an unknown location in Brazil in 1976. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo File)

FILE - Brazil’s soccer legend Pele greets the crowd ahead of a Spanish league soccer match, in the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid, Jan. 16, 2005. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo/Jasper Juinen, File)

FILE - Brazilian soccer legend Pele is pushed in a wheelchair as he arrives at the 2018 World Cup soccer draw at the Kremlin in Moscow, Dec. 1, 2017. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev, File)

FILE - Soccer player Neymar, left, and Brazalian soccer legend Pele, share a laugh during a centennial anniversary celebration of the team in Santos, Brazil. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo/Nelson Antoine, File)

FILE - Pele gives a soccer demonstration during the taping of the Johnny Carson Show at NBC-TV studios in New York, May 9, 1973. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - Brazilian soccer star Pele, and New York Cosmos coach Julio Mazzei, embrace at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., April 16, 1982. Mazzei helped persuaded Pele to play in the United States and coached the Cosmos to a North American Soccer League title in 1982. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo/Seth Rubenstein, File)

FILE - Brazilian soccer great Pele poses with Paul Kemsley, second right, chairman of the New York Cosmos, during a press conference in Hong Kong, March 7, 2011. Pele was in here to promote the rebirth of the Cosmos, hoping for the team to begin play in 2014. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu, File)

FILE - Pele is carried off the Giants Stadium field by his New York Cosmos teammates after his final soccer game, in East Rutherford, New Jersey, Oct. 1, 1977. Smiling and looking up at Pele are Giorgio Chinaglia of Italy and Erol Yasin of Turkey, center. Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died in Sao Paulo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022. He was 82. (AP Photo/Bill Kostroun, File)

SAO PAULO (AP) — Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died Thursday. He was 82.

The standard-bearer of “the beautiful game” had undergone treatment for colon cancer since 2021. The medical center where he had been hospitalized for the last month said he died of multiple organ failure as a result of the cancer.

“Pelé changed everything. He transformed football into art, entertainment,” Neymar, a fellow Brazilian soccer star, said on Instagram. “Football and Brazil elevated their standing thanks to the King! He is gone, but his magic will endure. Pelé is eternal!”

A funeral was planned for Monday and Tuesday, with his casket to be carried through the streets of Santos, the coastal city where his storied career began, before burial.

Widely regarded as one of soccer’s greatest players , Pelé spent nearly two decades enchanting fans and dazzling opponents as the game’s most prolific scorer with Brazilian club Santos and the Brazil national team.

His grace, athleticism and mesmerizing moves transfixed players and fans. He orchestrated a fast, fluid style that revolutionized the sport — a samba-like flair that personified his country’s elegance on the field.

He carried Brazil to soccer’s heights and became a global ambassador for his sport in a journey that began on the streets of Sao Paulo state, where he would kick a sock stuffed with newspapers or rags.

In the conversation about soccer’s greatest players, only the late Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are mentioned alongside Pelé.

Different sources, counting different sets of games, list Pelé’s goal totals anywhere between 650 (league matches) and 1,281 (all senior matches, some against low-level competition.)

The player who would be dubbed “The King” was introduced to the world at 17 at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, the youngest player ever at the tournament. He was carried off the field on teammates’ shoulders after scoring two goals in Brazil’s 5-2 victory over the host country in the final.

Injury limited him to just two games when Brazil retained the world title in 1962, but Pelé was the emblem of his country’s World Cup triumph of 1970 in Mexico. He scored in the final and set up Carlos Alberto with a nonchalant pass for the last goal in a 4-1 victory over Italy.

The image of Pelé in a bright, yellow Brazil jersey, with the No. 10 stamped on the back, remains alive with soccer fans everywhere. As does his trademark goal celebration — a leap with a right fist thrust high above his head.

Pelé’s fame was such that in 1967 factions of a civil war in Nigeria agreed to a brief cease-fire so he could play an exhibition match in the country. He was knighted by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II in 1997. When he visited Washington to help popularize the game in North America, it was the U.S. president who stuck out his hand first.

“My name is Ronald Reagan, I’m the president of the United States of America,” the host said to his visitor. “But you don’t need to introduce yourself because everyone knows who Pelé is.”

Pelé was Brazil’s first modern Black national hero but rarely spoke about racism in a country where the rich and powerful tend to hail from the white minority.

