Pelé, the king of soccer, died: the full story of the myth that transformed a sport

Rarely has it been so simple to describe football as a phenomenon. Saying “Pelé” sums it all up and doesn’t need translation anywhere on the planet. Three world national titles, two club titles and 1283 career goals could end any comparison, but Brazil’s genius was much more than that. It represents the beauty of the game, the wonder of the show. At 82 years old, and after months of fighting against a delicate illness that deteriorated his health, this Thursday, December 29, he died at the Albert Einstein Hospital in São Paulo. The eternal king is now a legend.

Edson Arantes do Nascimento was born on October 23, 1940 in Tres Corazones, in Minas Gerais and his childhood was marked by two dreams: trying to be a soccer player like his father, and reversing the history of his country’s national team by winning a World Cup after the failure of the 1950 World Cup in the Maracaná against Uruguay, when he was only nine years old and suffered a lot from that situation.

His father, Joao Ramos do Nascimento, Dondinho, was a good forward who even scored five headers in the same match (Pelé said it’s a record he always wanted to beat and couldn’t). He had been a player for Fluminense and Atlético Mineiro, but a knee injury (in a clash against Augusto, later captain of the Brazilian national team in the 1950 World Cup) cut short his career at the age of 24.

Pelé was known as Dico as a child and went to live in Baurú because his father was hired by the team in that city. There he played soccer with a rag ball, and with his friends in the neighborhood he created a team called Ameriquinha, from where he jumped to Baquinho, the lower divisions of Baurú. There he was trained by Waldemar do Brito, who had played in the 1934 World Cup in Italy, and this was essential to perfect his technique and convince him to become a professional, and his mother, Celeste, to accept that he would abandon his job in a shoe factory and go play for Santos FC.

Do Brito narrowly won the fight against Elba de Padua Lima, Tim, who was the coach of Bangú in Rio de Janeiro and had played the 1938 World Cup in France (and who in 1968 would lead Los Matadores, undefeated champions of the Metropolitan with San Lorenzo de Almagro). Pelé had three siblings, María Lucía, Edson and Zoca, who made up a very humble family, so much so that he said that when he arrived at Santos, “the first thing I did was run to the water, to check if it was actually salty as they said”.

He had dropped out of school in the fourth grade, with very poor grades. He also sold cold drinks at train stations, polished shoes and was given the nickname of “Gasolina” when he was employed at a service station, but he didn’t like it. It also carried the one of “Pelé”, although there are two versions for its origin. One says that since his mother was tired of him only being interested in football, she told him “if you only dedicate yourself to playing soccer, you’re going to be a pelé (a nobody, a wimp) all your life”. The other indicates that he came from the “peeled” ones, the fields where he played with his friends in Baurú.

He stood out from the start and even trained with professionals, but they told him that he should improve his physical complexion because he was too skinny (47 kilos). Playing for the under-16 in São Paulo, he failed an important penalty and that made him think about quitting, but they wouldn’t allow him to. Once again, they almost convinced him from Baurú to return and play in the first division. He even packed his suitcase and was already leaving when the club’s caretaker saw him at the station and brought him back.

At Santos, he shared Doña Georgina’s pension with Dorval and Coutinho, although his protector was Zito, from whom he was going to buy cigarettes. He made his debut against the Corinthians of Santo André scoring one goal, although his first official match was against Cubatao on September 7, 1956 at the age of 15, and another goal. He won that São Paulo tournament as the team’s goal scorer, and then, the Rio-San Pablo Cup in 1957.

Although he was known in Brazil, he wasn’t known at the international concert, so much so that it was kept in Santos as a big document when a club in Porto Alegre asked him to borrow a player and the São Paulo club offered Pelé. The response telegram was “Pelé doesn’t matter, send Pagao”, a veteran soccer player, almost retired.

