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Worth his weight in goals, Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known to the world solely by his moniker of Pelé, remains Brazil’s greatest sports hero and history’s most accomplished footballer. On the field, he scored with astonishing frequency, while off of it he charmed, nurturing an apolitical persona. These two truths converge in “Pelé,” a new documentary from directors Ben Nicholas and David Tryhorn , who have a special focus on sports-related topics. But though its direct title could perhaps imply a comprehensive or definitive study of both the man and the player, it’s neither of those in full. 

The film chronicles key matches, framing his story between Brazil's loss in the 1950 Brazil-hosted World Cup to Uruguay—a devastating blow to the nation's pride—and Pelé's quest for personal redemption at the 1970 edition in Mexico. Pelé, only a child when the “Maracanazo” happened in 1950, saw his father cry and promised to amend the tragedy. Moving swiftly from a working class upbringing to playing for the Santos club, to assuming the part of the peerless prodigy selected to play for in FIFA’s 1958 tournament (or so the film suggests), Pelé eventually became the only player ever to win three World Cups. 

Nicholas and Tryhorn’s narrative hinges on the thesis that over the 12 years that it took Pelé to attain the triple title, he carried the weight of the country in every kick and singlehandedly built the Brazilian identity in the 20 th century around football (or as Americans refer to the sport, soccer). While arguments are made to sustain that his victories were significant beyond a sense of collective joy—as doing more for the South American country than politics ever could—the piece falls short in historical analysis.

The filmmakers make what happens in the intense 90-minute rendezvous their focus, and can’t balance the reverence for Pelé’s “jogo bonito” with their larger points. Biographical storytelling often works best when the scope is limited to a specific incident, or period around which to peg the observations about the notable figure, as opposed to cradle-to-grave works. That’s an assertive choice in “Pelé,” but within that time frame, given that there’s no mention of his life post retirement or his children, the digging is kept skin-deep and the protagonist gets off mostly unquestioned.

Frail but still magnetic, Pelé enters the frame for the first time with the help of a walker. Such a raw image instantly cuts off any illusions that the glory days haven’t passed for the once brisk athlete. At 80, he speaks in small and increasingly emotional beats. His presence throughout gives the documentary a frame of reference that grounds the archival footage of his grandeur. At times we witness Pelé watching his younger self; he's either elated or reminded of the pain.

Still, the interviewers don’t push him to elaborate on some of the most critical career decisions he made at the height of his stardom, namely not denouncing the horrors of the military regime in his homeland. Like many nations across the Americas, Brazil’s democracy crumbled via a U.S.-backed coup in 1964. Violent repression and censorship became the norm, resulting in the deaths and torture of civilians. Through it all, nothing much changed for Pelé who even met with dictator Emílio Garrastazu Médici and never spoke out. This goes mostly unchallenged. 

Of the film's many on-camera subjects, his former teammate Paulo Cézar Lima (or Caju) is the only one to discuss Pelé's political neutrality in relation to race. Caju describes him as a submissive Black man who couldn't say no or take a stance while knowing that his words could make a difference for millions.

In a country like Brazil where racism is still pervasive, as is the case across Latin America, it feels facetious to make a film about a Black Latino icon and not touch upon the racial context of their success, or tokenism within a racist country that nonetheless upheld him as a football messiah. If his position represented advancement for Brazil’s Black population there’s barely any mention of it.

Since football and the blinding euphoria of winning on a global stage provided escapism for the population, Pelé justifies his inaction, explaining his role as a miracle worker on the field had more value in the long run than whatever he could have said. Whether those are the honest facts or not, the documentary reaches its must unfortunate point when it compares Pelé’s choices to those of Muhammad Ali , who risked his professional prospects to speak out against the Vietnam War.

A subject goes as far as to claim that while Pelé was risking torture if he took a stand, Ali wasn’t putting himself on the line. The statement comes off as ignorantly dismissive of the struggle of Black people in the United States, especially at the time of the Civil Rights Movement.

