Full name||colspan="2"|Edson Arantes do Nascimento
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|Date of birth||colspan="2"|October 23, 1940
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|Place of birth||colspan="2"|Três Corações (MG), Brazil
|-class="hiddenStructure"
|Date of death||colspan="2"|
|-class="hiddenStructure"
|Place of death||colspan="2"|,
|-class="hiddenStructure"
|Height||colspan="2"|
|-
|-class="hiddenStructure"
|style="padding-right:1em;"|Nickname||colspan="2"|O Rei (The King), Pérola Negra (The Black Pearl), Dico (by his family)
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|Position||Striker
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! style="background: #b0c4de;" colspan="3" | Youth clubs
|-class="hiddenStructure"
|1955-1956||colspan="2"|Bauru EC
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! style="background: #b0c4de;" colspan="3" | Professional clubs*
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| Years || Club || Apps (goals)
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|1956-1974 1975-1977||Santos FC Cosmos||1265 (1124) 111 (65)
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! style="background: #b0c4de;" colspan="3" | National team
|-class="hiddenStructure"
|1956-1971||Brazil||92 (77)
|-
! style="font-size: 80%; font-weight: lighter;" colspan="3" |
* Professional club appearances and (goals) counted for the domestic league only.
|}
Edson Arantes do Nascimento (born October 231940), nicknamed Pelé, is a former Brazilian football player who won three World Cup medals and currently holds several records, also known as O Rei do Futebol (The King of Football). He is regarded by many as the greatest footballer of all time.
Often considered the complete midfield and attacking player, he was a prolific and clinical finisher and exceptional at dribbling and passing. Famed for his pace and strong shot and an exceptional heading ability for a relatively short man, he scored 1,281 goals in all matches during his career. Since his full retirement in 1977, he has served as an ambassador for the sport.
He was born in Três Corações, Minas Gerais, the son of Fluminense footballer Dondinho. He was named after American inventor Thomas Edison, and was originally named Dico by his family. He did not receive the nickname "Pelé" until his school days, where he was given it because of his pronunciation of the name of his favourite player, Sao Paulo goalkeeper Bilé. He originally disliked the nickname, but the more he complained the more he was called by it. In his autobiography, Pelé stated he had no idea what the name means, nor did his old friends.
Growing up in poverty on the streets of Bauru, São Paulo, he could not afford a football and usually played with either a sock stuffed with papers or a grapefruit. He was given his first leather ball on his sixth birthday by his father's teammate, Sosa. While in Bauru, Pele and a group of his friends stole a cargo of peanuts, roasted them, and sold them on the streets in order to support their youth team.
At the age of 11, Pelé was scouted by Brazilian legend Waldemar de Brito and was invited to join de Brito's amateur team, Clube Atlético Bauru. In 1956, Pele's mentor took him to the city of São Paulo, to try out for professional club Santos Futebol Clube. De Brito told the directors at Santos that the 16-year-old would be "the greatest football player in the world." Pelé was offered professional terms and scored four goals in his first league game. When the new season started, Pelé was given a starting place in the first team and, at the age of just 16, became the top scorer in the league. Just ten months after signing professionally, the teenager was called up to the Brazil national team.
Football career
Pelé began his football career at Santos Futebol Clube, an industrial and port town in São Paulo State in eastern Brazil, at the age of 15. At 16, he became the top scorer in the league and a regular on the Brazilian national squad. While at Santos, Pelé won nine state championships, six championships, two Libertadores Cups (South American Cup) and two Intercontinental Cups, aided by players such as Pepe and Coutinho.
The 1970 tournament in Mexico was to be Pelé's last. The 1970 team, featuring famous players such as Rivelino, Jairzinho, Gérson, and Tostão, is often considered to be the greatest national team ever. Brazil defeated Italy 4–1 in the final, with Pelé scoring one and setting up Carlos Alberto for another. During his international career, Brazil never lost while Pelé and Garrincha were both playing.
Pelé's technique and deft touch combined with his dribbling skills and scoring ability have been universally praised. His most spectacular signature move was probably the "bicycle kick".
During the three seasons he played for the Cosmos, he was named in the annual NASL First Team: the 11 best players of a particular season. He was also named as the league's most valuable player in 1976. His lucrative contract for the Cosmos meant that Pele had to play in the regular U.S. NASL season but also travel the world playing many exhibition games. During the three years Pele played for Cosmos, he played matches in countries such as China, Japan, Sweden, Bermuda and Uganda. In his final year as a professional player, the Cosmos won the 1977 NASL Championship. During that season, Pele was joined by fellow Brazilian Carlos Alberto, Turkish panthera goalkeeper Yasin Ozdenak and "the Kaiser", Franz Beckenbauer.
He played his last game as a professional in a friendly match on October 1, 1977, in front of a capacity crowd at Giants Stadium against his old club, Santos; he played the first half with the Cosmos and the second half with Santos. The exhibition game was sold out six weeks beforehand. Pelé did appear in a few friendly games for the Cosmos after he retired in 1977. Due to falling attendance, the Cosmos tried to bring Pelé out of retirement a second time, but he declined.
