Pele's Biography

Edson Arantes do Nascimento , better known as Pelé is considered one of the best soccer players ever. He was considered the perfect soccer player, as he was completely two-footed, very productive at finishing, excellent at dribbling and passing, a very good tackler for a forward. In other words, he was technically outstanding, known for his lightning speed, and his strength at the ball. When he retired in 1977, he had scored over a thousand goals and won three world cups (1958, 1962 and 1970).

Pele's success did not come easy. He was born in Tres Coracoes, Brazil by a very poor family. His father, Joao Ramos do Nascimento was also a soccer player until he fractured his leg, ending his career as a soccer player.

Pele started playing soccer at a very young age. When he was a child, Pele and his family moved to Bauru in the interior of the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo, where he learned to master the art of soccer. At fifteen, he observed his father play soccer for hours, hoping that someday he would become a professional player himself.

Pele played soccer with his neighborhood friends, often going barefoot and improvising with coconuts for balls and cans as goalposts. Pele began playing soccer for a local team when he was a teenager. He was discovered at age of 11 by one of the country's player, Waldemar de Brito. He was the one who brought Pele to Bauru, Sao Paulo and told the club's directors he was going to be one of the greatest player in the world.

Waldemar was right, Pele's impact was immediate. On his first professional appearance for the team, he scored a goal right away. He was only sixteen.

At the age of seventeen, he was selected to play in the Brazil's national team in the world cup of 1958 in Sweden and he astonished the world by being the player who scored the most goals including two in the championship game to help Brazil win its first world cup title. He was only seventeen years old, and already a legend.

Four years later he played on Brazil's world cup team at in the finals in Chile, but an injured suffered in the first game of the tournament prevented him from helping Brazil win its second world cup title.

Many clubs throughout the world offered a lot of money to sign the young and promising player, but the government of Brazil declared Pelé an official national treasure to prevent him from signing a contract in another country.