Football fans always argue about who's the best player in the history.
In Pele case, it's not only about what he did on the field, it's also about what he did outside. Coming from a poor family, Pele dad taught him how to handle a football by practicing with mangoes. Not so many years later he carried Brazil for 3 world cup winnings (in the first win he was only 17 y.o!), making Brazil popular all over the world and bringing a lot of respect for his country and South America.
Without Pele football might not be popular as it's today. His skills, personality and charm made millions of people all over the world fall in love with the game.
Pelé is not seen as a great person in Brazil, from my perspective. People cherish him as the best soccer player in the world, but his personal life is mostly associated with bad stories.
He has two cases of not recognizing biological daughters, with one of those having died of cancer in 2006 [1]
As a brazillian, as I assume you also are, can't help but disagree. The ratio of good to bad is at most 9-1 in my experience, and I say this with no exaggeration. The only time I can remember people really talking shit about his personal was in the ~2013 protests when he called for protesters to watch the cup(?) or something instead of protest, his illegitimate daughter is mostly a footnote when talking about his personal life for better or for worse, the man's affair with xuxa is far more of a topic of discussion.
Maradona was left-wing friendly, same as Sócrates, which is somehow seen more positively by the crowds. And while Sócrates gets credit for participating at rallies and protests and actually walking the walk, I've never seen Maradona rallying with the people, just benefitting from Cuban public health service.
Despite having been a politician, Pelé rarely discussed preferences, as he was aware of repercussions to his image. In that regard, he can be compared with Michael "republicans also buy sneakers too" Jordan.
This isn't necessarily true. I recently met someone from Brazil who used the word "soccer" when speaking English. As an American living in Europe who's met people from all over the world, I've noticed that it's actually quite common for people to do that if the English they've been exposed to most is American English, especially if that was the dialect they were formally taught. In the case of Brazil, I'm pretty sure that American English is what would be taught in most schools.
As a German the game is Fußball (literally: football), but I just regularly say soccer in english because I cannot be bothered into finding out what the people I converse with think that football is and soccer is understood by everyone to be association football, i.e. the sport where the only hand that can be used is t̶h̶e̶ ̶h̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶m̶a̶r̶a̶d̶o̶n̶a̶ the hand of god.
Don’t you find that leads to unnecessary confusion? I use football if I’m out of the US, but in the US I’ve only heard people say soccer unless they’re being pretentious or recently moved here/on holiday.
I myself end up using soccer at times due to reflex, a mixture of learning american english and never reading/talking about american football hence barely seeing the word football being used, given the vast majority of english speaking media is US-based. It's not as uncommon as it may initially seem.
> Pelé is not seen as a great person in Brazil, from my perspective
Your perspective is not the same of lots of sportswomen/men, public figures, traditional/web media outlets and a crowd of anonymous people praising him right now.
I wish brazilians would be less demanding with our idols.
This is not even close to be true. Pele was not without his flaws, but every Brazilian appreciates his greatness in Football. It is even difficult to find a Brazilian who doesn't consider him the greatest player ever.
he won 3 world cups, and scored way more league goals compared to Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo scored more overall because they played a crapton of international games, which were not a thing before the Champions League had group stages.
Pelé's goal ratio is almost one per match, for 20 freaking years.
Playing for Santos... which was at best the 6th tier league.
Meanwhile Messi and Ronaldo are playing at the peak of football in tier-1 leagues where everyone involved spend millions of dollars (if not billions) on science and strategy competing with each other.
Are you implying football hasn't progressed at all since Pele stopped playing?
Football has progressed a lot in terms of science and strategy. Modern football is of course better than older football. Therefore, modern players are better than old players.
Santos was an above-average team before he arrived. Same as napoli with Maradona. They took average teams to new heights.
In contrast, Messi arrived to a top team, and CR7 the same, with Real Madrid.
Besides, South America before the 80's was a soccer powerhouse. Premiership didn't even exist, and the league was a backwater for fishermen journeymen and player-coaches. It took a lot of time for the color TV (and TV broadcasting in general) to get going and tilt the balance for Europe.
If you played exhibition games you played against south american teams, and usually in south america, to make any money and to see any quality.
Penarol, Estudiantes La Plata, and a few others, massaccred regularly all of the big names of today.
It was only when super south american players started migrating to europe because TV money arrived, that things changed.
> Santos was an above-average team before he arrived. Same as napoli with Maradona. They took average teams to new heights.