This changed with a tournament organized at the Maracaná with Brazilian and European teams (three goals to Belenenses from Portugal, and one each to Dynamo from Yugoslavia, Flamengo and São Paulo) and thus managed to get Brazil’s coach, Vicente Feola, to call him up when he had not been a professional year. On July 7, 1957, he made his debut against Argentina for the Copa Roca at the Maracaná (Argentina won 2-1, entered the second half when people chanted his name, and scored a goal to Amadeo Carrizo, although Gitano Juárez scored the second goal after the tie). A star was born, and he scored one of two 2-0 goals against Argentina three days later at Pacaembu.

His growth in such a short time led him to be called up for the World Cup in Sweden 1958, although not without controversy because it was to the detriment of one of the stars of the moment, Luizinho, of the Corinthians, which drove his fans crazy, to the point that his demonstrations managed to get the Brazilian team to face the São Paulo team in a friendly match, in which Ari Clemente, Corinthian defender, injured him in his knee and almost stayed out.

He only made his debut in the third group match against the USSR of Lev Yashin. Brazil won 2-0 and Feola brought in young Pelé, Garrincha and Zito after the 0-0 draw against England and despite the opposition of the team’s psychologist. But in the quarterfinals, Wales got behind and Pelé scored a great goal with which Brazil went to semis (hat Williams at the penalty spot and before the ball stung and with Bowen harassing him, he hit him with his right instep close to Kelsey’s right post). Pelé always said that that goal was the one that gave him definitive confidence.

Then, in what was an early final, a hat-trick against the France of Kopa and Just Fontaine in the splendid 5-2. In the final against Sweden of Liedholm and Gunnar Gren, Brazil was losing with a goal from Liedholm, Pelé hit a ball on the stick, but the wonder happened in the second half with the third goal, when he passed the ball over Gustavsson and hit the ball without it stinging. With the game 4-2 and almost defined, Pelé beat two defenders in the air, managed to head the ball in a strange way and it made a parable before getting into the net. Pelé and Brazil were world champions for the first time and Pelé, in a mythical scene, was crying on the shoulders of goalkeeper Gilmar.

Until today, it was the only time that a South American team won a World Cup in Europe. He was 17 years old and the French magazine L’Equipe awarded him the title of “King of Football” and he was forever “O Rei”. This allowed him, upon returning to Brazil, to renegotiate his contract with Santos for a premium of 22,000 dollars, a house and a Volkswagen car.

When he returned to Santos, Pelé was already very famous and took over the team when the crack Emmanuele Del Vecchio emigrated to Milan. 1958 was a sensational season, with 58 goals in 38 games. In those years, the team was giving notable shows with players such as Mauro, Gilmar, and a brilliant forward, who for Pelé was the best member: Dorval, Mengalvio, Coutinho, Pelé and Pepe.

At the age of 18, he had to do his military service in the Sixth Motorized Artillery Group in Santos. He played for the team in his headquarters and for the Brazilian Army and went on to participate in the South American military championship, in which he reached the final and was expelled in this one against Argentina.

Just the following year, he would compete for the South American Championship in Buenos Aires. Pelé was the exclusive figure and goal scorer of the tournament, but Brazil could only draw with Argentina in the last match and the locals were champions. Pelé would never play again in Argentina with the Brazil jersey. He also staged a memorable pitched battle with Uruguay there, with the aftermath of that 1950 defeat at the Maracaná.

On March 5, 1961, Santos faced Fluminense in Rio de Janeiro and won 1-0 with his goal when after 40 minutes he received from Dalmo, evaded Valdo, got Edmilson off his back with a threat, passed between Clovis and Altair, disoriented Pinheiro with a perfect feint, Jair Marinho went with everything when he entered the area but he also overcame that obstacle and when the goalkeeper Castillo came out, he took a soft shot to his right post and beat him. The rapporteur Valdir Amaral then shouted on the radio “This goal deserves a plaque”. Soon after, the defunct São Paulo newspaper “O Esporte” placed a plaque on the Maracaná that reads “On this court, on 5-3-61 Pelé scored the most beautiful goal in the history of Maracaná”.

