Pelé, the icon of Brazilian football who brought the World Cup trophy to his homeland thrice, becoming a world superstar and the highest-paid team athlete in the world at the time, has died. He was 82 years old.
His daughter Kely Nascimento announced his death on Thursday Instagram.
Pele health was deteriorating how he got old. Doctors at the Albert Einstein Hospital in São Paulo said end of December that he had received “heightened care” related to “kidney and heart dysfunctions” stemming from the cancer he had been battling for over a yr. He also had a respiratory infection and his family said he would stay in hospital over Christmas.
He and Argentinian star Diego Maradona, who was younger than Pelé and played after retirement, have often been cited as the best footballers of all time – even jointly named FIFA’s “Player of the Century” in 2000. Despite the competition, the two became friends before Maradona passed away in 2020 after years of exchanging blows.
“I need to thank Pelé. We all know who he’s and who he’ll all the time be. We’d like icons like him,” Maradona said during an exhibition friendly in 2016.
Born Edson Arantes do Nascimento on October 23, 1940, he was almost exclusively often known as Pelé – a nickname he reportedly earned after he mispronounced one other player’s name.
Pelé joined the Santos football club in Brazil in 1956 at the age of 15 as an inside striker. The club won the São Paulo league championship and in 1962 and 1963 each the Libertadores Cup and the Intercontinental Club Cup.
The striker, who acted as a second striker, made his international debut only a yr after joining Santos in 1957, and a yr later he played in the World Cup at the age of 17 – the youngest ever player. He scored a hat-trick in the semi-final against France and scored twice in the championship match against the 1958 tournament host Sweden.
After breaking onto the world stage and dazzling with the ability to land difficult shots into the net, Brazil declared Pelé a “national treasure” a move to stop him from being captured by richer European teams. As a substitute, Santos launched into a world tour to provide fans a likelihood to see the star.
Pelé tore a muscle at the next World Cup tournament in 1962 and needed to rest after the second game, but the Brazilian national team prevailed and won consecutive titles. Brazil lost in the first round at the next World Cup in 1966 after Pelé and others were injured.
He considered retiring from international competition, but triumphantly returned in 1970 and won all of it again. Pelé ended his World Cup profession with 12 goals in 14 matches and stays the only player to win the trophy thrice.
Pelé retired from Santos in 1974 after scoring a staggering 643 goals in 659 matches.
A yr later, he was pulled out of retirement to affix his second ever team, the Latest York Cosmos. At the age of 34, he signed a three-year, $7 million contract to play for the U.S. team, making him the best at the time, based on The Latest York Times highest-paid team athlete in the world. He ended up playing for the Cosmos for 2 years, helping them win the North American Soccer League trophy, and was widely credited along with his growing popularity in the sport in the United States.
His last game was an exhibition match between Santos and the Cosmos. He played the first half with Kosmos and the second along with his beloved Santos. When time was up, his teammates lifted an emotional Pelé onto their shoulders and paraded him around the pitch.
“Simply put, Pele made football fun,” said Cosmos goalkeeper Shep Messing ESPN 40 years after that last game. “Mick Jagger, Elton John, Robert Redford at the games. Muhammad Ali was on the pitch for the last game and at the time they were two of the most recognizable people on the planet.”
Pelé scored over 1,000 goals during his profession, earning a Guinness World Record.
He used his post-football platform to support charitable works and take a look at to enhance the lives of Brazil’s poor. He became UNESCO World Ambassador in 1994 and served as Brazil’s Minister of Sport. He has also published several best-selling autobiographies and starred in documentaries about his life.
FIFA named him “the best of all time” in 2012, and the International Olympic Committee named him “Athlete of the Century” in 1999.