Santos won Campeonato Paulista in 1955, the season before Pele's debut and also in 1956, when Pele debuted towards the end the season. Santos finished second in 1957 when Pele became a regular. They were a dominant team but being a consistently dominant team takes more than one all-time player.
This isn't like Napoli with Maradona, who were a mid-table team when Maradona joined that had never won the top-flight league.
Brazil won 3 of 4 world cups during Pele time. All Brazilian players played on Brazilian teams. Brazilian league at the time had the best players in the world. Everytime Santos played European teams they crushed them.
Pele was playing in the strongest league in the world at the time.
That completely misses the point and is even racist. Santos was the best team in Brazil during his time, and Brazil had the best Football in the world during that era. So much so that when Pele was playing in the Brazilian national team people in other teams didn't have a clue of how to match him.
It is easy to say this nowadays because European teams brought lots of, not only Brazilians, but other south Americans to play in Europe, and now Football is much more leveled between these two regions.
How can you possibly extract racism from the parent post? Even if you're actively looking for it? Throwing that word around like confetti makes it less useful where it is deserved.
But don’t forget also that football is literally a different game now. The rules around offside, back-passing to the goalie and handball have all been tweaked over the years, and modern strategies have evolved partly in response to that. Fouls are policed much more strictly now than in the past (in the high-profile leagues, at least).
I’ll grant you that modern players are likely much fitter, and players from past eras would struggle if thrown into today’s fast-paced game. But today’s players would similarly struggle if forced to play with old heavy shoes, irregular balls, bumpy pitch, etc.
That's fair, though I still think R7 and Messi would have faired much better given superior training (physical, mental, and strategy) and nutrition they have had over their careers.
I think I shouldn’t have written that second paragraph above, it just obscured the main point I wanted to make: direct comparison is literally impossible because the rules of the game are different now. Not just the equipment or the strategy, but the rule book.
That statement does not make justice to the time Pelé played in.
Pelé came of age at a time where the best brazilian players played in Brazil. Some of those legends he played alongside in the selecção, from Garrincha, Amarildo, Vavá, Djalma Santos, all the way to Rivelino, Tostão, Jairzinho, were playing for rival teams in Brazil. Tier-1 league in the 60s. He rose above them all internally.
Pelé scored his 1000th goal at 28. As prolific as Messi and Ronaldo were, they're not a match. Compare goal-by-games differential.
Football has progressed a lot in terms of science and strategy. But it also regressed. For instance, compare the competitiveness of the champions league circa 2000, and during the heyday of Messi-Ronaldo. Back then, there were absolute CL classics in the group stages. Later on, thanks to Platini's election as UEFA president, there was a flood of low market eastern european teams in the group stages, which contributed to goals-per-edition being broken several times by Ronaldo and Messi. Consider as well that both broke goalscoring records in Spain where, not counting Atletico Madrid, every other team just played in a "separate lower division". Those would probably never happen had they played in the Premier league. Bottom line, they're all-time greats, but throwing the competitiveness argument to the table is disingenuous at best.
Put Pelé in real perspective. Back then, careers didn't last long, nor had a lot of impact. Besides playing in Brazil, his Santos team played all around the world in highly competitive "friendlies" 58-62, as everybody wanted a piece of Pelé. Think about the impact of such games when it comes to selling the game worldwide. He was 17-21 years old. He's the single 3-time WC winner there is. And he won them all against all-time greats. He beat Gre-no-li in 58. Beckenbauer. Mueller. Eusébio. Bobby Charlton. Lev Yashin. Rivera. He was the face of the WC 70, the first color-televised WC, and the one credited with spreading football worldwide. And then Pelé played well into his late 30s in the USA, credited for introducing the sport to the american audience. When he was gone, football was the only true world sport, and a profit machine in the making. Today it's a multi-million dollar industry. Current players sell their brands using football. Pelé is football.
What's the point of comparing players from different eras if you don't control for the environment? Obviously soccer players today are better trained and conditioned than they were 50 years ago. Same for football players, and baseball players, etc. If that's the standard, then the GOAT will almost always be whoever the best modern player is, which isn't a very interesting discussion.
Lebron James is averaging same points per game as Wilt Chamberlain. Even though modern players are "better" their opponents are better too and it seems to kind of average out.
Things were very different in those days in terms of relative league strength. Santos one the world club championship a couple of times back then for example.
> scored way more league goals compared to Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
The Brazilian league being third-rate, like some others have mentioned, isn't accurate, but it's also not comparable to today's La Liga and EPL, which draw from a global talent pool, not mostly limited to a single country. Scoring was generally higher back then as well.
