Pele's Three World Cups

A boy with a sock ball

Edson Arantes do Nascimento grew up poor in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and learned football with a ball made from a sock stuffed with newspaper. His father had been a player whose career was cut short by injury. Edson picked up the nickname Pele as a schoolboy, and nobody is quite sure where it came from.

He joined Santos at 15 and was scoring regularly against grown men within a year. At 16 he played for Brazil's national team.

His father, a footballer nicknamed Dondinho, taught him the game.

Sweden, 1958

At the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, the 17-year-old Pele scored the only goal of the quarter-final against Wales, a hat trick in the semi-final against France and two goals in the final as Brazil beat the hosts 5-2. His first goal in the final, flicking the ball over a defender's head and volleying it in, is still one of the most famous in the tournament's history.

He was the youngest player ever to score in a World Cup final, and he cried on the shoulders of his teammates after the whistle.

1962 and 1970

Pele was injured in Brazil's second match of the 1962 World Cup in Chile and missed the rest of the tournament, but his teammates, led by Garrincha, won it again, earning him a second winner's medal.

In 1970 in Mexico, Pele was part of a Brazil team often called the greatest ever, alongside Jairzinho, Rivelino, Tostao and captain Carlos Alberto. He headed the opening goal of the final against Italy and set up the famous fourth goal for Carlos Alberto in a 4-1 win. Brazil kept the Jules Rimet Trophy for winning it three times.

That 1970 Brazil team won all six of its matches in Mexico.

Goals by the thousand

On 19 November 1969 Pele scored his 1,000th goal, a penalty against Vasco da Gama at the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro. He played for Santos until 1974 and then joined the New York Cosmos, helping make football popular in the United States.

Pele died in December 2022 at the age of 82. No other player has won three World Cups, and his name is still used around the world as shorthand for footballing genius.

In the United States he played in front of huge crowds, and his farewell match in 1977 was an exhibition between the Cosmos and Santos in which he played one half for each team.

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