Pele is the greatest footballer who has ever lived.
He had the most skill, played the best brand and won practically everything in his career, despite losing a significant chunk to injury and malicious negative tactics. He was loyal, kept his feet on the ground, and maintained a clean and friendly image. After retirement, he has continued to be the best advertisement the game of football could have ever had. Pele symbolizes excellence both on and of the pitch.
No one inspired multiple generations of football fans more or for longer, than Pele. Before the age of media saturation and the internet; before Michael Jordan and sporting demigods, Pele was the world's biggest sporting icon. Familiar, popular and awe-inspiring, the world over, Pele brought pure joy to the masses at a time when football was still making inroads around the globe.
Diego Maradona's emergence in the 1980s gave Pele a significant challenger and younger generations may point to the former's prominence and achievements as sufficient proof that the sun had set on Pele's reign. Even newer fans may point to Zinedine Zidane or currently Lionel Messi, but no one has ever eclipsed Pele. He continues burning bright, forever illuminating a part of every person's imagination as the pinnacle of footballing brilliance.
Born Edson Arantes de Nascimento, Pele grew up poor, playing football with a stuffed sock, and occasionally a grapefruit, in rural Brazil. Living in Sao Paolo, he was eventually spotted by and taken on by Santos, where he broke into their first team at 15.
When he burst onto the international scene as a precociously talented 17 year old, Pele sparkled as Brazil finally won their first World Cup in 1958, in Sweden. There was no rawness, no gangly uncertainty to his game. He was already a maestro, an imperious finished article, who made the ball dance as he laughed, a performer from the street it seemed, who made the game fun while making it look easy. The iconic image of him jumping into a teammate's arms, holding a fist aloft, while celebrating his first goal scored against Sweden capture both the passion and pure unsophisticated brilliance of his ability. This was a child playing football, joyous and unbridled. He was inventing the game, creating magic, doing things on a consistent basis that most people only dream of doing on a football pitch.
Four years later, his World Cup was ended early as he suffered an injury in the group stages but Brazil still won with a much changed team. However teams were onto him and tactics were made to stop the side's creative fulcrum, the irrepressible Pele. Before the era of video analysis, cards and powerful referees, opposing teams would target and kick Pele almost at will.
In 1966, Brazil had a new generation of players complementing Pele, who was now at his peak. But he was in for some brutal treatment at the feet of opposing defenders. Brazil were either unable to field him due to injury or were reduced to watching him get kicked when he did play. The tournament ended with Brazil eliminated and a limping Pele vowing to never play in the World Cup again. In an ironic twist, eventually cards were introduced to stop the madness - a testament to his skill, that new rules were put in place.
After a three year hiatus, Pele returned for the qualifiers and World Cup finals in 1970. In the first tournament televised in colour, Pele and his teammates dazzled, romping home to the title in Mexico. An emphatic 4-1 win over Italy in the final, put the seal on a perfect tournament. This was arguably the greatest international side ever and Pele was the heartbeat. Football’s orchestra was playing Samba and Pele was both muse and conductor.
In total he played in four World Cups and won three of them - impressive by anyone's standards. Whilst not on international duty Pele was an ever present for club side Santos, the only club side he ever played for. The world's greatest player turned out for his original hometown team for 18 years, an epic display of loyalty, untainted by the money minded mercenaries who grace the current game. He finished with 730 league goals for Santos in 605 matches while adding another 77 goals in 92 games for Brazil, the latter still a national record.
A two year celebrity gig at New York Cosmos in the NASL followed, where along with Franz Beckenbauer, he played on the footballing equivalent of the Haarlem Globetrotters, notching 37 strikes in 64 games. It is telling that having turned 70, he remains bereft of any controversy throughout his life, despite stratospheric fame and adulation the world over.
Pele was global sport's first true king, whose smiling face and sublime skills touched millions. He retired in 1977, at only 37 and has been a worldwide ambassador for the game since. He dabbled in some acting and other commercial ventures but has always maintained the clean cut image that set the standard for erstwhile sporting icons.
As an attacking playmaker his skill-set was complete: powerful in his shooting, creative in dribbling and possessing a repertoire of passing and tricks the world had never seen. At only 5 foot 8, he was hardly a giant but possessed stamina, endurance and technique that became the benchmarks for all future talent to be judged against. In all, Pele scored an astonishing 1281 goals in 1363 games and remains Brazil's greatest ever export. Football became a phenomenon in the 1960s, encapsulating the entire world. Pele was at the forefront of that revolution, a sporting messiah who talked with his feet and played with his heart.
Pele played on some of the greatest football teams to have graced the game, no doubt. But as a player he did something far greater – make everyone watching believe that they should play football just like him; in a way empowering us all to be just as great, inspiring us all to perform magic just like him.
For that, he is peerless, second to none.
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