Opposing fans taunted Pelé with monkey chants at home and all over the world.

“He said that he would never play if he had to stop every time he heard those chants,” said Angelica Basthi, one of Pelé’s biographers. “He is key for Black people’s pride in Brazil, but never wanted to be a flagbearer.”

Pelé’s life after soccer took many forms. He was a politician -- Brazil’s Extraordinary Minister for Sport -- a wealthy businessman, and an ambassador for UNESCO and the United Nations.

He had roles in movies, soap operas and even composed songs and recorded CDs of popular Brazilian music.

As his health deteriorated, his travels and appearances became less frequent. He was often seen in a wheelchair during his final years and did not attend a ceremony to unveil a statue of him representing Brazil’s 1970 World Cup team. Pelé spent his 80th birthday isolated with a few family members at a beach home.

Born Edson Arantes do Nascimento, in the small city of Tres Coracoes in the interior of Minas Gerais state on Oct. 23, 1940, Pelé grew up shining shoes to buy his modest soccer gear.

Pelé’s talent drew attention when he was 11, and a local professional player brought him to Santos’ youth squads. It didn’t take long for him to make it to the senior squad.

Despite his youth and 5-foot-8 frame, he scored against grown men with the same ease he displayed against friends back home. He debuted with the Brazilian club at 16 in 1956, and the club quickly gained worldwide recognition.

The name Pelé came from him mispronouncing the name of a player called Bilé .

He went to the 1958 World Cup as a reserve but became a key player for his country’s championship team. His first goal, in which he flicked the ball over the head of a defender and raced around him to volley it home, was voted as one of the best in World Cup history.

The 1966 World Cup in England — won by the hosts — was a bitter one for Pelé, by then already considered the world’s top player. Brazil was knocked out in the group stage and Pelé, angry at the rough treatment, swore it was his last World Cup.

He changed his mind and was rejuvenated in the 1970 World Cup. In a game against England, he struck a header for a certain score, but the great goalkeeper Gordon Banks flipped the ball over the bar in an astonishing move. Pelé likened the save — one of the best in World Cup history — to a “salmon climbing up a waterfall.” Later, he scored the opening goal in the final against Italy, his last World Cup match.

In all, Pelé played 114 matches with Brazil, scoring a record 95 goals, including 77 in official matches.

His run with Santos stretched over three decades until he went into semi-retirement after the 1972 season. Wealthy European clubs tried to sign him, but the Brazilian government intervened to keep him from being sold, declaring him a national treasure.

On the field, Pelé’s energy, vision and imagination drove a gifted Brazilian national team with a fast, fluid style of play that exemplified “O Jogo Bonito” -- Portuguese for “The Beautiful Game.” His 1977 autobiography, “My Life and the Beautiful Game,” made the phrase part of soccer’s lexicon.

In 1975, he joined the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League. Although 34 and past his prime, Pelé gave soccer a higher profile in North America. He led the Cosmos to the 1977 league title and scored 64 goals in three seasons.

Pelé ended his career on Oct. 1, 1977, in an exhibition between the Cosmos and Santos before a crowd in New Jersey of some 77,000. He played half the game with each club. Among the dignitaries on hand was perhaps the only other athlete whose renown spanned the globe — Muhammad Ali.

Pelé would endure difficult times in his personal life, especially when his son Edinho was arrested on drug-related charges. Pelé had two daughters out of wedlock and five children from his first two marriages, to Rosemeri dos Reis Cholbi and Assiria Seixas Lemos. He later married businesswoman Marcia Cibele Aoki.

Azzoni reported from Madrid.

AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Pele: Life Story, Bio and Facts

Pele is a name no soccer fan can do without, and the man is touted to be the best soccer player the world ever saw.

Pele did not have the world handed over to him on a silver platter, he worked his way sweat and blood to the upper echelons of sports persons.

What is it that had the young man get back onto his feet every time he was tackled to the ground? What inspired him to take no notice of buffeted bones in his body, and return to the soccer field at the earliest?

The answer to the questions posed is something that you must experience to believe. When your work is not just work but the element that defines you, and when you derive satisfaction that is greater than any pain that can be inflicted on you, nothing else matters, and you plough on.

Pele was born Edson Arantes Do Nascimento on 3 October 1940. His father was a soccer player who was forced to retire from the game when he fractured his leg.