As the film moves toward the 1970 World Cup, the hope of getting an insightful, multifaceted examination vanishes. There's little insight here into Pelé as a husband, the family man, or young man without a jersey other than a quick mention of his extramarital affairs. And yet the mere inclusion of Pelé himself—exhaling anecdotes or answering questions on camera—elevates Nicholas and Tryhorn’s flawed and myopic work above 2016’s “ Pelé: Birth of a Legend ,” a dreadful biopic.

Interactions with old friends from Pelé's days at the Santos club at least manage to supply a glimpse of a humanity not as widely seen as the on-camera charisma of his youth. To see him wrestle with his own past, the pressure of a whole country’s dreams, and the relief of making them come true, is occasionally riveting, but it’s also what makes “Pelé” all the more a missed opportunity for a sharper portrait. 

Now available on Netflix.

Carlos Aguilar

Originally from Mexico City, Carlos Aguilar was chosen as one of 6 young film critics to partake in the first Roger Ebert Fellowship organized by RogerEbert.com, the Sundance Institute and Indiewire in 2014. 

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Pelé (2021)

Rated PG-13

108 minutes

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2016, Biography/History, 1h 47m

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Pelé   photos.

Under guidance from manager Vicente Feola (Vincent D'Onofrio), young Pelé (Kevin de Paula) utilizes his street soccer skills to lead Brazil to the World Cup in 1958.

Rating: PG (Thematic Elements|Some Smoking|Language)

Genre: Biography, History, Drama

Original Language: English

Director: Jeff Zimbalist , Michael Zimbalist

Producer: Brian Grazer , Ivan Orlic , Colin Wilson , Kim Roth , Isabelle Tanugi

Writer: Jeff Zimbalist , Michael Zimbalist

Release Date (Theaters): May 13, 2016  limited

Release Date (Streaming): Oct 14, 2016

Box Office (Gross USA): $42.9K

Runtime: 1h 47m

Distributor: IFC Films

Production Co: Imagine Entertainment, E1 Entertainment, Seine Pictures

Cast & Crew

Kevin de Paula

Vincent D'Onofrio

Leonardo Lima Carvalho

Younger Pelé

Rodrigo Santoro

Colm Meaney

George Raynor

Mariana Nunes

Diego Boneta

Felipe Simas

Milton Gonçalves

Thelmo Fernandes

Charles Myara

Jerome Franz

Jeff Zimbalist

Michael Zimbalist

Screenwriter

Brian Grazer

Colin Wilson

Isabelle Tanugi

Executive Producer

P.K. Kemsley

Benjamin Mathes

Matthew Libatique

Cinematographer

Luis Carballar

Film Editing

Naomi Geraghty

Glen Scantlebury

A.R. Rahman

Original Music

Dominic Watkins

Production Design

Marcos Flaksman

Art Director

Gail Stevens

News & Interviews for Pelé

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Critic Reviews for Pelé

Audience reviews for pelé.

There is no doubt that Pele helped shape world football as we know it into the beautiful game and hoist Brazil on to the world stage of footballing greatness. This film covers all that and whilst it only covers Brazil's first world cup win you cannot deny the talent that Pele have. Great to watch at times, even if formulaic and not entirely accurate.

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‘Pelé’ Review: A National Treasure

This Netflix documentary surveys the Brazilian soccer player’s pioneering career.

By Nicolas Rapold

There are two documentaries contained within “Pelé,” David Tryhorn and Ben Nicholas’s film about the Brazilian soccer phenom. The main one is the starry survey of Pelé’s record-setting achievements and national adulation. But a second, more sobering story steadily drops the temperature in the room, once Brazil’s military violently takes power in 1964 and shows a strategic interest in “the beautiful sport.”