> he won 3 world cups
Winning the World Cup is far more about luck and circumstances than individual brilliance. The main thing you can say about this is that Pele's longevity allowed him to be part of two dominant Brazil teams 12 years apart, but then again Messi had a longer peak.
not GP but I do agree to a point that the records of Messi/CR7 at the club level are more impressive than Pele's.
Pele played all his club games in Brazil (18 seasons with Santos) and the US (2 seasons with the Cosmos) where the level of competition was far lower than the likes of the Spanish/English/French leagues (plus the Champions League) that Messi/CR7 play in.
I don't think it's as simple as that though since Messi/CR7 also play with much more talented teammates than Pele did so that factors into things as well.
> Pelé's goal ratio is almost one per match, for 20 freaking years.
Just looking at goal ratio, Messi is pretty comprable here. According to Wikipedia Pele's goal ratio is .93/match over 20 seasons while Messi's is .87/match over 17.5 seasons.
>>Compared to R7 and Messi, Pele's records are mediocre.
Not a football fan, but is it even fair to compare these people from two different eras?
I'm an Indian, and cricket is very big here. The game of cricket has fundamentally changed due to insane physical fitness and coaching standards today. There is still a lot of way to go compared to others sports, but compared to only a generation back, the fitness standards are just bonkers today. I guess the kind of fitness national level team players had, is something any body today can have in a good gym in any major Indian city. Players like Andre Russel, Joe Root and even Virat Kohli just feel several notches high up in performance compared to any player merely a generation before them.
Its just what it is, Comparing the whole package available to players back then and now its completely unfair in my opinion.
You don't compare athletes from different eras directly against one another. You compare how dominant and ahead of their peers they were during their respective eras.
If there was Ballon d'or, he wouldn't have won because he played for Santos, which was a low tier league.
Even Emilio Martinez (a world cup winner) who defended that South America's football was competitive (in response to Mbappe's recent comment) chooses to play for Aston Villa.
By a south america player's standard, even Aston Villa is still better than the whole South America's leagues. Think about it.
There was Ballon d'or but it was exclusively awarded to European players.
South American football was on par with European football during Pele era. By 1970 CONMEBOL had won more world cups than UEFA (5 vs 4) and more Intercontinental Cups (6 vs 5). South American players did not have any need to play in European football at the time.
This scenario started to change in the early 80s, and then Bosman law killed not only South American football but also lower European leagues.
You are comparing football leagues in the 60s with current teams. That's a big mistake. Brazilian clubs were among the best in the world during that time. And, moreover, European leagues were not as good as they are today (there was much less money at the time). So your mistake as with many others is to think that playing in Santos was worse than playing for Barcelona or PSG. That's not the case, Santos was as good or better than any team in Europe.
No. Thats because the Premier league's pay is off the scale compared to South American leagues. Even lower PL teams have World Cup winners playing for them.
For those who're into football this is very nice video of Pele playing with many skillful tricks that he did during major competitions not training, in order to bypass and overcome the opponents, and most of them have been repeated by later superstars [1]:
There are great arguments for why he is the best player of his generation, and some solid arguments for why he is the greatest player ever. However, there is tons of inaccuracies told about him that increase his legend well beyond what he achieved. Just in your comment:
> he carried Brazil for 3 World Cup winnings.
He was never the best Brazil player in any of those, and in the second World Cup he played, he got injured in the second game and didn't play again. It is well recorded that Didi was the best Brazil player in 1958, Garrincha in 1962, and there was a constellation of all time greats in 1970.
Didi was the best player entering the tournament, but Pele made the only goal against Wales, then a hat trick, then 2 goals on the final (one of then one of the most beautiful World Cup goals).
In 1970 he was definitely the best player, by far. In a team that might be considered the best of all time, but no one ever challenges that he was the best one on that team.
In the 1970 World Cup, Brazil plays 6 matches. During the first 3 games in the group stage, Pelé scores 3 goals in 2 matches, but then doesn't score in quarter finals and semi finals. He scores a goal in the final, which Brazil wins 4-1.
Meanwhile, Jairzinho scores a goal in every single game of that World Cup, 7 in total. I watched the matches, and my favorite in that World Cup is Rivelinho, the best playmaker they had. Pelé wasn't a playmaker, he was more like Cristiano Ronaldo, a strong center forward who was very creative in the last quarter of the field.
