Pele: The football icon is celebrating his 80th birthday

The Brazilian football icon Pelé celebrates his 80th birthday on Friday. A look back at a life full of ups and downs.

Of course he was the best, or rather: the very best. The best footballer ever. At least that's what many of the greatest experts think. Like Ferenc Puskás (1927-2006), a brilliant striker for Real Madrid. The Hungarian once said: "The best player in history was Alfredo di Stefano, but I refuse to classify Pele as a player. He was over."

And finally, the one who ought to know best said it: Pele himself. He says in all modesty: "There will only be one Pele, like there was only one Frank Sinatra or just one Michelangelo. I was the best. " Whatever Pelé did on the football field – he did it at the highest level: dribbling like Messi or Diego Maradona, directing the game like di Stefano or Zinedine Zidane, shooting, beheading and scoring goals like Cristiano Ronaldo or Gerd Müller. Pelé could do anything.

A ball magician for the ages. But he is also getting on in years. On Friday, October 23rd, Pelé will be 80 years old.

His career starts on the street

Actually his name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento. In 1940 he was born in Três Corações in the state of Minas Gerais in southern Brazil. The area is now called "Terra do Rei Pelé", the land of King Pelé. The family was poor, father Dondinho gave up his football career because of a knee injury and later worked as a cleaner.

Little seven-year-old Edson, whom everyone just called "Dico", had to contribute to the family's maintenance as a shoe shine and nut seller. In the evenings, when he played barefoot with the other children on the street with a ball made of tied old socks, his supple, feline body movements were noticed early on.

That must have led to the nickname Pelé. He later stated in his autobiography that as a child he raved about the goalkeeper Bilé from Vasco São Lourenço. His childlike pronunciation made it "Pilé" and finally Pelé. He himself never really liked the name.

He always hated his nickname Pele

"I hate that damn nickname. It wasn't even a real word, it didn't mean anything," he writes. He is said to have even been violent towards classmates who called him Pele. Even later as an adult, he repeatedly insisted that his first name be Edson – and not Pelé.

The former Brazilian international Waldemar de Brito recognized his outstanding talent as a footballer and recommended him to the professional club FC Santos, where Pelé hired as a 15-year-old. In the first season, the "Pérola Negra" (Black Pearl) scored 36 goals in 29 games – and was appointed to the Brazilian national team at 16, a year before the 1958 World Cup in Sweden.

It became the big stage of a 17 year old player who was followed by the ball like a perfectly trained dog. In four games he scored six goals, in the final against Sweden alone two. Brazil won 5-2 and a magic trick by the very young Brazilian went down in football history: Pelé juggled the ball through the Swedish penalty area, lifted it over three Swedes one after the other and then headed it into the net. His opponent Sigvard Parling said in astonishment: "After the fifth goal, even I wanted to applaud."

Pelé became the youngest world champion of all time, a new world star was born. The Brazilian government declared it a national shrine and prohibited the coveted kicker from being transferred abroad. His ball skills have been declared an art, not only in Brazil. "When he took a free kick, the opposing players who made up the wall wanted to turn around so they wouldn't miss the goal," wrote Uruguayan poet Eduardo Galeano.

Together with Franz Beckenbauer in New York

In his professional career until 1977, Pelé scored 1281 goals in 1365 games. With the national team he was world champion three times (1958, 1962, 1970), in a total of 92 international matches he scored 77 goals. His club FC Santos, to which he remained loyal until 1974, became the best club team in the world thanks to Pelé. Once (1959) he scored 127 goals in one season, against Botafogo he scored eight goals in one game alone.

In 1975 he changed the club for the only time in his life and went to Cosmos New York, which he led to the US championship, incidentally at the side of Franz Beckenbauer (75). 1977 was the end of his active career. Pelé caught up with his university entrance qualification to study at the sports college. He advertised, founded a marketing company, became a UN special envoy and (from 1995 to 1998) even extraordinary sports minister of Brazil.

He also "did a lot of nonsense" (Tagesspiegel). So he tried as an actor in John Huston's "Escape or Victory" or in "Victory" on the side of Sylvester Stallone (74). He is also co-author of the novel "The World Cup Murder", which critics say "fortunately never appeared in German". He made headlines with his stories of women (two marriages, seven children, countless adventures), so that even the "Neue Züricher Zeitung", unsuspecting gossip, was forced to state: "Affairs pave his way".

Relationship with the Brazilian people cooled

The Brazilians forgave him for all that. It looks different with his proximity to the powerful from business and politics. The love for the father of the Brazilian national sport has "cooled down", judged the "Augsburger Allgemeine": "Pelé has become a symbol of the football that scares people today. A machine without a heart – driven by TV contracts, accompanied by corruption scandals. "

Although Pelé remained "a strange mixture of respect, admiration, but also a cool distance" in his homeland, he would not be loved like his congenial soccer partner Mané Garrincha, who died of alcoholism at the age of 50.

The multimillionaire (hotels, radio stations, film production, real estate) knows the difference between his real person and the legend Pelé very well. In his autobiography he writes: "The citizen Edson Arantes do Nascimento has mastered all the ups and downs of life, laughed, cried, suffered a lot of pains, savored many triumphs. He is mortal. Pelé, on the other hand, is immortal and always becomes the dream of all children stay, will always shine, will never have to feel pain. "

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