Where did he come from??

Pele is a worldly renowned football, widely accepted as one, if not the best football player in history, but let's start from where did he come from.

Pele was born on October 23 of 19040 in Minas Gerais, a southern state of the Federative Republic of Brazil.

As many Brazilian or South American players he came from a working-class family, he started working at the age of eleven while balancing his passion as a footballer while helping to provide for the income of his house.

Even tho he had the advantage of having his father as his first mentor, João Ramos do Nascimento AKA as "Dondinho", whom played as a forward/striker for several teams at the Brazilian championship, such as Fluminense and Atletico Mineiro, he seemed like a huge promise for the Brazilian football, having scored roughly almost 900 in 790 prior to having his opportunity with Atletico, where he suffered a devastating knee injury that ended abruptly his professional career.

This may not seem as much, but taking in account that having such a talented/gifted player as a father and mentor we believe it had a huge impact on young Pele and his way of playing this game.

His career

At the age of 15 and after several rejections of many big teams on Brasil, he finally got the chance of signing with Santos Fc, the club where he would stay for the majority of his career.

Just after a year playing at this institution, he had his first chance at the national team( with 16 years) due to the excellent performance he had every time he played, scoring almost a goal per appearance and by winning the 1956 "Torneo Paulista" with Santos as the Top Scorer of this prestigious tournament.

That led him to play the 1958 World Cup, where Brazil won the final against Sweden, having scored 6 Goals in 4 games, he was a decisive player for the Carioca team to win this cup.

This was the beginning of an era at the World of football, Brazil was the first team to dominate football landscape for so long, Brazil won the following World Cup (Chile 1962) and finally the 1970 edition at Mexico. They reigned the football landscape for 16 years being the first team ever to win 3 World Cups!!!

But even tho it was mainly the 3 World Cups he won with Brazil what made him the legend he is for the history of football, we shall not forget his numbers with Santos Football Club:

From the beginning of his career with this team until 1974 he managed to win 10 Paulista Championships, 2 times the Libertadores Cup (the equivalent of the Champions League for South America), 2 Intercontinental Coups and finally on 1962 their first World Club Championship.

This amazing performance led him at the end of his career with Santos FC and the Brazil national team to break all the records of both teams making him the top scorer of Santos and Brazil.

At 1974 he announced his retirement from professional football, but on 1975 he got a juicy offer from the Cosmos New York, a team that would eventually sign great players, such as Franz Beckenbauer, Carlos Alberto, Vladislav Bogićević and Giorgio Chinaglia, as they were trying to promote football/soccer as a great sport on USA.

His move to Cosmos made a huge impact on USA sports, wherever he played with his team stadiums were packed at their maximum capacity and helped to make Football/Soccer a mainstream sport on the United States, and of course he helped COSMOS win their first NASL title on 1977.

Finally he ended his career on Cosmos in an emotional match against his former team Santos FC, this game took place on 1 October 1977 at the Giants Stadium with an attendance of 77.000 people, a record breaker for the history of American football. He played the first half with Cosmos and the second one with Santos Fc.

This was one of the most important moments of Pele's life because he was honored by the team that saw him grow as a player at his early career and also by the team that made him an undeniable worldwide star, helping to promote Football both in the USA and around the world with COSMOS.

He exited the field holding on one hand the American flag, and in the other the Brazilian flag.

Finally, he declared that day: “I die a little bit today, now I am born again to another life. You see, I stop playing soccer because I want to stop, and that is important.”

What else can be said about the first player to be known as the best ever: he came to this sport to make it even better, with his gracious and elegant way of playing he was able to attain several trophies, being the most important the 3 World Cups with Brazil´s national team, also he held the amazing record 1284 goals in 1365 official games.

An undeniable proof that he was the greatest of all time!!!

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