For the 1962 World Cup in Chile, Aymoré Moreira was the coach. Pelé arrived with too many games and had been diagnosed with an inguinal sprain. Brazil had already gone from the 4-2-4 system to 4-3-3, and the Santos star made his debut with a goal against Mexico of goalkeeper Antonio Carbajal (who played in five World Cups) but already in the second match against Czechoslovakia he gave up and fell dead in pain. Since there were no changes at that time, he continued in the game, albeit limping, and never played again. He was replaced by Amarildo and it was Garrincha who shone for the second title.

Pelé returned for the Copa Libertadores with Santos in 1962 only for the last final against Alberto Spencer’s Peñarol. It was in Buenos Aires, at Monumental, after two 0-0. Pelé scored two goals and the Brazilians won 3-0. That gave him the chance to play against the Benfica of Eusebio, Coluna and Simoes the Intercontinental (3-2 in the first leg, with two goals from him and 5-2 in Lisbon with his recital and four goals).

The following year, when the global trend towards tacticism began (Santos was one of the few that responded to that with their excellent football), they had to face Boca in two fierce Copa Libertadores finals in 1963. That’s when a player tore Pelé's pants off and had to change them. Santos won both games but had to come back. And Pelé was the protagonist both times. He went to play the Intercontinental Cup against Milan by Gianni Rivera, Giovanni Trappatoni, Cesare Maldini and Amarildo. The Italians won 4-2 in San Siro (Pelé scored both) and in the Maracaná, without Pelé, Santos won 4-2 and the tiebreaker 1-0.

In 1964, Julio Massei arrived as coach at Santos, who was very successful in Palmeiras and began a second golden era with Carlos Alberto, Clodoaldo and Argentinian José Manuel Ramos Delgado, among others. César Menotti also played. “I’m not saying anything new if I say that Pelé was a monster. He had extraordinary physical, technical and mental conditions and besides, he was very handsome. And as if that were not enough, since the beginning of his career, he was always surrounded by great players,” Ramos Delgado, who arrived in 1967, recalled years later.

During that same 1964, Brazil suffered an unexpected defeat at home in the Nations Cup that Argentina won by 3-0 at Pacaembu in São Paulo with two goals from Roberto Telch. Pelé was expelled by an elbow to José “Chino” Mesiano, who marked him rigorously. Before, he had simulated a penalty based on a non-existent foul by Antonio Rattín, which, unusually, was only executed by Gerson, and Carrizo stopped. The duel with Rattín had already come from the previous year, in the final of the Copa Libertadores. “Leave it, I’ll take care of the black one,” the Argentine captain said aloud to his teammates. “Without violence, Rattín, without violence,” Pelé implored.

In 1966, the England World Cup came to which Brazil arrived with disastrous preparation, and Amarildo, injured on the previous tour. Brazil won 2-0 on the debut against Bulgaria (Pelé scored from a free kick) but the referee took almost no foul from defender Zhechev’s permanent ones. To take precautions, they benched him against Hungary of the great Florian Albert and lost 3-1 to the Magyars, and already in the decisive match against Portugal by Eusebio, not only did they fall 3-1 again, but defender Morais injured him with another double fault that the referee did not point out, in a context of many doubts in the arbitrations that ended up harming the three South American exponents, along with Argentina and Uruguay.

Upon returning, Pelé resigned from the Brazilian national team, but the exhibitions with Santos were already spectacular and all over the world. Pelé rubbed shoulders with leaders, movie stars, politicians (Robert Kennedy, for example, attended one of his parties and approached the dressing room to give him a gold dollar as a symbol of his admiration. In Biafra they agreed to a 48-hour truce from a war that was being waged to be able to see Santos in action on one of his tours of Africa, he was received by Popes John XXIII and Paul VI).

