Brazilian soccer legend Pelé dies at 82

Pelé, the Brazilian soccer legend who won three World Cups and became the sport’s first global icon, has died at the age of 82.

“Everything that we are, is thanks to you,” his daughter Kely Nascimento wrote in a post on Instagram, under an image of family members holding Pele’s hands. “We love you infinitely. Rest in peace.”

Pelé was admitted to a hospital in São Paulo in late November for a respiratory infection and for complications related to colon cancer. Last week, the hospital said his health had worsened as his cancer progressed. He died on Thursday from multiple organ failure due to the progression of colon cancer, according to a statement from Albert Einstein Hospital.

For more than 60 years, the name Pelé has been synonymous with soccer. He played in four World Cups and is the only player in history to win three, but his legacy stretched far beyond his trophy haul and remarkable goal-scoring record.

“I was born to play football, just like Beethoven was born to write music and Michelangelo was born to paint,” Pelé famously said.

Tributes have been pouring in for the soccer legend. Pelé’s first club, Santos FC, responded to the news on Twitter with the words “eternal” shared next to an image of a crown.

Brazilian footballer Neymar said Pelé “changed everything.” In a post on Instagram, he wrote: “He turned football into art, into entertainment. He gave a voice to the poor, to black people and especially: He gave visibility to Brazil. Football and Brazil have raised their status thanks to the King!” he added.

Portuguese star forward Cristiano Ronaldo sent his condolences to Brazil in a post on Instagram, saying “a mere “goodbye” to the eternal King Pelé will never be enough to express the pain that currently engulfs the entire football world.”

Kylian Mbappé of Paris Saint-Germain said of Pelé’s death: “The king of football has left us but his legacy will never be forgotten.”

Former English soccer player Geoff Hurst wrote on Twitter of his memories of Pelé, calling the late star “without doubt the best footballer I ever played against (with Bobby Moore being the best footballer I ever played alongside). For me Pele remains the greatest of all time and I was proud to be on the the pitch with him. RIP Pele and thank you.”

Brazil’s incoming President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took to Twitter to pay his respects to Pelé, saying “few Brazilians took the name of our country as far as he did.”

“As different from Portuguese as the language was, foreigners from the four corners of the planet soon found a way to pronounce the magic word: ‘Pelé,’” Lula added.

A public wake will be held for Pelé on Monday at the Urbano Caldeira stadium, popularly known as Vila Belmiro and home to Santos football club, in Brazil’s São Paulo state, according to a Thursday statement from Santos FC.

At dawn Monday, Pele’s body will be moved from the Albert Einstein Hospital to the stadium. The soccer legend’s coffin will be placed in the center of the pitch.

The wake at Vila Belmiro will continue until Tuesday 10 a.m. local time (8 a.m. ET), after which a funeral procession will carry Pelé’s coffin through the streets of the city of Santos, including the street where Pelé’s 100-year-old mother, Celeste Arantes, lives.

The cortege will continue to Pelé’s final resting place, the Memorial Necrópole Ecumênica cemetery in Santos, where a private funeral, reserved for family members, will be held.

Dazzling ability

Pelé was born Edson Arantes do Nascimento in Três Corações – an inland city roughly 155 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro – in 1940, before his family moved to the city of Bauru in São Paulo.

The genesis of the nickname Pelé are unclear, even to the footballer. He once wrote in the British newspaper The Guardian that it likely started with school classmates teasing him for mangling the nickname of another player, Bilé. Whatever the origin, the moniker stuck.

s a child, his first taste of soccer involved playing barefoot with socks and rags rolled up into a ball – a humble beginning that would grow into a long and fruitful career.

But when he first took up the game, his ambitions were modest.

“My dad was a good football player, he scored a lot of goals,” Pelé told CNN in 2015. “His name was Dondinho; I wanted to be like him.

“He was famous in Brazil, in Minas Gerais. He was my role model. I always wanted to be like him, but what happened, to this day, only God can explain.”

As a teenager, Pelé left home and began training with Santos, scoring his first goal for the club side before his 16th birthday. He would go on to score 619 times over 638 appearances for the club, but it is his feats in the iconic yellow jersey of Brazil for which he is best remembered.

The world first got a glimpse of Pelé’s dazzling ability in 1958, when he made his World Cup debut aged 17. He scored Brazil’s only goal in the country’s quarterfinal victory against Wales, then netted a hat-trick in the semifinal against France and two in the final against host Sweden.

“When Pelé scored the fifth goal in that final, I have to be honest and say I felt like applauding,” said Sweden’s Sigvard Parling.

For Pelé, the standout memory from the tournament was putting his country on the sporting map.

“When we won the World Cup, everybody knew about Brazil,” he told CNN’s Don Riddell in 2016. “I think this was the most important thing I gave to my country because we were well known after that World Cup.”

Another World Cup victory came in 1962, although an injury sidelined Pelé for the tournament’s later stages. Further injuries hampered his next campaign in 1966 as Brazil exited the competition after the group stage, but redemption came in 1970.

“Pelé was saying that we were going to win, and if Pelé was saying that, then we were going to win the World Cup,” Brazil’s co-captain Carlos Alberto said about the tournament.

That team – featuring the likes of Jairzinho, Gerson, Tostão, Rivellino, and, of course, Pelé – is regarded as one of the greatest ever assembled.