50 Fun Facts About Pelé

What was Pelé's real name?

Edson Arantes do Nascimento was named after inventor Thomas Edison and was proud of it; he thought 'Pelé' sounded like baby-talk and wanted to be called Edson.

Which German star left Bayern Munich in 1977 to become Pelé's club teammate in the United States?

Franz Beckenbauer arrived for Pelé's farewell season and they won the league title together within months; he later called Pelé the greatest player in the history of the game.

Pelé said his nickname probably came from mispronouncing the name of which goalkeeper on his father's team?

Bilé kept goal alongside Pelé's father; the toddler's 'Pilé' became Pelé at school in Bauru, and he hated the name so much that he punched a classmate and was suspended for two days.

With no money for a real football, the young Pelé learned the game by kicking a stuffed what?

A sock packed with rags or newspaper was his ball in the streets of Bauru, where his father, a footballer whose own career had stalled, taught him to play.

Which game did the teenage Pelé credit with teaching him to think faster, playing for a team called Radium?

Futsal let him play against adults at about 14; told he was too young for one tournament, he finished it as top scorer and said it taught him not to fear whatever came.

For which Brazilian club did Pelé score 643 competitive goals after joining at age 15?

Santos took him on after scout Waldemar de Brito told the directors the 15-year-old would be the greatest football player in the world; he stayed for 19 seasons.

Brazil never lost a match when Pelé and which winger, the hero of the 1962 World Cup, both played?

Garrincha lost only once in a Brazil shirt, at the 1966 World Cup, and Pelé was out injured that day.

How many goals did Pelé score in the 1958 Paulista state league season, the competition's all-time record?

58 goals and a World Cup win in the same year brought million-dollar bids from European clubs, and every one was turned down.

In 1961 the Brazilian government declared Pelé what, to stop him being transferred abroad?

An official national treasure was hard to sell abroad, and Pelé never played for a European club; he left Brazilian football only in 1975, aged 34.

Which American statesman appealed to Brazil's government in the 1970s to help bring Pelé to the United States?

Henry Kissinger, then secretary of state, argued that Pelé's arrival would help football take root in America and bring the two countries closer.

Pelé scored the late winner in Buenos Aires as his club retained the 1963 Copa Libertadores against which team?

Boca Juniors scored first at their own Bombonera before the Brazilians hit back to win 2–1, Pelé getting the winner eight minutes from time to keep South America's club title.

Pelé scored a hat-trick in Lisbon as his club beat which side 5-2 in the 1962 Intercontinental Cup?

Goalkeeper Costa Pereira said he had been undone by 'someone who was not born on the same planet as the rest of us'.

Which stadium put up a bronze plaque for a 1961 Pelé solo goal, giving Brazil the phrase 'gol de placa'?

The Maracanã plaque was a sportswriter's idea after Pelé ran from the edge of his own box through the Fluminense defence; even Fluminense's own fans stood and applauded for nearly two minutes.

How did Pelé score his 1,000th goal, against Vasco da Gama in 1969?

A penalty: when it went in, fans and reporters flooded the pitch, and he used the moment to ask Brazil to look after its children.

Which conflict supposedly paused for a 48-hour ceasefire so both sides could watch Pelé play?

The Nigerian Civil War truce is probably a legend: a researcher who combed the newspapers of the time found no mention of it, and Pelé's own memoir stops short of claiming one.

Which US club did Pelé join in 1975, coming out of semi-retirement?

New York Cosmos executive Clive Toye won him over by saying that in Italy or Spain he could only win a championship, but in the United States he could win a country.

Which team did Pelé's side beat 2-1 in the 1977 Soccer Bowl, his last official match?

Seattle Sounders lost in Portland to goals from Steve Hunt and Giorgio Chinaglia; in the locker room afterwards Pelé said, 'God has been kind to me. I can die now.'

Which boxer stood beside Pelé on the pitch before his 1977 farewell match?

Muhammad Ali joined him for the ceremony at Giants Stadium; Pelé then played one half for each of his two clubs, and when rain fell a Brazilian paper's headline read 'Even the Sky Was Crying'.

How many World Cups did Pelé win, a record for any player?

1958, 1962 and 1970; he only received his 1962 medal in 2007 because he missed the final through injury.

Against which country did Pelé score his first international goal, aged 16, in a 2-1 defeat in 1957?

Argentina won 2–1 in Rio, but three days later the 16-year-old scored again in São Paulo and Brazil took the Roca Cup after extra time.

Brazil beat which host nation 5-2 in the 1958 World Cup final, with two goals from the 17-year-old Pelé?

Sweden's Sigge Parling admitted that after the fifth goal even he wanted to cheer for him; at the whistle the 17-year-old wept in his teammates' arms.

Pelé scored a second-half hat-trick in the 1958 World Cup semi-final against which team?

He had become the tournament's youngest scorer against Wales in the quarter-final.

Which former president presented Pelé with the first Laureus Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000?

Nelson Mandela made the presentation at the first Laureus awards in Monaco, in the speech where he declared that sport has the power to change the world.

Pelé was injured in Brazil's second game of the 1962 World Cup against which team, later beaten in the final?

Czechoslovakia drew that game 0–0 and met Brazil again in the final, where Pelé's stand-in Amarildo, who scored three goals in his absence, got the equaliser in a 3–1 win.

Whose two goals knocked a limping Pelé and Brazil out of the 1966 World Cup?

Eusébio scored twice in Portugal's 3–1 win at Goodison Park, while defender João Morais went unpunished for the tackles that left Pelé limping in an era without substitutes.