The filmmakers run through a storied history, from Brazil’s 1950 loss to Uruguay in the World Cup (when Pelé, as a boy, told his sobbing father that he’ll win it back) to its triumph at the 1970 final. In a recurring sit-down interview, the now 80-year-old legend is both genuine and diplomatic after decades of worship as “the King.” Teammates remain fond, journalists kibitz, and the singer-songwriter Gilberto Gil and Brazil’s former president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, proffer pop analysis.

But as we hear soccer repeatedly invoked as the life-force to Brazil’s sense of self, one interviewee sticks out: a matter-of-fact former cabinet minister, Antônio Delfim Netto , who signed the dictatorship’s infamous “AI-5” act institutionalizing torture and censorship. The filmmakers go on to suggest that the national team’s success became part of military propaganda, and Pelé shares his own guarded thoughts on the era.

The dictatorship’s involvement takes the pressures of championship play to another level; Pelé later calls the 1970 World Cup victory simply a “relief.” I did yearn to see more of his talents in action; his header goal in that year’s Italy final feels cosmically liberating. But however conventional as a whole, the movie feels troubled by the traumas of Pelé’s heyday.

Pelé Not Rated. In Portuguese, with subtitles Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. Watch on Netflix .

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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.

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Making a superhero: how Pelé became more myth than man

Netflix’s new film captures the legendary Brazilian’s genius, but its lead character remains a fascinating enigma

C asa Pelé , the small two‑room house in Três Corações where Pelé was born in 1940, is now a popular tourist attraction. As no photographs or descriptions of the original house have survived, it was rebuilt entirely from the memories of Pelé’s mother, Dona Celeste, and his uncle Jorge, with period furniture and fixings sourced from antique shops. And so what greets visitors today is really only a vague approximation of the house where one of the world’s most famous footballers spent his earliest years: a heavily curated blend of hazy memories and selective detail. As you walk in, a wireless radio plays classic songs from the early 1940s on an endless loop.

As it turns out, this is also pretty much how Pelé himself is remembered these days. It’s 50 years since he played his last game for Brazil . Only a fraction of his rich and prolific playing career has survived on video. The vast majority of us never saw him play live. And so for the most part, the genius of Pelé exists largely in the abstract: something you heard or read about rather than something you saw, a bequeathed fact rather than a lived experience, a processed product rather than an organic document.

And so naturally the most stirring and vivid passages in Pelé, the new biopic of the legendary Brazilian footballer , are of football itself: the pure speed, the elegant nutmegs, the emphatic finishes, the footwork as precise as music. The legacy of Pelé has become a fractured and contested thing over the decades, but the football itself: this, at least, is pure. And in these passages, when gliding past defenders as if operating on some higher plane of intelligence, or being hacked and crunched to pieces by cynical opposition tactics, or defining the world’s biggest games with pieces of euphoric skill, Pelé lives as he deserves to live: with the ball at his feet. And at Pelé’s feet, the ball was whatever you wanted it to be.

There is a natural cinematic arc to Pelé’s career, one you could barely have scripted more perfectly: the spectacular entrance as a 17-year-old at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, followed by a sea of trials and crises in the 1960s, and neatly appended with the protagonist’s triumphant return at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico. This is the arc that Pelé follows to the letter: artistically speaking, the last half-century of Pelé’s life – New York Cosmos Pelé, world peace Pelé, erectile dysfunction Pelé , Mastercard Pelé – may as well never have happened. What we get is Peak Pelé, the force of light and heat and joy who ultimately just wants to make the Brazilian people happy.

And yet by the same token, this is no hagiography. Pelé’s extramarital affairs and uncomfortably close relationship with Brazil’s murderous military dictatorship are interrogated in some detail, pieced together from archive footage, interviews with teammates, politicians and journalists, and substantial access to Pelé himself. By accident or by design, Pelé does not emerge as some virtuous conquering hero, but as a flawed and credulous star: a man who could do everything on a football pitch, but away from it was often the product of forces he could neither harness nor fully understand. Perhaps the rawest and most moving footage is of Pelé himself, now 80 and in declining health: wheeling himself into the sparse interview room on a Zimmer frame, winching himself heavily into a chair, sighing deeply.

