Pelé: Brazil’s football icon dies at 82

A part of football died with the passing of Pelé.

At the age of 82, he had been fighting a battle against colon cancer, which had spread to other parts of his body, and left him in hospital.

He spent these days surrounded by his family and, according to reports, still believed he would make it to Qatar to see one last World Cup in person. But it wasn’t to be.

ETERNO

Morre Pelé, o Rei que encheu os corações de seus súditos de alegrias

Queríamos apenas dizer: MUITO OBRIGADO

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— ge (@geglobo) December 29, 2022

Pelé is, almost unanimously, touted as the greatest football player in history.

He revolutionised the sport - in fact, most of the movements that are performed on the field today were once made by Pelé.

Carlos Drummond de Andrade, one of Brazil's greatest poets, once said: “The difficult thing, the extraordinary thing is not scoring a thousand goals like Pelé. It is to score a goal like Pelé.”

That alone expresses how incredible he was.

After all, he was responsible for scoring more than 1200 goals in his career, alongside winning three World Cups, a feat no player has repeated since, and was an idol at club side Santos, where he won the Brazilian Championship six times, the Libertadores Cup twice and the Intercontinental Cup twice. He is largely responsible for making it one of the largest clubs in the country.

He was instrumental in making football even more popular back home - it didn't matter if you liked the sport or not, you would recognise Pelé.

Whether playing in Brazil, or on the world stage, he stopped crowds who wanted the opportunity to see the king on his pitch.

Pelé's feats on the field also reverberated off them.

Being a black man who also happened to be the best soccer player in the world was, at the time, gigantic.

And his clashes with Brazil’s military dictatorship, that had devastated the country between the 60s and 80s, were infamous.

He was his nation’s first big celebrity, known around the world. He was responsible for taking the culture of a country that had suffered so much to the rest of the planet.

All of that was because of his football, and he is respected to this day for his achievements.

In Brazil, Pelé has become synonymous with excellence.

When you want to talk about someone who is the standout star of what they do, you say that they are the ‘Pelé’ of their field - Michael Jordan is the Pelé of basketball; Michael Phelps the Pelé of swimming; Usain Bolt the Pelé of athletics - an honour he truly deserves. His skills remain unmatched to this day.

Pelé is, and always will be, a source of great pride for Brazilian people - they’re proud to have been born the same nationality as the king of football. He was the one who took us to another level and gave us a level of respect we didn't have before.

The man who, in 1950, saw his father crying after Brazil lost the World Cup to Uruguay and promised him to bring the trophy home has left us.

He didn't just bring it home once, but three times. 

Football, from now on, will never be the same, but will live on in the memory that the beautiful game would not have reached its peak today, without Pelé.