ESPN FC has counted down the 20 greatest World Cup players of all time; this is the No. 1.
Name: Edson Arantes do Nascimento (Pele)
Nationality: Brazilian
Position: Forward/attacking midfielder
Clubs: Santos (1956-74), New York Cosmos (1975-77)
International career: 92 matches, 77 goals.
World Cup participation: 1958, 1962, 1966, 1970 - Played 14, Scored 12
Finest World Cup moment: Winning his third title at Mexico '70.
Roll of honour: Winner 1958, 1962, 1970
We live in a football era when many suggest Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are competing to be the best of all time. Those of finer vintage would heartily disagree.
"It was always Pele for me," said Sir Alex Ferguson at the launch of his autobiography in October. His judgement of a Manchester United successor in David Moyes may not necessarily have been sound, but few could doubt Ferguson’s eye for a player. The truth remains that neither modern great has achieved anything near the finest player of all on the greatest stage of all. Club football’s growing domination is still yet to deny the sense that a World Cup is where a player truly determines his place in legend.
Pele is Brazil’s gift to the World Cup. He was the undoubted star in an era when the tournament came of age. Arriving fully formed as a 17-year-old in 1958, he signed off 12 years later as the leading man of Mexico 1970’s winners, the greatest World Cup team of all. He remains the only player to have won three titles.
In teams of all the talents, playing alongside legends like Didi, Vava, Garrincha, Rivelino, Jairzinho, Gerson and Carlos Alberto, Pele was always the principal. Whereas such colleagues could boast collectively of being superb dribblers, finishers, creators, dead-ball specialists and inspirational leaders, Pele was all of the above and more. A boxer’s physique, carefully looked after, had to withstand the heavy tackling of the day.
“He won the 1958 World Cup final at 17, scoring two goals in a World Cup final,” Rodney Marsh -- who befriended Pele during their years together in the North American Soccer League in the late 1970s -- tells ESPN FC. “Messi and Ronaldo haven’t won it yet and he did that at 17 years old. He was a truly, truly wonderful player.”
The people of Sao Paulo knew all about him from when he was a 14-year-old junior, and he was not much older when he made a scoring international debut at 16 against Argentina. Arriving with a knee problem, Pele made a late entrance to 1958’s finals in Sweden, in Brazil’s third match, against the Soviet Union. His first goal came in the next, the winner of a hard-fought 1-0 quarterfinal win over Wales. “The goal was perhaps the most unforgettable of my career,” he wrote in his 2007 autobiography. “The world now knew about Pele.”
By the end of the final in Stockholm, a 5-2 victory over the hosts, the football world could never forget Pele. His first goal, Brazil’s third, saw him kill a speeding ball on his chest, loop the ball over defender Bengt Gustavsson, and drill low and unerringly into the net as the ball hit the ground. “Though I say so myself, it was a nice goal,” he wrote.
Nevertheless, there remains a sense that for all such moments of genius, the World Cup might not even have seen the best of Pele. The 1962 finals in Chile lost him from the tournament after a torn thigh muscle in Brazil’s second match against Czechoslovakia; he had made a scoring start in the holders’ opener against Mexico.
Brazil, inspired instead by Garrincha, won the title easily without Pele, making short knockout work of England and Chile before drubbing Czechoslovakia 3-1 in the final. His injury happened when he was playing at a career peak. That year, and the next, Pele was the irresistible force behind his club, Santos, winning consecutive Copa Libertadores and Intercontinental Cup titles.
“The time from 1957 to 1965 was his technical heyday,” Tostao, Pele’s teammate at the 1966 and 1970 finals, tells ESPN FC. “He always played in top form. It was always impressive. His peak happened well before the 1970 World Cup.”
The 1966 finals in England were disastrous. Pele was targeted by tackling that left him lame in group matches with Bulgaria, Hungary and Portugal. At first he vowed never to return to the tournament. Eventually, he set his sights on signing off in the most glorious style of all.
“He was in decline, but was still the world’s best player,” says Tostao. “He began his preparation for the World Cup four months before the tournament. He trained a lot, and we were able to form a good group. Then, when the World Cup begun, Pele started playing at his best level again.”
Playing off centre-forward Tostao, Pele supplied moments of genius in each match. He scored four goals, but is probably better remembered for a trio of near-misses: a shot from the halfway line against Czechoslovakia; the bewitching of Uruguay goalkeeper Ladislao Mazurkiewicz with a dummy. There was also the perfectly executed downward header from which England’s Gordon Banks produced the ‘save of the century’ in a group-stage encounter in Guadalajara.
“Let me tell you something interesting,” continues Tostao. “When we played against England, I told him he was very still in the field and that he needed to move a lot more. He looked at me and said: ‘That’s true.’ And he started running like crazy. He was very concerned with the game, always listened to the other players.”
In a glorious swan song, a 4-1 final defeat of Italy in Mexico City’s Azteca, Pele scored the opener with a steeplejack’s climb to head in, before supplying the assists with which Jairzinho and Carlos Alberto secured his -- and Brazil’s -- third title.
His footballing afterlife has not seen his status diminish, even allowing for the achievements of Diego Maradona, the only serious rival to be the competition’s all-time leading man. He has become the sport’s most prolific publicist, in territories beyond the game’s normal heartlands. “I don’t think soccer would be the same without Pele,” says Marsh. “He’s the greatest ambassador the sport’s ever had, or ever will have.”
The World Cup will be forever associated with Pele, truly its greatest ever.