Pelé himself has never been the most reliable of narrators. Many of the stories he likes to tell about himself – like the time he supposedly stopped a civil war in Nigeria in 1969 – have been comprehensively debunked . His record-breaking goal tally is the subject of fierce dispute. At one point in the film, he tells us that he never dreamed of becoming a footballer. Later, he tells us that after Brazil lost the 1950 World Cup final to Uruguay, he consoled his distraught father by telling him he would win it for him one day. One of these is clearly bullshit. Both are included.

But then, when you have lived as eventful and celebrated a life as Pelé has, memory becomes a vague and splintered thing. Pelé didn’t simply create his own lore out of thin air, even if for the most part he happily went along with it. He’s not sitting there on Wikipedia diligently amending his own goal record. Pelé buys wholeheartedly into his own myth because over 60 years the course of his life led him inexorably in that direction. And so, ultimately, perhaps what you remember is more often what you remember remembering, or what someone else remembered, a well-cut anecdote that you have spent more than half your life polishing before a succession of simpering interviewers. Perhaps over time the fact and the legend blend into each other, to the point where it is no longer meaningful to tell them apart. This isn’t about greats and frauds, truth and lies. It’s about the pressing urge of Pelé’s generation to exalt this one man above all others in what is essentially the history of a team game.

“Pelé rose to fame at the moment of Brazil’s birth as a modern country,” the former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso says in the film. “He became the symbol of Brazilian emancipation,” says the musician Gilberto Gil. “He made Brazilians love themselves again,” says Juca Kfouri, a journalist and friend of Pelé’s. All this is told to us as if it’s simply the gospel truth, rather than scrutinised as what it is: a story, a persuasive theory in which the young Pelé is imagined as the emblem of Brazil’s booming economy and growing national confidence in the 1950s.

A similar shorthand applies to Pelé’s growing fame, which is narrated with the credulity of a biblical miracle. The teenage star who returns from the 1958 World Cup is handsome and charismatic and young and athletic and brilliant. Virtue generates fame, and with the growth of television beaming his face and feats to a mass global audience, the reverse also turns out to be true. To what extent is Pelé worthy of all this? To what extent does it place an intolerable burden on him? To what extent is his twinkly, inoffensive public persona – Brand Pelé – a means of coping with the ridiculous levels of fame and expectation invested in him while he was still basically a child?

It’s interesting to see what doesn’t make the finished cut. The women in Pelé’s life – his family, his first wife, an unspecified number of children – are barely mentioned. Money is barely mentioned: for more than a decade Pelé entrusted his financial affairs to his agent, Pepe Gordo, who invested a significant part of Pelé’s fortune in a number of failed businesses. By the late 1960s, Pelé was broke and forced to ask his club, Santos, to bail him out on unfavourable terms. This traumatic episode had a defining impact on Pelé, who in some respect has spent the rest of his life chasing down the riches he believes are his due.

Instead, the film takes a sharp, dark and gripping turn into politics. In 1964, an army coup – backed by the United States – overthrew the democratically elected government of João Goulart and established a brutal authoritarian regime, characterised by the torture and murder of political dissidents. The interviewer asks Pelé if the dictatorship changed anything for him. “No, football went on in the same way,” Pelé replies evenly, as footage of him scoring goals is intercut with newsreel of violent street protests.

Of course, he admits, he had an inkling of what was going on, even as he posed for photographs with General Médici at official functions, beaming and shaking hands in pictures he must have known would be distributed around the world as pro-regime propaganda. But even now there is no real contrition, no twinge of moral anguish, much less genuine remorse at a course of action he insists was the only realistic choice. “What were you doing during the dictatorship? Which side were you on? You get lost in these things,” he says in a tone that evokes not so much discomfort as a vague indifference.

