By: James Buckley Jr.
PowerPoint By: Christina Sulfaro

Pele’s birth name is Edson Arantes Do
Nascimento. He was born October 23, 1940 in
Tres Coracoes, Brazil. When he was four him and his family moved to Bauru, Brazil. Pele is most famous for being one of the best professional soccer players.

Before Pele was famous he was just a regular kid. He was very poor. Pele and his brother Jair and all their friends of Bauru would play soccer on the streets. They couldn’t afford soccer balls or cleats. For a soccer ball they used a stretched out sock and stuffed it with torn up rags or newspaper. They didn’t even wear shoes, they played barefoot. His mother Celeste never watched any of his games because she didn’t want him to suffer the sadness and pain her husband did. When Pele was 11 years old someone donated soccer shoes to him because he saw them playing barefoot. Di
Brito taught him many things like the famous Bicycle kick.

When Pele was 15 he met some professional soccer players when he joined the Sao Paulo club Santos. When he was 16 he scored his first professional goal for Santos. Some of the older players called him “Gasolina” because of his continuous energy. He was leaning towards being on the professional team and making $75.00. When he turned seventeen he was the lead scorer in the Sao Paulo league. Then he was chosen to be on the world cup team of Brazil. He was a little nervous because only 22 people went to Sweden. Whoever got hurt automatically wasn’t on the team because they wouldn’t be able to play for a while. He hurt his knee during a game against Corinthians. He was very nervous because he knew he wouldn’t be able to go. That is why he kept it to himself. Then he made the team and went to Sweden. He scored a hat trick in a world cup semifinal. Now since Pele is a superstar he doesn’t only belong to Brazil he belongs to the world. He has gone from a regular poor kid to the most famous person in the world.

When Pele turned 18 in late 1959 early 1960 he was on 5 different teams. He also scored the greatest goal ever at Maracana Stadium. They even put up a plaque declaring it was the greatest goal ever. The only thing Pele had to worry about now was an injury, and that was exactly what had happened to him. He badly strained his left groin muscle in the pre tournaments. To a soccer player that muscle is very important.
Early in the next game against Czechoslovakia Pele took a hard shot. It hit the post and Pele fell to the ground. Pele had hurt his groin muscle even more than it already was and could barely walk. Since he was so good he couldn’t be replaced, so he hobbled back in. They won a second straight world cup game 3-1.
In 1966 Pele got married to the woman he had loved for years, Rosemari. The next game the coach chose to leave Pele out of the lineup so his muscle could heel.
In 1967 Pele and Rosemari have a daughter named Kelly. 1969 was one of the best days of his life. He scored his 1000 th goal in his career at Maracana Stadium.
In 1974 Pele was at the end of his soccer career for Santos. After he had played for 18 years. Now he was a business man. The bad thing about it was that he needed the money. He was $2,000,000 in debt. To make a lot of money fast he knew what he had to do; go back in the soccer career on the North American
Soccer League (NASL). Since he was going to go on the American team his family and him moved to America from Brazil.

In 1977 the Cosmos set a record for 32,000 fans for one game. The next game the week after they broke the record they just set with 62,319. In both games Pele scored a hat trick. “The soccer bowl NASL championship was Pele’s last game
(again!)” They played in a rainstorm in Portland, Oregon. The cosmos won 2-1 against Seattle Sounders. Out of all the games which was 1363 games Pele scored
1281 goals. Only one other person did better, Arthur Friedenreich.
Today Pele is divorced with Rosemari but married to Assiria Lemos. Now he is a sports minister.
Pele’s name made the top of BBC poll as the greatest player in world cup history. N one else has a chance of approaching that though a couple of people came close. Like David beckham who followed Pele’s footsteps by signing Los
Angeles Galaxy in 2007.
No one will ever make it as far as Pele did with his love for the game and his fans.

1955 Pele joins Sao
Paulo club
Santos
1958 Pele makes the
Brazilian national Team
1970 Pele leads Brazil to 3 rd world cup title
1975Pele plays his 1 st game for
New York
Cosmos(NASL)
2000 Pele is voted FIFA player of the century
1940 Edon
Arantes Do
Nascimento is born
1956 Pele scores his first professional goal
1969 Pele scores his
1000 th career goal
1971 Pele plays his last game for
Brazilian
National team
1977 Pele leads
Cosmos to
NASL championship

Pele led his Brazilian teams to 3 world cup games. He was the first
Player to ever win all 3 world cup games.
Pele scores his 1000 th career goal at Maracana stadium. In his entire career he scored a total of 1281 goals out of 1363 games.
When he started to play soccer in America on the USA Cosmos he made people more aware of the sport. Today soccer is very popular.

The most interesting thing I have learned about Pele while reading this book was that he scored 1281 goals out of 1363 games.
That’s an awesome thing to be proud of. The game where he had
998 goals was very exciting because he was trying to see if he could get to 1000 and he did. Some fan even ripped of his shirt which was #10 and gave him a new shirt which was #1000.

1. Why did you quit soccer the first time if you loved it so much?
2. When you came out of the game with an injury why did you go back in? It could only get worse.
3. Do you think playing in the American
League helped your career and made you more famous?

Buckley, J. (2007). Pele. New York: DK publishing.