I think Pele was amazing, but once you watch the matches, you realize that the legend was greatly exaggerated.
I watched the matches and is still clear to me that Pele was the best player of the team. Jairzinho had a great tournament, but it’s silly to say he was better than Pele in that tournament because he scored in every game. Same about Rivelino. Weird choice. It is clear to me that Gerson is the best playmaker of the team.
Pele supported AYSO in the US back in 1970. Associating his fame with this youth soccer group certainly played a big part in growing the game in the US. As the sport continues to grow in this country, I think it's fair to say that he's a founding father of soccer in the United States.
Growing up in the US, at least before the 94 World Cup, I knew next to nothing about soccer. But Pele was nevertheless a household name; he and Brazil were practically synonymous with the game.
Agreed, and Pele helped popularize the sport in an era with no social media, and a much slower movement of media in general, on a footprint of 4 world cups, 3 of which he won. RIP
Pele is fantastic, no question there, but in what world was Pele popularizing the already worlds most popular sport? Maybe this is just a super US-centric viewpoint I'm unaware of as an Englishman?
Great question. If you were an American kid growing up in the US in the 1970's and '80's, football was considered an exotic import (unlike American college and NFL "football"). Youth leagues were a completely new thing, underfunded, and not that popular. It was even less popular as a sport among adults at the time, so very little advertising dollars Stateside. The big three in the US are baseball, NFL football, and basketball, with hockey coming in second. Soccer is still playing catch-up in the States. It's still nowhere near as popular as it is in Europe or South America.
I can remember putting on our Adidas jerseys and shin guards and boots (or maybe Sambas) and practicing "soccer skills" in my yard with friends, and people would actually stop on the street and ask "what game are you playing?" Many adult Americans had never seen a black and white classic Adidas Telstar ball before!
Things are a lot better today, of course, with a dramatic increase in youth leagues and FIFA and Premier League viewership. Pelé was a huge part of that popularization because he was the first recognized football superstar in America for those interested in the game.
I would say he made the Brazilian team image the stuff of legends. This foot-ball thing was plenty-plenty popular throughout the world, having spread like wildfire throughout the twentieth century.
Garincha was the one carrying Brazil to wc victories in -58 and -62(Pele was injured early on). Pele established himself as the best player in the world when he scored 5 goals over 2 games against Benfica, giving Santos the world title(wich they defended, beating Milan, in -63) later in -62.
To many exhibition delayed his next international title till wc -70.
He was an outstanding player and had an impact in the game like no other player before him. His peak performance coincided with the mass media surge of the late 60's. One nitpick is that he did not carry Brazil to 3 world cup victories, because in 1962 he played only one full match. He got injured during the second match and was sidelined until the end of the world cup. Still, winning two world cup finals is a feat only a dozen players have done--incidentally, two Italians and 10 Brazilians.
At 62 WC in Chile he scored and assisted against Mexico in the first game and then got hurt in the game against the Czechs and sat out the rest of the tournament. He did get a winner's medal so technically you are correct.
In 1970 he played with arguably the greatest team of all time.
He also played most his life for Santos in a shit farmer's league. His 1000 goal record is also suspect. He was surrounded by great players
> Without Pele football might not be popular as it's today.
That' laughable.
Maradona, Cryuff, Messi far superior for a number of reasons.
Maradon - went to Napoli and won. They never won anything before or since. Naples against Italy in 1990 was the only time the Argentinian anthem didn't get booed. And they were playing against the hosts. 86 he took a shit squad all the way. Single handedly.
Cryuff - WC, Barca, Total Football.
Messi - If it hadn't been for a certain Gonazalo Higuain or Placios he would be sitting w/ 2 winners medals. The consistency over almost 2 decades is unreal. Again took a shit Argentina squad all the way and beat one of the tournament favorites.
Please be careful about expressing strong opinions about things you apparently know little about.
> At 62 WC in Chile he scored and assisted against Mexico in the first game and then got hurt in the game against the Czechs and sat out the rest of the tournament. He did get a winner's medal so technically you are correct.
Pele may have been injured early, but his performance in their first games are still important. If they lost those games, they would have been kicked out of the tournament early.
> In 1970 he played with arguably the greatest team of all time.
Doesn't diminish his contributions. He was a key part of what made that team "great".