Young Pele grew up in poverty, and used to polish shoes to help contribute to the family income. The boy showed great interest for, and talent in, soccer and was playing for a local minor league club when he got his first break.

The 11-year-old Pele caught the eye of Waldemar de Brito, a premier player of the nation. Brito is said to have presented Pele to skeptical directors at Santos, boldly stating that Pele would be the greatest soccer player in the world. Whether or not he truly believed in his passionate statement at the time he made it remains immaterial.

Pele proved himself to Santos when, at the age of 16, he scored a goal in his very first mainstream match, which was against Corinthians FC.

The world began to sit up and pay attention when a 17-year-old Pele scored a whopping 6 goals during the 1958 World Cup, thereby leading the Brazil National Team to victory. Brazil won its first World Cup that year.

With word of his brilliant performances spreading like wildfire, and a wide range of sports clubs showing unmasked interest in having Pele play for them, Brazil declared its star soccer player a national treasure, thereby barring Pele from playing for any non-Brazilian club or corporation.

Pele was a vision when on the field, with his agile 5 ft. 8 inches frame swiftly running across the arena, his deft feet expertly dribbling the ball. Besides being hailed for his extraordinary command on the ball and powerful kicks, Pele also commanded admiration for his powerful head shots.

In 1962, Pele was unable to play alongside his team during World Cup as he sustained severe injuries during the first match of the tournament. However, in 1970, Pele led his team to win what would be the 3rd World Cup for his nation.

His goal was precious in more ways than one – not only was it Brazil’s 100th World Cup goal, but it was also a goal that was close to Pele’s heart as he had scored it with his head. Pele’s dad was adept at headshots, and is reported to have made 5 headshot goals in a single match, and the move was special for Pele.

Pele’s score board is stunning. In all, the master soccer player has scored 1,280 goals, and is second only to Arthur Friedenreich, another Brazilian soccer player with 1,329 goals in his kitty. Pele’s average worked out to one goal at every international game. 92 hat tricks and 97 international goals are the statistics that place his at the top of his game, with his statistics being the highest ever.

After he retired, Pele returned to active soccer for a short span of 2 years to promote soccer in North America. He played in the North American Soccer League to attract the interest of millions of Americans towards the “beautiful game” of soccer.

He played an exhibition game between Cosmos and Santos, playing for the former during the first half, and for the latter team during the second half. He used his popularity to spread the message of love and peace among the followers of the game, and had crowds chanting “Love! Love! Love!” during the exhibition match.

Pele invested a lot of time and effort to advance the popularity of soccer. He penned autobiographies, and even starred in various documentary and semi-documentary films that focused on soccer, or on his life as a soccer player.

Towards the end of his soccer career, Pele also went to display his acting skills, and he is also a musician. His other talents, too, were invested to promote soccer and goodwill among populations.

Lessons from Pele's story

All that a person who thumbs down Pele’s biography will see are a series of success stories, with glorious inputs from the player himself, sports commentators and ecstatic audiences highlighting the legend’s prowess on the field.

Few care to recount the instances when Pele suffered grievous wounds during a game and quit the field in tears, only to return better than before for the next match. Here is the sportsmanship that propelled the player to be the man he is.

The world of soccer would still be waiting for its king if Pele was an ordinary player who was on the field for merely fame or money, rather than for true passion for the sport.

One lesson that can be learnt from Pele's story, therefore, is that the key to success is to indulge in that which your heart lay.

Another lesson is that a successful man is not the one who does not meet failure, but the one who accepts failure as a part of his learning process and moves on. An adult who is trying to attain a set goal must be like a toddler learning to walk - not afraid of falling down, and getting up every time he falls down to try and walk again, one step at a time.

Short Bio: Who is Pele?

Pele is the nickname of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, a retired Brazilian professional soccer player. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest soccer players of all time. Pele began his professional career as a teenager with Santos FC in Brazil and quickly became one of the most successful soccer players of his generation. He helped Santos win multiple Brazilian league titles and international club competitions.

Pele's performances with Santos earned him a call-up to the Brazilian national team, and he quickly established himself as one of the team's key players. He played in four World Cup tournaments and is considered one of the best players in World Cup history, he helped Brazil win the tournament in 1958, 1962 and 1970, becoming the only player ever to win three World Cups. He was the first player to score over 1,000 goals in his career and set a number of records that still stand today.