In the age of the athlete-activist, Pelé’s immaculate neutrality comes across as both a little jarring and entirely understandable: the weariness of an octogenarian non‑combatant who is simply wired in a certain way. “You could tell me Muhammad Ali was different,” his friend Kfouri says. “Indeed he was, and I applaud him for it. Ali knew that he would be arrested for refusing the draft, but he ran no risk of being mistreated or tortured. Pelé had no assurance of that.”

Really, how else did we expect Pelé – a sportsman with no political ambition or credo – to act in the face of a frightening, omnipotent military junta? Rebel, resist, lose everything? Flash a defiant eye in those official photographs, just to show the world what he really thought? Perhaps, in measuring Pelé up to the athlete-activist ideal, we are simply guilty of doing what the world has been doing to Pelé ever since he emerged: moulding and forcing and chiselling him into our own preconceived expectations of what a hero should look and sound like.

The character of Pelé was created to fulfil multiple needs. For the Brazilian people he was the outsized superhero, a source of joy and exuberance in a sad, suppressed country. For the politicians who effectively kept him captive, preventing him from moving to Europe in the 1960s and coercing him into coming out of international retirement to play in the 1970 World Cup, he was a resource: a handy propaganda tool and icon of nationalistic devotion. For sponsors and commercial interests, he was an inexhaustible catalyst of ticket sales and product endorsements. For coaches and teammates, he was their quickest route to glory. For broadcasters and journalists, writers and film-makers, he was (and continues to be) content. For autograph and memorabilia hunters, he was the motherlode. For a generation of football fans, he would be the eternal Greatest: lifelong and irrefutable proof that their own happy memories were objectively better than those of any subsequent generation.

Of course Pelé went along for the ride. He was 17. What else was he going to do? What else did he know? As he matured into adulthood, he would discover that his life had already been built around him: a ceaseless treadmill of football and football and things around the football and more football. He would learn that he and he alone was the show (when he was injured for a while in 1962, Santos attendances dropped by 50%). And once the show moved on, he was essentially pensioned off and left to fend for himself.

Last year, Pelé’s son Edinho claimed in an interview that his father’s health struggles had left him depressed and reclusive , embarrassed to leave the house. Within days the man himself had issued an official statement rejecting the claims and insisting that he had “several upcoming events scheduled”. And in a sense, Pelé’s later years have increasingly felt like an attempt to keep breathing life into the character that once so transfixed the world, even as its physical feats recede ever further into the distance.

There’s a particularly poignant moment about halfway through the film that seems to encapsulate this eternal struggle. In November 1969, a capacity crowd gathered at the Maracanã in a state of feverish rapture, hoping to see Pelé score his 1,000th career goal against Vasco da Gama. The game was level until the 78th minute, when Pelé wriggled into the area and won a penalty. As he stepped up to take the kick, Pelé looked round to see that his teammates were not camped on the edge of the penalty area but all the way back on the halfway line, willing him on from a distance. Not for the first time, Pelé was alone with just the ball at his feet.

It’s not a great penalty. He places it to his right. Edgardo Andrada, the goalkeeper, flings himself to his left but can’t quite grasp it. The ball hits the net and in that same moment Pelé is bounding after it, scooping it up into his arms. And in that same moment he’s mobbed by a crowd of hundreds of photographers and radio reporters and jubilant fans. Strong hands try to grab the ball from him and so Pelé hoists it aloft, partly in triumph, partly because he’s just trying to keep hold of the ball. Then all of a sudden in the melee he drops it and the ball disappears into the throng, and the crowd are still going crazy, and Pelé is still frantically looking around, trying to glimpse the ball. But it’s gone. Forty-seven years later in London, the ball will sell for £81,250 at auction to a private bidder.

More on this story

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Pelé’s shimmering legend was forged in the heat of the 1970 World Cup finals

Brazil prepares to say goodbye to Pelé as it welcomes a new president

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Pelé dies aged 82: tributes paid to a football great

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Pelé obituary

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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

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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

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