By Emmanuel Asare:
Sports, December 30, SIXSCRIBES — World Pelé: All You Need To Know About The Brazilian Soccer Icon.
Edson Arantes do Nascimento populary known as Pelé died at aged 82 (1940 – 2022). He was a Brazilian professional footballer who played as a striker for the Brazilian National Team and Santos. He is regarded as one of the greatest players of all time and credited “the greatest” by FIFA.
Pele was among the most victorious and famous sportsmen of the 20th century. His parents named him after a popular inventor, Thomas Edison, because his hometown in Brazil had their first light at the time Pele was born, hence, he got his name from the great inventor of light bulb.
He got his nickname Pelé when he was a young boy and had trouble pronouncing the name of his favourite player, a goalkeeper named Bill who played with his father at a local club.
Pelé today holds the record of the most hat-trick scored by a player with a total number of 92 hat-tricks and also becoming the youngest player ever to score a hat-trick.
Throughout his carrier, Pele scored 1,289 goals and made 1,363 appearances in both club and national competitions. Most of his goals were scored for Santos, where he spent majority of his career. He scored 643 goals for Santos and made 656 competitive appearances.
FIFA world cup, which is organised every four years saw Pelé managing to win a world record of three FIFA World Cups with him becoming the player with the most world cups won. In the same tournament, Pele holds the record of the youngest player ever to score in a World Cup match at the age of 17 years, and also the youngest player to ever win a World Cup trophy.
Many contributions to his nation Brazil, he holds the record with a total number of 77 goals making him the top scorer in Brazil’s history.
On 6 February, 1969, Pelé visited Ghana, as part of Santos FC’s tour of Africa. They played Accra Hearts of Oak to a 2-2 drawn game at the Accra stadium. He took this picture with the man known as Amusa Gbadamoshie.
From 1994 – 1998, Pele was appointed Sports Minister of Brazil which also was the first time a black man held such position. A year later he was honoured by FIFA as the player of the century.
According to Neymar, all great football players of this generation looked up to Pelé.
“Before Pelé, football was just a sport. Pelé changed everything. He is gone, but his magic will live on. Pelé is eternal!” — Neymar said as a tribute to Pele.
Pelé is dead but his legacies still remain alive.
May his soul Rest In Peace.
