Pele Biography: Career, Life and Times, Achievements and World Cup

According to every Pele Biography ever written, he is anonymously considered as the greatest soccer player in the history of football. Pele who is a Brazilian football player was originally named Edson Arantes do Nascimento and used to play as a forward. He is the most popular and celebrated football player of the 20th century who was even labelled by FIFA as “the greatest”. He was also recognized by the International Olympic Committee as “ The athlete of the century” and also featured in Times magazine in 1999 as “100 Top Most Influential People” of that time. In the following year, IFFHS ( International Federation of Football History and Statistics) voted Pele as the “world player of the century”. He also jointly won the FIFA player of the century. The total number of goals in his account is 1279 in 1363 games that he played which also includes his famous friendlies that were considered in the Guinness World Record. He was a recognized player of Brazil and played in the team for 2 decades and won 3 World Cups and later in his career he joined the American Cosmos. He was also the ambassador for many humanitarian causes and was titled as Global ambassador of football.   

Pele Bio

A short Pele Bio is listed below:

Birth Name: Edson Arantes do Nascimento

Birthdate: 23rd October 1940

Current age: 80 years old

Birth Place: Tres Coracoes, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Football team: Brazil and later joined American cosmos

Height:  1.73 meters or 5 feet 8 inches tall

Parents: João Ramos do Nascimento (father) and Celeste Arantes (mother)

Spouses: Rosemeri dos Reis Cholbi (1996-1982), Assíria Lemos Seixas (1994-2008) and

                Marcia Aoki  (2016)

Children: 7 children out of whom 1 died

Partner: Xuxa Meneghel (1981-1986)

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Image: Photograph of Pele from Pele’s Bio

Life and Times: Early life, personal life and career

Early Life

Pelé was born on 23rd of October 1940 in Tres Coracoes, Minas Gerais, Brazil to João Ramos do Nascimento (father) and Celeste Arantes (mother). His father was also a professional football player but Pele grew up in poverty as his father didn’t earn enough to stain a good lifestyle out of his profession. He was originally named Edson Arantes do Nascimento but as Pele’s biography stated that he got this name the day he accidentally mispronounced the name of a famous football goalkeeper of his times, Bile. His friends started teasing him with the name “Pele” which had no meaning but later it was discovered that “Pele” is a synonym of a miracle according to the Bible in Hebrew.

He used to play football from a very young age with socks stuffed with newspapers as he couldn’t afford real football. Initially, he was coached and trained by his father and used to play casually on the streets of Bauru. Later as a teenager, he joined the Youth squad that was coached and trained by a former player from the national team of soccer of Brazil named Waldemar de Brito where Pele and simultaneously worked in a hotel as a waiter. But the former player started to discover Pele’s passion for playing soccer and did extremely well during his coaching period. Later Waldemar de Brito convinced his parents to let the extraordinary budding player in Pele be discovered and thus he wanted Pele to try joining with Santos Professional Soccer club when he just turned 15. It is because of his speed of reaction that he developed while playing as a youth in indoor leagues he was signed by the Club. Soon at the age of 16, he became famous for playing and winning the call cup for the Brazilian national side and was the top scorer in the Brazilian football league.

Personal Life

Pele was married thrice and had relationships with many women and had several children out of whom few were out of wedlock. He became actively involved with the leftist for a brief period of time where he was investigated for the charge of taking part in the leftist activities for advocating for the release of the leftist politicians who were in prison. He was also involved in secretly distributing pamphlets and propagating for the release of the politicians. But after the investigation, he stayed away from politics and never involved him in one. In his later years, he was appointed ambassador of ecology and environment under the UN and also served as a goodwill ambassador in the UN. With a gifted skill of football, he was also very kind-mannered and involved in many humanitarian activities within his country and outside post his retirement. He always channelised his name and fame for bringing positive changes within the societies. 

Career

From early till mid-career of his life he managed to score more than 1000 goals and he scored his 1000th goal in the Maracana stadium of Vasco Da Gama situated in Rio de Janeiro on 19th November 1969. This event was marked and incited a huge celebration worldwide. He was known for his highest strike rate than any other player in all international football games. In the 92nd football world cup and other international football matches, he scored a total of 77 goals in matches combined which are still the highest. The ratio of his goals versus the number of games he played during his lifetime is as high as 0.94. At the age of 16, he scored in the domestic league for Santos from which he was introduced to national and international football. From the 1972-73 season, he played for the Santos team in the Brazilian Soccer League. At the end of his career, he signed with the US Cosmos in New York in the year 1975 and played three league seasons with them. In the year 1977, he led the New York Cosmos as the titleholder of the US. After 1977 he retired from the Football world.       

Pele The National Treasure

He was signed with Santos Football Club and started practicing with the regular soccer players. He scored his first goal in the Club league and led his teams with brilliant goals throughout the entire league that trend into the winning of Santos. He delivered the first goal of his entire career in the league playing for Santos. Later he was recruited by the football federation to play with the national team of Brazil.

He was first introduced in International matches in the year 1958 during the World Cup held by Sweden. The display of his unmatched speed, athletic gestures and vision of the field led the 17 years old Pele to score three goals in the semifinal match with France where Brazil won with a score of 5-2 and that led to the losing of the host country in the semi-finals with team Brazil.

After his unmatched performance in the world cup of 1958, many prestigious European clubs had offered Pele some hefty amount to play for their club but then the Brazilain President at that time, Janio Quadros quickly declared him as a national treasure to keep him within the country and continue playing for the national team of Brazil. And as expected, the declaration made it morally and practically impossible for a 17-years football star to play for any other country. His stardom started benefiting the Santos club who still held his own and they ensured that Pele’s attraction was paid well off as they started hosting many exhibition football matches played by Pele and the Brazilian team with other teams around the world. 

World Cup and Titles

In the 1962 world cup hosted by Chile, he was severely affected by a leg injury in two games and was put on standby where he was sitting outside the field but still Brazil went ahead and won the World Cup. but in the year 1966, that is just after four years, in another football world cup in England, he was deliberately attacked by his opposition team players and the injury was severe and brutal as described in the biography of Pele, the footballer. That year Brazil could not clear the second round of world Cup football. Despite all the disappointments, Pele was still warmly welcomed and celebrated. He kept growing to be the legend and in late 1960s the two groups who were involved in the Nigerian Civil War agreed to ceasefire for 48 hours so that both the frictions could watch the match played by Pele in the exhibition match in Lagos. 

In the 1974 World Cup hosted by Mexico, Pele and Brazil came back with a triumph. He finally scored four goals in the final match against Italy despite facing a very strong and intimidating headlining squad of Italy. Brazil finally won the World cup that year. Though he retired in 1974, a huge amount of money was offered him by the New York Cosmo in the United States to play for them and he accepted the offer and returned to the field the next year to play for NY Cosmo in North American Soccer League. That made NASL a big attraction as long as Pele participated in the league. His final match in October of 1977 which was an exhibition game played between New York and Santos.  

Later Life and Legacy

Even after retirement, he remained a popular figure and served as a pitchman and was active in various other areas professionally. In 1978, he was honoured with the International Peace Award for his immense contributions and work with UNICEF. He was UN’s ambassador of ecology and environment and was appointed as the Extraordinary Sports minister of Brazil. He was declared the co-player of the century in 1999 and the award was shared between Pele and Maradona.