He was born Edson Arantes do Nascimento in the village of Três Corações in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. His birth certificate is dated the 21st, but he observed Oct. 23 as his birthday.
The boy was named after the inventor Thomas Edison, though his parents misspelt the name. The origin of Pelé, the nickname he picked up as a young boy, is something of a mystery, but its novelty and simplicity – easy to pronounce in any language (he complained it sounded like babytalk in Portuguese) – would add to his aura as his career advanced
He could run 100m in 11 seconds, shoot with either foot and outjump the tallest defenders. His sheer physicality and turn of speed were electrifying as he homed in on goal, outsprinting or simply charging through defences while managing to keep the ball under close control. But, unusually for such a prolific goalscorer, he could also be a team player. While he was still a teenager, wealthy Italian clubs attempted to lure him away from Brazil, offering a then unheard-of $1m to his club, Santos FC, for his signature. But in 1961, the Brazilian president Jânio Quadros declared Pelé a “non-exportable national treasure”, ensuring that he remained at the club for almost two decades.
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. 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.
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.
During his 22-year professional career, Pelé appeared in more than 1,300 matches and scored almost as many goals, yet he was hardly a one-man show. He saw the field the way a chess champion sees the board — two, three, four moves ahead — with the tactical savvy to pass to teammates better positioned to strike.
When he retired for a second time, the winning smile and goodwill that had won over American sports fans became his stock in trade, and he went on to act as a highly paid roving ambassador for a number of organisations, from Fifa and the United Nations to Mastercard and Pepsi. He even headed a health campaign for erectile dysfunction awareness. Wherever he went, he was received like royalty.
In 1999 he was named athlete of the century by the International Olympic Committee (even though he had never appeared at an Olympic Games) and a year later (jointly with Diego Maradona) Fifa player of the century. He was vice-president of Santos and made honorary president of the revamped New York Cosmos in 2010. His honorary titles in many different countries included an honorary knighthood in the UK (1997).
SOURCE: The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post
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