Pelé: The King of “Soccer”

If you search a list of the greatest players in football history, Brazilian footballer Edson Arantes do Nascimento, better known by his nickname “Pelé”, is bound to be on the top of the list. Many consider Pelé the greatest player of all time, but exactly how good was Pelé? Pelé was the first and only to win three world cups alone. This is quite the achievement, but what else has Pelé done?

 For starters, Pelé has scored 77 international goals, as well as the top goal scorer for the Brazilian football club Santos: scoring 643 goals in 659 games. That’s 0.97 goals a game within 18 years. He held the scoring record until Argentina’s very own Lionel Messi broke the record by scoring 672 goals in 778 matches in 2021. Another staggering .86 goals a game in 17 seasons.

In his career, he won the Brazilian championships 6 times with Santos FC, won 2 Copa Libertadores with Santos (the most prestigious cup in South America), and the NASL Soccer Bowl championship (at the time the Unites states league was called the North American Soccer League or NASL) with the New York Cosmos who he played for 3 seasons with. You can’t forget about his 3 FIFA World Cups (1958,1962,1970) while winning Player of the tournament in 1970. To understand how insane 3 world cup wins are, The tournament takes place every 4 years. Winning 3 world cups would have to take 12 years, longer than most players’ prime years last. Pele played the beautiful sport for 22 years.

Pelé changed football from a sport and made it into art. You began to see his athleticism right away after watching old clips of his games. Pelé was fast, had crazy shooting accuracy, and displayed high knowledge of the sport being able to set up plays for other teammates.

Pelé also gave a voice to poor Brazilians, showing the world that hard work pays off. After all, he began his career at 15 and won his first world cup at the age of 17. Pelé was more than a generational player. He was an anomaly. So you could most definitely say Pelé was one of a kind.

Rest in peace, Pelé.

1940-2022