Everything your favourite player has done, Pele did it as a teenager.
His was a virtuoso display as a 17 year old sealing the World Cup for Brazil against Sweden in 1958. So much so that one of the opposition players later admitted to wanting to applaud one of his goals.
As everyone knows, he would go on to famously lift two more - no other player has achieved that feat. Yet his impact would reverberate far and wide beyond football, transcending generations.
Scroll through the tributes. They speak for themselves. The great and the good. The Messis, Ronaldos and Mbappes. The Presidents past and present - from Macron to Obama.
Even if you had only a passing interest in football you knew that Pele was something special. How could you not, given his two wins in the Copa Libertadores - South America's equivalent of the Champions League - in 1962 and 1963?
How could you not, given his 619 goals in 638 appearances for one of his first clubs, Santos?
And how could you not given the 1970 World Cup goals he didn’t score which remain the stuff of legend.
One of them, against Uruguay, is still regarded as one of the greatest bits of trickery of all time.
What are your fondest memories of Pele? Let us know in the comments section
The thing is, there are so many of them. Had YouTube, Instagram or Twitter been around back then there’d be no debate about the greatest player in football history. Given Pele’s impact - on and off the pitch - there shouldn’t be.
He was a fantasy footballer from humble beginnings who became the king of the world. He sparked pandemonium in the US in 1973 when he joined New York Cosmos at the back end of his career.
He’d meet the likes of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Pele would use his platform to fight for better social and economic conditions for the people who endured poverty as he did.
He wouldn’t just become a football ambassador once he retired. He remains a global sporting icon. We shall never see his like again.
Rest In Peace Pele.
