Brazilian football legend Pelé, widely considered one of the best players ever, if not the best, died yesterday after a year-long battle with colon cancer. He was 82 years old.
Brazil has planned 48 hours of national mourning. Pelé, is expected to be buried in Santos, southeast of Sao Paulo, where he played for the city's club from 1956 to 1974. Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, said in a statement Pelé's "life was about more than football. He changed perceptions for the better in Brazil, in South America and across the world."
The
UK's Guardian has a great piece on his career and how he came to be the face of
football the world over. Pelé burst onto the world stage when he was just 17
scoring six goals to help Brazil win the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. He stole the
show in the final which Brazil won over hosts Sweden, 5-2, with two goals that
were "an illustration of the ability that set him apart from all other
footballers. The first was a breathtaking piece of skill; he controlled the
ball on his chest, chipped it back over his head and then ran around the
flummoxed defender and volleyed it into the net. For the second, he soared
above his marker before making a perfectly placed header." He is the only
player to have won the World Cup three times (1958, 1962, and 1970).
"Pelé was blessed with a blend of supreme athleticism, skill and tactical vision...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." Those qualities made him a hot commodity as wealthy clubs attempted to lure him away from Brazil, offering a then unheard-of $1m to his club, Santos FC. But in 1961, Brazil's president Jânio Quadros "declared Pelé a 'non-exportable national treasure', ensuring that he remained at the club for almost two decades."
In 1999 Pelé was named athlete of the century by the IOC and in 2000 FIFA player of the century (jointly with Diego Maradona). Pelé first two marriages ended in divorce. In 2016 he married his third wife, Marcia Cibele Aoki. She survives him, along with six children from prior relationships.