In 2005, Pelé drew international media attention due to the imprisonment of his son Edson Cholbi Nascimento, an ex-goalkeeper of Santos Futebol Clube, who was arrested in an operation to dismantle a drug gang in southeastern Brazil. The younger Nascimento, then 35, was arrested along with about 50 other people after an eight-month investigation into a cocaine trafficking operation in the port city of Santos.
In a friendly played in 1965, Pelé intentionally broke the leg of West Germany player Kiesman.
In a Santos x Cruzeiro match, played in 1968, Pelé broke the leg of Procópio.
At 1970 FIFA World Cup semis, Pele hit the Uruguayan player Fontes with his elbow.
Pelé's son Edinho (Edson Cholbi Nascimento) was arrested in June 2005 because of his involvement with the Illegal drug trade.[Drug trade], chinadaily.com, accessed July 15, 2006
Accolades
Records
Pelé is in third place on the list of all-time top goalscorers in international matches, with 77 goals, and in fourth place behind Ronaldo, Gerd Müller, and Just Fontaine on the list of goalscorers in World Cup matches, with 12 goals. He was part of three World Cup winning teams, although he did not play in the 1962 final due to injury and did not receive a medal. He ended his career with a total of 1,281 goals in 1,363 matches, becoming the highest goalscorer in professional football history. The Brazilian league of his time was, perhaps, the best league in the world. Since, every single starter from the 58, 62, and 1970 Brasil World Cup Champions played in Brazil. In his 92 appearances for the Brazilian team, he scored 77 goals. Pele is one of only four footballers to have achieved the feat of scoring in two different world cup final matches, sharing that honor with Paul Breitner, Vava, and Zinedine Zidane.[Pele goals]. Four of his goals were against Internazionale in 1959 (in a 7 to 1 Santos win) and 2 goals against Barcelona in the same year (in a 5 to 1 Santos win). Pele's Santos was considered by many the best team in the world. They were 2 times Libertadores (against Boca and Penarol in the two finals) and World Club Championship winners (against Eusebio's Benfica and Internazionale in the two finals).
Titles
He was awarded Brazil's Gold Medal for outstanding services to the sport, before becoming sports minister in 1995. In 1997, he was given an honorary British knighthood.
In 1992, Pelé was appointed a United Nations ambassador for ecology and the environment.
In December 2000, Pelé was named Footballer of the Century by a "Family of Football" committee appointed by FIFA, after a Web poll favored Diego Maradona. FIFA announced that a second award would be made after widespread discontent at Maradona's victory over the more popular Pele. Allegations that the Internet poll had been bombarded by Argentinian fans still remain to this day, but supporters of Maradona point out that they have never been conclusively proven.
TNA Wrestler A.J. Styles named his backflip kick after Pelé. He calls it the Pelé Kick.
Pelé is one of the first black persons to be featured on the cover of Life magazine.
Pelé was the first sports figure featured in a video game with the Atari 2600 game Pelé's Soccer.
Family: He married Rosemeri in 1966 which ended in divorce (1978) with two children. He married Assiria on April 30, 1994 and the couple have two children.
Pelé's jersey number, 10, has since been worn by many of soccer's top players, including Diego Maradona of Argentina, Zinedine Zidane of France and Ronaldinho of Brazil.
Pelé hated his nickname, and was once suspended from school for two days for punching the classmate that coined it.[I hated my nickname: Pele], ABC Sports, May 23, 2006 The word has no known meaning, but resembles the Irish language word 'Peile', meaning football, and the Hebrew word פֶּלֶא, meaning "miracle".[Taking the Pele] BBC, Jan 4, 2006Pele is also a goddess in Polynesian mythology.
1959: Pelé states that his most beautiful goal was scored at Rua Javari stadium on a Campeonato Paulista match against Juventus on August 2. As there is no video footage of this match, Pelé asked that a computer animation be made of this specific goal. This animation can be seen in Pelé Eterno, a documentary about his career.
1962: After the World Cup in 1962, wealthy European clubs offered massive fees to sign the young player, but the government of Brazil declared Pelé an "official national treasure" to prevent him from being transferred out of the country.[PELE], Emperor's Palace, May 23, 2006
1974: He also played in a friendly match with the Lebanese club Nejmeh in 1974. He agreed to play with them to pay off his massive debts.
1977: Pelé has published several autobiographies, starred in documentary and semi-documentary films and composed various musical pieces, including the entire soundtrack for the film Pelé in 1977. He had a cameo role, alongside many other well-known footballers of the 1960s and 1970s, in the film Escape to Victory, about an attempted escape from a NaziPOW Camp during WWII.
2002: Pelé has presented trophies at the Brazilian Grand Prix race several times, but in 2002 he was waving the checkered flag to signify the end of the race and missed the race winner Michael Schumacher crossing the line.
2005: Of the many tributes left to Northern Ireland legend George Best near his hospital bed as he lay dying, one was a signed football from Pelé which read: "From the second best player in the world". Pelé called Best "the greatest footballer in the world".
