Pele, whose real name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento, was born in 1940 in Tres Coracoes, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

He was the eldest son in a poor family with three children. His father – Joao Ramos do Nascimento, commonly known as “Dondinho” was a soccer player who played for the Fluminense team in the Brazilian National Championship. Father was the first teacher and also the one who instilled Pele’s passion for the ball.

Due to poverty, the boy Pele had to shine shoes to earn extra income for his family. The boy stuffed paper into socks to make balls to play with, and with other boys in the neighborhood formed the Ameriquinha football team to practice, and then participate in local youth tournaments.

According to the Elevate Society, at the age of 11, Pele caught the eye of Waldemar de Brito, a top Brazilian player at that time. Brito is said to have introduced Pele to the team leaders in Santos, claiming he would become the greatest player in the world.

Pele proved himself at Santos, when at the age of 16 he scored a goal against Corinthians in his first main match.

The world began to take notice when 17-year-old Pele scored six goals at the 1958 World Cup, helping the Brazilian national team win the first World Cup that year.

With outstanding performances on the pitch, Pele’s reputation rose like a kite and a number of teams expressed their desire to recruit him. However, Brazil declared Pele a “national treasure”, and banned him from playing for any non-Brazilian team.

With his pace, mastery of ball control and powerful headers, Pele won the World Cup with Brazil two more times in 1962 and 1970.

So far, Pele is the only player in the world to win the World Cup three times with the national team. By the time he retired in 1977, he had scored 1,281 goals in 1,363 matches, a world record to this day.

In 1999, after 22 years of retirement, Pele was awarded the title of Best Player of the 20th Century by the International Association of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS). In the same year, he was awarded the title of the International Olympic Committee. (IOC) voted Athlete of the Century”, and was included in the list of 100 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine. In 2013, Pele was awarded the honorary Ballon d’Or by FIFA.

Very famous in football but Pele is not good at business. His private life is also the subject of a lot of ink in the press. In addition to the quick love affairs, “King of football” has gone through 3 marriages. He has been with his first wife Rosemeri Cholbi for 12 years and has 3 children. His second marriage to singer Assiria Nascimento lasted 14 years and the couple had 2 children together. In 2016, he married Marcia Cibele Aoki, the third wife 25 years younger than him and lives happily ever after.

The football legend’s health began to decline in August 2021, when during a routine checkup, doctors discovered he had a colon tumor. Since then, he has been regularly in and out of the hospital for treatment of bowel cancer. Recently, the King of Football was hospitalized in Sao Paulo in a deteriorating health condition with signs of generalized edema and heart failure.