In a friendly match in Colombia, he was expelled and when he was about to change in the dressing room, a leader came to tell him not to, that in the face of the indignation of the people they had decided to change the referee to put a linesman to continue, until in 1969 he reached his thousand goal right in the Maracaná and against Argentine goalkeeper Edgardo Andrada, of Vasco da Gama. It was November 19 and in front of 65,000 people. He did an olympic round and interviewed at that time, he said “I thought about Christmas, I thought about children”.

Around the World Cup in Mexico, he considered returning to the national team when Aymoré Moreira was dismissed and replaced by Marxist journalist Joao Saldanha, who used Santos and Botafogo players (his former team) as a base but was also dismissed because of his problems with political power and with the president of the CBD, Joao Havelange. His former teammate Mario Zagallo was then called up as coach in 1958, and he qualified in his South American group winning all the games.

The 1970 World Cup was that of an excellent Pelé, with plays to remember (a mid-court shot that almost beat the Czechoslovak goalkeeper Ivo Viktor, the headbutt that Gordon Banks took from him, who is considered the best save in the history of the World Cups, a free kick goal against Romania, the threat to Ladislao Mazurkiewicz against Uruguay in the semifinals, letting the ball run on one side, going to look for it on the other, and finishing crossed and barely deviated —Alonso was able to do it before Independente in 1972-, the head goal in the final, when Tarciso Burgnich said that he thought Pelé was human and that was his mistake in the mark, the no look pass at Carlos Alberto in the 4-1 final).

That World Cup, which meant that Brazil would definitely win the Jules Rimet Cup, triggered great euphoria (the poet Vinicius de Moraes sang “The World Cup is Ours”), but it was also used politically by the military dictatorship of Emilio Garrastazú Médici, something that Pelé realized years later, as did many of his teammates.

On July 18, 1971, he played his last game for the green-yellow national team against Yugoslavia. It was the end, and he was also considering leaving a Santos in decline when his contract expired in 1972 and they exploited him with tours all over the planet, non-stop.

In 1974, Joao Havelange, who was running as a candidate for president of FIFA, tried to convince him to return for the World Cup in Federal Germany, but not only did he not accept, but that year he also ended his career at Santos with an impressive farewell in Vila Belmiro.

However, he was on the verge of going bankrupt due to bad business and the only thing left was to return to football. He had offers from Juventus, Milan. Real Madrid and America from Mexico but the New York Cosmos had been behind him for three years through its president, Cliv Toye. There was no pressure and Pelé preferred that at 35 years old. It was presented on June 11, 1975. His coach would be Gordon Bradley, whom he had already faced once. His debut was a week later in the NASL against the Toronto Metros.

The Cosmos went from 8000 fans to 22,500 but the season was disappointing and in addition, Pelé was injured against San José Earthquakes. So for the following season, the US entity decided to strengthen itself with the Peruvian Ramón Miflin and Nelsi Morais, both from Santos, and with the Italian Giorgio Chinaglia, from Lazio. The coach became Ken Furphy, who brought three players from English Sheffield United, but the players were very defensive, so Bradley returned as coach, who was before in an administrative position. They ended up losing the final to the Tampa Bay Rowdies 3-1 and Pelé received gold-encrusted loot for reaching his 1250 goal.

They then decided to hire Eddie Firmani, the coach of the champions, and signed Franz Beckenbauer and Carlos Alberto, and they finally became champions when they beat Seattle Sounders 2-1 in the final. They set out on tour around the world and after 111 games and 65 goals, shortly after his 37th birthday, on October 1, 1977, Pelé said goodbye to his career in front of 75,000 people in a Santos vs Cosmos match (the north americans won 2-1). He then stayed three more years in the United States representing twenty companies and created Pelé Sports & Marketing. He ended his career with 1283 goals in 1367 games. Officially, and while the statistics recruiters themselves are still in discussion about the numbers, he added 760 in 831 games to be currently in history behind Josef Bican, Romario, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

In a 2000 FIFA poll, he was chosen as the best player of the 20th century with 72.7% of the votes. The IOC chose him as the athlete of the 20th century in 1980. With Santos he won 10 São Paulo championships, 3 Rio-San Pablo tournaments, 6 Brazilian championships, 2 Copas Libertadores, 2 Intercontinental Cups and a Super Cup of Intercontinental Champions. He is the top scorer for Santos with 541, and for the Brazilian national team (95), and as if that were not enough, he is the inventor of the “Paradinha” in the execution of penalties, a last threat before the shot “because at that time, the goalkeepers used to get ahead of themselves”, he explained.

