Pélé. The soccer-God. The King on the lawn. There are many names for him. He is a superstar, a fantastic soccer-player. His right name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento, he lived in Tres Coracoes in a little town near Sao Paolo, Brasil. He is the best soccer player of all times. With each ball contact, with each pass and each dribbling Pélé could surprise with new things. Pélé had all what a perfect soccer-player needs: A killer instinct in front of the goal, a view for the perfect pass and he was a real dribbling artist. His career began at the Youth Club of FC Rio de Janeiro. At 14 he first played in the point system. But his job was only to clean shoes. At 16 he first played in the national-team.
At 17 he won the World Championship with the Brazilian national-team. In 1363 games Pélé scored 1281 goals. He played for FC Santos for 19 years. In this time he played 1114 games. He played the last football game on the first of October 1977. He played in the Giants Stadion with 75646 spectators. The first half-time he played for Cosmos and the second half-time he played for FC Santos.
In 1966 he married Rosemary Cholbi. He has with her a son (Edson, his occupation was goal keeper) and two daughters (Kelly Christina and Jennifer). In 1978 he separated from his first wife. In 1996 his second wife got twins.
After his soccer-career he attended the Universtity, he organized world-wide football camps for young players and more training-stocks. In the middle of 1980-1990 he wanted to become the President of Brazil. After his soccer-career he was coach in Saudi-Arabia and advisor of the Brazilian Football Federation. And then he became Brazilian Sport Minister.
Today he works for the Warner Communication as PR-Advisor. He is multi-millionaire, has got a radio-station, a film production company, some hotels, an appartment and a villa. He is considered the „goodwill Ambassador“ of football. 5 films were shot about him. Pélé played in six further films too, amongst them „Victory“ with Sylvester Stallone. Pélé is the author of 5 books, too.
I chose to write about Pélé because he is a very good football player and football belongs to me. Not only that, he is a very brilliant human being too.
Some famous quotes about Pélé:
„How do you spell Pélé?“ „G-O-D.“
(The Sunday Times, London newspaper)
„If Pélé hadn‘t been born a man, he would have been born a ball.“
(Armando Nogueira, Brasilian journalist)
„Scoring 1000 goals isn‘t difficult, but scoring only one goal like Pélé does, is an achievement.“
(Carlos Drummenond de Andrade, Brasilian poet)
„After the fifth goal I wanted to applaud him.“
(Sigge Parling, Swedish defender that was marking Pélé throughout the final of the 1958 World Cup. Karl-Heinz Montgommery)