Pele was known for his exceptional ball control, speed, and goal-scoring abilities. He was a prolific scorer and a creative playmaker, and he was able to score goals in a variety of ways, from headers to free kicks to volleys. He was also known for his sportsmanship and his ability to play with his teammates. Pele was awarded the FIFA Order of Merit in 1984 and was inducted into the FIFA Hall of Fame in 2011.

Pele Fast Facts

• Pele's real name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento, but he is widely known by his nickname Pele.
• He began his professional soccer career as a teenager with Santos FC in Brazil and quickly established himself as one of the best players in the world.
• Pele helped Santos win multiple Brazilian league titles and international club competitions.
• He played in four World Cup tournaments with the Brazilian national team, and he is considered one of the best players in World Cup history. He helped Brazil win the tournament in 1958, 1962, and 1970.
• He was the first player to score over 1,000 goals in his career and set a number of records that still stand today.
• Pele is known for his exceptional ball control, speed, and goal-scoring abilities. He was a prolific scorer and a creative playmaker, and he was able to score goals in a variety of ways, from headers to free kicks to volleys.
• He was also known for his sportsmanship and his ability to play with his teammates.
• Pele was awarded the FIFA Order of Merit in 1984 and was inducted into the FIFA Hall of Fame in 2011.
• Pele was also known as "The King of Football" and "The Black Pearl"
• After his retirement, Pele has been active in charity and in promoting the sport of soccer, he also was a United Nations ambassador for ecology and the environment.

How pele changed soccer?

Pele is credited with popularizing soccer in South America and around the world, and his success on the field helped to bring the sport to a wider audience. Dutch star Johan Cruyff stated, "Pelé was the only footballer who surpassed the boundaries of logic." Brazil's 1970 World Cup-winning captain Carlos Alberto Torres opined: "His great secret was improvisation. Those things he did were in one moment. He had an extraordinary perception of the game."

Pelé has been known for connecting the phrase "The Beautiful Game" with football. A prolific goalscorer, he was known for his ability to anticipate opponents in the area and finish off chances with an accurate and powerful shot. Pelé was also a hard-working team player with exceptional vision and intelligence, who was recognised for his precise passing and ability to link up with teammates and provide them with assists.

Short biography and history of Pele as a footballer

Pelé became famous for his exceptional skill and success on the soccer field. He started his professional career at a young age, and quickly gained recognition for his talent and ability to score incredible goals.

• Pelé signed a professional contract with the club Santos in June 1956. He made his senior team debut on September 1956 at the age of 15. When the 1957 season started, Pelé was given a starting place in the first team and, at the age of 16, became the top scorer in the league. Pelé won his first major title with Santos in 1958.
• Pelé's first international match was against Argentina in 1957. In that match, he scored his first goal for Brazil aged 16, and he remains the youngest goalscorer for his country. In 1958 Pelé became the youngest player to play in a World Cup final match at 17 years. When the 1962 World Cup started, Pelé was the best-rated player in the world. Pelé's last international match was in 1971.
• After his 19th with Santos, in 1974, Pelé retired from Brazilian club football. A year later, he came out of semi-retirement to sign with the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League. Pelé led the Cosmos team to the 1977 Soccer Bowl, in his third and final season with the club.

Did Pele win a world cup?

Yes, Pele won the World Cup three times. Pele won the World Cup in 1958, 1962, and 1970, with a total of 12 goals.

Did Pele play outside Brazil?

After a successful career in Brazil with Santos FC, Pele signed with the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League (NASL) in 1975. He played with the Cosmos for two seasons and helped to popularize soccer in the United States. Pele retired from professional soccer in 1977.

Did Pele and Maradona play together?

No, Pele and Diego Maradona did not play together on the same team. Pele and Maradona are widely considered two of the greatest soccer players of all time, but they played during different eras and never had the opportunity to play on the same team. Pele played professionally from 1956 to 1977, while Maradona played from 1976 to 1997.

Does Pele have kids?

Yes, Pele has children. Pele has been married three times and has a total of six children. His children are named Edinho, Jennifer, Marko, Joshua, Celeste, and Lila.

How Pele get his name?

