2. Pele

It seems that God brought me to Earth with a mission to play soccer,

Edson Arantes Do Nascimento (Pele).

 Edson Arantes Do Nascimento (known as Pele) is a living legend and the great soccer player. He was born on October 23, 1940 at Tres Coracos, Brazil, belongs to a very poor family his parents, Dondinho and Celeste Nascimento called Edson “Dico,” growing up.

 Childhood:    His father Dondinho, was a center forward player until he got a leg fractured. He learned his first game from his game. Pale started playing from a local minor club when he was a teenager. In his early age he shined shoes for pennies. Waldemar de Brito country’s premier player discovered him at the age of 11. He said “This boy will be the greatest soccer player in the world.”

 Waldemar de Brito was right and Pele showed his talent on his first appearance for the team. He scored his first goal at the age of 16 against the Corinthians F.C.

 International Career:           Pele played four World Cups from the side of Brazil’s National Team. He just missed 1958’s World Cup in Sweden due to knee Injury. Pele scored  six goals from which two was in the final game for the Brazil’s win over Sweden by 5-2. Pele was only 17, but a legend was born. After four years he was willing to play the finals in Chile but an injury made him disable to play for the Brazil to struggle for the win of second title.

Pele was blessed with all the things which a player should have, speed, great balance, excellent vision and the ability to control the ball in a superb way. He was having the ability to shoot accurately either with the foot or with the head. Government of Brazil declared him an official National treasure, so that they could keep him in their country rather he moves to somewhere else.

 Mexico 1970’s, in the finals he scored a fantastic goal and wrote the history of winning a final match for 4-1. It was a third win of Brazil’s team and 100 World Cup goals to remember. Later Pele said  I have a special kind of feelings about that he said “My father was a soccer player and once scored five goals in a game, all with his head. That was one record I was never able to break.”

Pele’s statistical analysis is amazing, he scored 1,280 in 1360 games. He is second from another Brazilian Arhtur Friedenreich, who recorded 1,329 goals. According to this average he scored in every international game he played. His statics are really amazing while comparing it to any good player of this time scoring 30 goals in a season.

In 1974 he retired from his international career, but at the same time he played from the North American League for two years for the worth of US$ 7 million. This contract just made him the highest paid soccer   player of the North American Soccer League. His appearance in North American soccer League got the credit to people aware of the sports. He said “he came out of retirement, not for the money, but to “make soccer truly popular in the United States.”

Pelé was named second for the “Sportsman of the Century” award in 2000 as the legendary Muhammad Ali got the honors.