In Brazil's only 1966 World Cup win, Pelé became the first to score at three successive tournaments, against which team?

Bulgaria's defenders kicked him so persistently in that 2–0 win that he missed the next game injured, and he left England vowing never to play in another World Cup.

Which goalkeeper's block of Pelé's header at the 1970 World Cup is called the 'save of the century'?

Gordon Banks turned the header over the bar; Pelé later said that of more than a thousand goals, the one people always asked him about was the one he didn't score.

Pelé dummied the goalkeeper without touching the ball, then shot just wide, in the 1970 semi-final against which team?

Uruguay's keeper Ladislao Mazurkiewicz was left stranded as the pass ran one side of him and Pelé the other; Uruguay had scored first, but Brazil won 3–1 to reach the final.

Pelé's headed opener in the 1970 World Cup final brought up which milestone goal for Brazil at World Cups?

100th: the defender marking him, Tarcisio Burgnich, had told himself Pelé was 'made of skin and bones just like everyone else' and admitted afterwards, 'But I was wrong.'

Pelé's blind pass set up which teammate for Brazil's fourth goal in the 1970 final?

Carlos Alberto said the goal was planned: the coach had told Jairzinho to drift left and drag Italy's left-back with him, opening the space the captain charged into.

Pelé's last World Cup match, the 1970 final, was played at which stadium?

Estadio Azteca in Mexico City saw Brazil beat Italy 4–1 after playing every earlier game in Guadalajara; the win let them keep the Jules Rimet Trophy for good.

Pelé and which German striker, both scorers at the 1958 World Cup, were the first men to score in four World Cups?

Uwe Seeler got there first by about four minutes: both men scored on 3 June 1970, in games that kicked off at the same hour in different Mexican cities.

What did Queen Elizabeth II confer on Pelé at Buckingham Palace in 1997?

An honorary knighthood let him put KBE after his name, but not call himself Sir Pelé: that title is kept for citizens of countries where the British monarch is head of state.

Which player finally passed Pelé's 77 goals to become Brazil men's all-time top scorer?

Neymar got there with two goals against Bolivia in 2023, in his 125th game; Pelé had needed only 92, and Neymar said the record did not make him the better player.

Pelé's Guinness-record 1,279 goals include hundreds scored in which kind of match?

Friendlies and exhibitions were big business: his club toured four continents on his fame, with a contract that obliged him to play wherever they went.

Which sportswear company broke the 'Pelé Pact' and paid Pelé to tie his laces on camera at the 1970 World Cup?

Puma had agreed with rival Adidas not to bid for him; a Puma rep did the deal anyway, and Pelé asked the referee for a moment to tie his boots while the cameras closed in.

Pelé appeared in which 1981 John Huston film about POWs playing a German team?

Escape to Victory was itself a remake of a Hungarian film about a wartime 'death match', and in 2014 Hollywood announced plans to remake it again.

Which government post did Pelé take up in January 1995 under President Fernando Cardoso?

Minister of Sport Pelé pushed the 'Pelé law', meant to clean up Brazil's corrupt football bodies and free players to change clubs, though congress watered it down.

Which body named Pelé Athlete of the Century in 1999?

The International Olympic Committee gave him the title even though he never once appeared at an Olympic Games.

With whom did Pelé share the FIFA Player of the Century award in 2000?

Diego Maradona won the internet vote and FIFA's jury chose Pelé, so the award was split; Maradona collected his half and left the Rome gala before Pelé received the other.

Which phrase did Pelé famously connect with football?

The Beautiful Game became the title of his 1977 autobiography, My Life and the Beautiful Game, and stuck to the sport for good, though who first coined the phrase is disputed.

Pelé swapped shirts and embraced which England player in a famous photograph after their 1970 World Cup match?

Bobby Moore stayed close to him afterwards: he was among the World Cup captains lined up at Pelé's 1977 farewell, and four years later the two acted together in a war film.

Which artist made a portrait of Pelé in 1977 for a series on star athletes?

Andy Warhol, the man who promised everyone 15 minutes of fame, said Pelé was one of the few who contradicted his theory: he would have 15 centuries.

Before Pelé's 1958 World Cup debut, who warned Brazil's coach that he was too immature to play?

The team psychologist was overruled: coach Vicente Feola picked him anyway, and the 17-year-old scored six goals in Brazil's last three games.

By which nickname, first given to him at 17, is Pelé known across Brazil?

O Rei means 'The King': a Brazilian playwright crowned him in a magazine column in March 1958, before he had played a single World Cup match.

Pelé died on 29 December 2022 at 82 from complications of what?

Colon cancer was found in routine tests in 2021; when he died, Brazil declared three days of mourning and his coffin was placed in the centre of his old club's pitch for the public to file past.

In which town in Minas Gerais was Pelé born in October 1940?

Três Corações did not keep the family long: his father Dondinho, a struggling professional footballer, moved them to Bauru when Pelé was small, chasing a last chance that a knee injury ended.

In April 2023, a Michaelis dictionary entry made 'pelé' a Portuguese synonym for what?

Exceptional, incomparable, unique: the adjective went in after a Pelé Foundation campaign gathered more than 125,000 signatures, and the entry calls him the greatest athlete of all time.

Which club teammate was Pelé's regular one-two partner in attack?

Coutinho out-scored him when it mattered in 1963, hitting three of their side's five goals across the two legs of the Copa Libertadores final.

In 1992, the United Nations appointed Pelé an ambassador for what cause?

Ecology and the environment was a timely brief: the UN held its Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro that June, and two years later UNESCO made him a Goodwill Ambassador as well.