Pelé's real name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento. He was given the nickname "Pelé" when he was a young boy. The story behind his nickname is that it was given to him by his friends who thought that he looked like a Brazilian goalkeeper named Bilé. Pelé's friends started calling him "Pelé," which was a combination of his last name and Bilé. The nickname stuck, and Pelé became known as Pelé throughout his career and in popular culture.

Was Pele rich?

Pelé amassed a significant fortune throughout his career. In addition to his salary as a professional soccer player, Pelé also earned income through endorsement deals and other business ventures. He used his wealth and influence to support a number of charitable causes, and he was known for his philanthropy and generosity.

Was Pele a striker?

Yes, Pelé was a striker, and he is known for his exceptional skill and ability to score goals. Pelé was known for his speed, agility, and exceptional finishing ability, which made him one of the most dangerous strikers in the history of the sport.

Has Pele passed away?

Yes, Pelé passed away on 29 December 2022, at the age of 82, due to multiple organ failure, a complication of colon cancer.

Pele Quotes

"Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do." ( Meaning )

"Enthusiasm is everything. It must be taut and vibrating like a guitar string." ( Meaning )

"If you don't give education to people, it is easy to manipulate them." ( Meaning )

"The bicycle kick is not easy to do."

"A penalty is a cowardly way to score."

"Sport is something that is very inspirational for young people."

"I always had a philosophy which I got from my father. He used to say, 'Listen. God gave to you the gift to play football. This is your gift from God. If you take care of your health, if you are in good shape all the time, with your gift from God no one will stop you, but you must be prepared.'" ( Meaning )

"The bicycle kick is not easy to do. I scored 1,283 goals, and only two or three were bicycle kicks."

"At 17, I already had responsibility because I took care of my family, but in the football I was young; I wasn't experienced or the captain - I was just in the team."

"All my life I thank God. My family was very religious."

"When I was minister of sport in Brazil, I tried to bring in a law that would make the chairmen of clubs reveal their accounts like other businesses. It was turned down, but I think it is an important story that will make a good film."

"I played for Santos at 16, and we had an excellent team, so it helped a lot. And then I played for Brazil at the Maracana against Argentina. So I get more experience. This was one year before the World Cup, and it made a lot of difference."

"When you play against dirty players or very tough players, it's easy to escape because you know what they're going to do. But when the player is tough but intelligent, it's much more difficult."

"When you are young, you do a lot of stupid things."

"When I retired, at that time I had a lot of proposals to play in Europe, England, Italy, Spain, Mexico. But I said no, after 18 years I want to rest, because I want to retire."

"To be a striker you need to be in good shape."

"Everything is practice." ( Meaning )

"A lot of people, when a guy scores a lot of goals, think, 'He's a great player', because a goal is very important, but a great player is a player who can do everything on the field. He can do assists, encourage his colleagues, give them confidence to go forward. It is someone who, when a team does not do well, becomes one of the leaders."

"I am constantly being asked about individuals. The only way to win is as a team. Football is not about one or two or three star players."

"Pele doesn't die. Pele will never die. Pele is going to go on for ever."

"When I was a footballer, I surrounded myself with footballers. We were all friends. But in Brasilia you don't know who your friends are. It can be a dangerous place."

"The World Cup is a very complicated tournament - six games, seven if you make it to the final - and maybe if you lose one game you're out, even if you're the best."

"Everybody knows my life. I won a lot of tournaments and scored more than 1,000 goals, won three World Cups but I could not play in Olympic Games."

"Brazil's always had great players, both at home and abroad, but we need to put all that talent together and mould a team out of it."

"I was really proud that I was named after Thomas Edison and wanted to be called Edson. I thought Pele sounded horrible. It was a rubbish name. Edson sounded so much more serious and important."

"Everything on earth is a game. A passing thing. We all end up dead. We all end up the same." ( Meaning )

― Pele Quotes

* The editor of this short biography made every effort to maintain information accuracy, including any quotes, facts, or key life events. If you're looking to expand your personal development, I recommend exploring other people's life stories and gaining inspiration from my collection of inspiring quotes . Exposing yourself to different perspectives can broaden your worldview and help you with your personal growth.

Chief Editor

Uncover Your WHY

Read The Art of Fully Living

Set Better Goals

Uplevel Your Game

Explore The Roadmaps

Enter your email below. It’s FREE

× Uncover Your Purpose Get my ‘Start With Why’ workbook to align with your deepest goals and purpose   Just enter your email below. It’s FREE