He never won the Ballon d’Or because it was only awarded to Europeans, but at the January 2014 gala, FIFA awarded him an honorary one.

During the administration of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in the nineties, he was Minister of Sports and the so-called “Pelé Law” was enacted, whereby if the player ends his contract and does not renew with his club, he remains free of action.

In those years, he generated great controversy in Brazil for having campaigned in favor of the United States to organize the 1994 World Cup precisely against his own country, and at that same time he was executive advisor at Santos and wanted to bring Diego Maradona to the club and traveled especially to Buenos Aires to meet with him and Carlos Menem, the day he was re-elected Argentine president. With Maradona, they met in 1979, brought together by the magazine “El Gráfico” in Brazil and there was always a special relationship with many ups and downs, enmity and reconciliation, with cross-declarations and permanent personal allusions.

He was named Knight of Honor of the British Empire, Citizen of the World by the UN and is UNESCO’s ambassador for Ecology and Environment, and Sports Ambassador at the Davos Forum (2006).

In cinema, he worked on “Escape to Victory” (1981) together with Bobby Moore, Osvaldo Ardiles, Kazimierz Deyna and actors such as Michael Caine, Max Von Sydow and Sylvester Stallone, and was also an actor on TV.

His love for music led him to compose around five hundred songs and record albums, although some remain anonymous “because I never wanted my abilities to be compared”. He is named in more than a hundred songs around the world.

He married Rosemeri Cholbi in 1966 but divorced in 1978. It was said that with the continuous traveling on tours, they spent little time together. He had four children, Kelly, Cristina, Edinho (the Santos goalkeeper who was arrested in 2005 for drug trafficking and is now serving a long sentence for laundering money from drug trafficking) and Jennifer. In 1994 he married again, to Assiria Seixas Lemos and had twins Josua and Celeste.

He had affairs with Xuxa and with two beauty queens: Miss Brazil 1986 (Deisa Nunes de Souza) and Miss Brazil 1989 (Flavia Cavalcanti).

He had to recognize another extramarital daughter through Justice, Sandra Regina Machado, who died of cancer in 2006, and another one is also attributed to him. He didn’t attend the funeral but he implied that he doesn’t usually do it under any circumstances and in fact, neither did he with posthumous tributes to his parents, of whom he says that when he was born, “they closed the factory” and that he was born to play football “like Beethoven for music”.

Although he had several health problems over the last decade, including a hip problem that made it difficult for him to move, it was during the last few years that his condition became complicated as a result of the discovery of a colon tumor. He underwent surgery in September 2021 and from there, his checkups were constant at the Albert Einstein Hospital in São Paulo. On November 29 of this year, while the World Cup in Qatar was beginning to take its first steps, the news broke of a new admission to the medical center for a “reevaluation of chemotherapy treatment for colonic tumors”. The situation worsened week by week, to such an extent that his family met to accompany him in his last hours.

Beyond the controversies, Pelé's undisputed brilliance made him the king of his time and he shares the select gallery of the best players in history together with Argentines Alfredo Di Stéfano, Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi, and the Dutch Johan Cruyff.

“When a person is well known and becomes idolized, they tend to forget where they came from. I say this because when Edson met Pelé, who was six years old in Baurú, it was Edson who cried, suffered, had problems. Pelé is immortal, idol. You can go anywhere in the world and if you ask if they know Pelé, the answer will always be yes, but if you ask who Edson is, nobody knows, and yet Edson is Pelé's base,” he acknowledged on a documentary about his life.

This article was originally published on infobae.com