Soccer Legend Pelé Dead at 82 After Health Battles

Edson Arantes Do Nascimento recalled exactly the moment he saw his father weep. It was 1950 and Brazil, appearing in soccer’s World Cup for the first time, had just been beaten by Uruguay in the final.

“My father was crying with a lot of Brazilians,” the man better known as Pelé remembered. “My father used to say, men should be strong. Men doesn’t cry. My father was crying when Brazil lost the match.

“Then I told him, ‘Father, don’t worry. I’m going to win a World Cup for you.’ … [Six] years later, I was in Sweden with Brazil and Brazil won the World Cup. I was 17 years old. That was a gift from God. I don’t know why I said it, why I promised it to my father.”

Pelé , the Brazilian soccer star who led his country’s national team to a that World Cup victory in 1956 and who, in the 1960s and 70s, rivaled Muhammad Ali as the world’s most popular and recognizable athlete, died Thursday at a Sao Paulo hospital. He was 82 years old and had been suffering from cancer for several years. The hospital released a statement saying that he died of complications. “kidney and cardiac dysfunctions.”

Pelé, whose presence for a 1969 exhibition match in Nigeria led to a two-day cease-fire in that country’s bitter civil war so that both sides could see him play, became the only player to win three World Cups when Brazil was again victorious in 1962 and 1970, more than making good on his naive and youthful promise to his father.

Pelé starred for the Santos club in his homeland and, during his career, resisted numerous offers to play in Europe, citing his loyalty to Brazil. After playing his last game with Santos in 1974, he had intended to retire. He was in deep debt, and he signed a $7 million contract at 35 to play the last three seasons of his professional soccer career with the New York Cosmos.

With Pelé as their featured attraction, the Cosmos routinely filled 80,000-seat Giants Stadium to near capacity and league-wide his presence helped boost average attendance by almost 80 percent between 1975 (7,597) and 1977 (13,584).

By force of his skill and personality, Pelé is credited with igniting the slow but steady growth of soccer — “the beautiful game,” as he called it — in the United States.

“It really was ludicrous to think that Pelé, the greatest player of all, was going to end up playing for this ridiculous little team in New York drawing 1,500 people,” Clive Toye is the Cosmos general manger. “But I told him don’t go to Italy, don’t go to Spain, all you can do is win a championship. Come to the U.S. and you can win a country.”

Edson Arantes did Nascimento, born to Dondinho & Dona Celeste on October 23, 1940 in Tres Coracoes (southeastern Brazil). Edson was the son of a soccer player. His father was also a local soccer player. Young Edson started playing futbol with a handful of newspaper folded inside a sock.

Soon he was better at the game than all the other neighborhood kids and they gave him the nickname Pelé after the youngster butchered the name Bile, the goalkeeper on Brazil’s Vasco da Gama team and his favorite player. At first, Pele didn’t like his nickname, but it stuck.

Pele had already made a name of himself at the Bauru Athletic Club. Valdemar De Brito, a former World Cup participant, noticed him and brought him into the Santos club team. In his first full season, Pelé scored a league-leading 32 goals and it wasn’t long before he was selected for Brazil’s 1958 World Cup. He was 17 years old.

Pelé missed the first two games of the tournament in Sweden with a knee injury, but returned to score the game-winning goal in the quarterfinals. He added a hat trick in the semifinals and two goals in Brazil’s 5-2 final victory over the host team.

The prodigy’s heroics coincided with the first international telecast of the World Cup. Pelé, the nickname he originally didn’t like, became a household name around the globe.

Brazil would win the World Cup again in 1962 and, after the defending champions suffered a devastating loss during group play and were eliminated during the 1966 World Cup in England, Pelé, although still in his prime, announced that he had played in his last World Cup.

“I was really torn,” Pelé said in a 2021 documentary. “I didn’t want to play in the ’70 World Cup. I didn’t want to repeat what happened in England.”

That stance didn’t sit well with his countrymen nor with Brazil’s president Emilio Medici and word made its way to Pelé that he might want to reconsider. It had been in turmoil for years. The ruthless Medici was one of a number of despots that ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1978. He was known to torture and imprison anyone who dared to cross him. It would be better for all if Pele put on his boots once more for the motherland.

Pelé, who considered himself neutral politically, had already received criticism for an earlier meeting with Medici.

“I don’t think I could have done anything different,” In the documentary, he stated that. “It wasn’t possible. … I’m Brazilian. I want the best for my country. I’m not Superman. I don’t work miracles.

“I was just a normal person who was granted the gift of being a futbol player. But I am absolutely certain that I have done much more for Brazil through futbol in my own way than many politicians who are paid to do so have done.”

So Pelé, then 29, played in 1970 in Mexico and Brazil defeated Italy, 4-1, in the final with Pelé scoring the game’s first goal.

“The 1970 World Cup was the best moment of my life, but I think it was more important for the nation,” He stated. “Because if Brazil had lost in Mexico things would have gotten a lot worse. Brazil’s victory gave the whole country a moment to breathe. The 1970 World Cup was for the nation, not for the sport.”

Pelé would sign with the Cosmos in 1975, bringing a measure of credibility to the 7-year-old league. He was the highest-paid athlete on a team in the world at the time. His decision to play again in the U.S. after a year of retirement from soccer upset his countrymen. He had been ardent about not playing again and had missed the 1974 World Cup.

He retired — this time for good — after leading the Cosmos to the 1977 NASL championship although he did return for an exhibition match later that year versus Santos, his old club team. Pelé played the first half of that game for the Cosmos and the second half for Santos. His career ended with 1,283 goals and 1,367 games.

Pelé, who once held the title of Brazil’s minister of sport, spent many of his years following his retirement serving as an ambassador for the game he loved, his worldwide fame continuing long after he had played his last game.

A reporter once asked Pelé if his fame compared to that of Jesus Christ.

“There are parts of the world where Jesus Christ is not so well known,” He stated.

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