Football star Pele, the Brazilian legend of the beautiful game, has passed away at the age of 82

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Pele, the legendary Brazilian soccer player who rose from barefoot poverty to become one of the greatest and most celebrated athletes in modern history, died Thursday at the age of 82.

The Albert Einstein Hospital in Sao Paulo, where Pele was undergoing treatment, said he died at 3:27 p.m. “due to multiple organ failure resulting from the development of colon cancer linked to his previous medical condition.”

The death of the only man to win the World Cup three times as a player has been confirmed on his Instagram account.

“Inspiration and love are the balance of the journey of King Pele, who passed away peacefully today,” the letter read, adding that he “enchanted the world with his genius in sports, stopped war, carried out social work around the world and spread what he believed to be the cure to all our problems: love.”

Tributes have poured in from across the worlds of sports, politics and popular culture to a figure who epitomized Brazil’s dominance of the beautiful game.

And the government of President Jair Bolsonaro, who leaves office on Sunday, declared three days of mourning, and said in a statement that Pele is “a great citizen and patriot who raises the name of Brazil wherever he goes.”

Bolsonaro’s successor, President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, wrote on Twitter that “few Brazilians have carried the name of our country as much as it has.”

French President Emmanuel Macron said Pele’s legacy would live on forever. “The game. The king. Immortality,” Macron wrote on Twitter.

Pele has been undergoing chemotherapy since having a polyp removed from his colon in September 2021.

He has also had difficulty walking unaided since an unsuccessful hip operation in 2012. In February 2020, on the eve of the coronavirus pandemic, his son Edinho said Pele’s faltering physical condition had made him depressed.

And on Monday, Pele will have a 24-hour wake-up party for midfield at Santos, the hometown stadium where he began playing as a teenager and quickly rose to fame.

The next day, a procession carrying his coffin will pass through the streets of Santos, pass the neighborhood of his 100-year-old mother, and end at the Ecumenical Memorial Necropolis, where he will be buried in a private ceremony.

‘what is possible’

US President Joe Biden said on Twitter that Pele’s rise from humble beginnings to football legend is the story of “what is possible”.

Pele, whose first name was Edson Arantes do Nascimento, joined Santos in 1956 and transformed the small coastal club into one of the most recognizable names in football.

In addition to a host of regional and national titles, Pele has won the Copa Libertadores, the South American equivalent of the UEFA Champions League, and the Intercontinental Cup, the annual tournament held between the best teams in Europe and South America.

He won three World Cup winners’ medals, the first time as a 17-year-old in Sweden in 1958, the second in Chile four years later – although he missed most of the tournament due to injury – and the third in Mexico in 1970, when he led Ma It is considered one of the greatest teams to ever play the game.

He retired from Santos in 1974 but a year later made a surprise comeback by signing a lucrative deal to join the New York Cosmos in the then-fledgling North American Soccer League.

In a glorious 21-year career, he scored between 1281 and 1283 goals, depending on how matches are counted.

Despite this, Pele transcended football, like no player before or since, and became one of the first global icons of the 20th century.

With his winning smile and incredible humility that charmed legions of fans, he was better known than many Hollywood stars, popes, or presidents—many, if not most, of whom he met during his six-decade career as a player and entrepreneur. .

“I am sad, but also proud to be Brazilian, because I am from the country of Pele, a man who was a great athlete,” said Ciro Campos, a 49-year-old biologist in Rio de Janeiro. “And also off the field, he was a great guy, not a snooty athlete.”

Pele has credited his unique combination of talent, creative genius, and technical skills to a young man spent playing pick-up games in small-town Brazil, often with grapefruit or stuffed rags because his family couldn’t afford a real one. a ball.

Pele has been named “Athlete of the Century” by the International Olympic Committee, his partner “Football Player of the Century” by FIFA, and a “National Treasure” by the Brazilian government.

His fame was often overwhelming. Adults regularly break down in his presence. When he was a player, fans looking for souvenirs rushed onto the field after games and tore his pants, socks, and even his underwear.

His home in Brazil was less than a mile from the beach, but he hadn’t gone there for nearly two decades due to fear of crowds.

However, he rarely complained even in off-guard moments between friends. He believed his talent was a divine gift, and spoke movingly of how football allowed him to travel the world, cheer up cancer patients and survivors of war and famine, and provide for a family who often did not know where their next meal came from.

“God gave me this ability for one reason: to make people happy,” he said during an interview with Reuters in 2013. “No matter what I did, I tried not to forget it.”

The Brazilian Football Confederation said that “Pelé was much more than the greatest athlete of all time… The king of football was the champion of Brazil’s victorious national team.”

Kylian Mbappe, the French star who many see as the best soccer player in the world, also offered his condolences.

“The king of football left us, but his legacy will never be forgotten,” he wrote on Twitter. “RIP KING.”

(Reporting by Andrew Downey and Gabriel Araujo); Additional reporting by Peter Frontini, Carolina Polis and Sergio Queiroz. Editing by Gabrielle Stargaardter, Daniel Wallis, and Rosalba O’Brien

Our standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.