> He also played most his life for Santos in a shit farmer's league. His 1000 goal record is also suspect. He was surrounded by great players
Of all the tired arguments people make to detract from Pele's accomplishments, this one rankles me the most. There was nothing "shit" about the Brazilian league at that time, and it had nothing to do with farmers. To claim otherwise is to betray a complete lack of any knowledge of football history. The South American leagues were actually the most competitive at that time. Their teams met and demolished Europeans club teams regularly. And the national team composed of players from this "shit farmer's" league was able to win the world cup 3 times within 12 years. Must have been some special "farmers."
You also contradict yourself. He played in a "shit" league, and yet he was surrounded by "great" players from that same league?
His more than 1000 goals are all attested to by FIFA. I'm not sure what is "suspect" about them.
> 86 he took a shit squad all the way. Single handedly.
The Argentina team of 86 was a shit squad without Maradona? I suggest you do do some proper research. I should probably stop here. The whole of your comment is an emotional outburst devoid of any real logic.
> Please be careful about expressing strong opinions about things you apparently know little about.
Yeah looks like you know next to nothing about what you speak.
> Pele may have been injured early, but his performance in their first games are still important. If they lost those games, they would have been kicked out of the tournament early.
Right. You are a joke. The one game he played was what won Brazil the WC that year. In 62 it was Garrincha who took Brazil to the promised land. Benezema has a winners medal too btw.
Yeah I stand by the shit league comment. They didn't even have proper record keeping so the 1200+ goals is a bad claim. He was surrounded by great players at the WC Jairzinho, Gérson, Tostão, Rivelino in 1970.
You are comparing that to Burucchaga and Voldano. Lol. I sincerely hope you bring more rigor to your day job.
> His more than 1000 goals are all attested to by FIFA.
Lol. Pelé included goals scored in friendlies or matches against semi-professional or even amateur teams. These facts are not even in dispute
> Right. You are a joke. The one game he played was what won Brazil the WC that year. In 62 it was Garrincha who took Brazil to the promised land. Benezema has a winners medal too btw.
He played two games, not one game as you claim (a factual error). He also actually played, and scored, unlike Benzema. And, as I said, if they lost the games he played in, they would have been kicked out. You have addressed none of these facts, and have resorted to name calling and ad-hominem attacks.
> Yeah I stand by the shit league comment. They didn't even have proper record keeping so the 1200+ goals is a bad claim. He was surrounded by great players at the WC Jairzinho, Gérson, Tostão, Rivelino in 1970.
So if it was a shit league how come players in that league won the world cup 3 times in 12 years? All his goals are well attested to (do your research), I'm not sure what you mean by lack of proper record keeping.
> He was surrounded by great players at the WC Jairzinho, Gérson, Tostão, Rivelino in 1970.
Please read my earlier comment in reply to this argument of yours.
> You are comparing that to Burucchaga and Voldano. Lol. I sincerely hope you bring more rigor to your day job.
Hmmm, Valdano for example, won the UEFA cup with Real Madrid in 1986, scoring twice in the final. He also scored several important goals (4 in all) in the world cup that year. If that is a mediocre player then Pele's team-mates were also mediocre.
> Pelé included goals scored in friendlies or matches against semi-professional or even amateur teams. These facts are not even in dispute.
They are still goals, no? They are all certified by FIFA. You claimed they are "suspect", the implication being that they are somehow not genuine or falsified.
> Christ, you are not even wrong.
Indeed, I am not wrong because I am arguing based on facts, not irrational emotion.
Yikes! You can't post like this here, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. We ban accounts that do this.
I don't want to ban you, and since we haven't warned you before, it seems fair to ask you to fix this first. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting to HN, we'd appreciate it.
I believe your comment violates the site guidelines. Not having any proper arguments is one thing, but resorting to personal attacks is another altogether.
I agree. But.. a) despite all the valid criticisms, Pele was still a great of his generation. Players like him, Distefano, etc where ahead of their time and helped modernize football. Respect.
B) Messi did not take a shit team to wc glory, the 2014 team had the best defense of the tournament and players like Mascherano, Dimaria, Kun, etc where hardly shit. They where just simply unlucky with injuries (kun, dimaria, higuan all not 100%) and the missed opportunities in the final by the whole front line, including Messi.
This 2022 team had a record two year unbeaten run with 3 major trophys (copa, wc, continental). That is hardly a shit team, its the opposite.
Maradonas 1990 final run WAS a shit team, and he did it with a broken ankle.
Wow. I'm sorry to hear that he died... I got a chance to meet him when I was a kid.
I was raised in a fairly poor neighborhood that in Souther California. One day they decided to set up a Boy Scouts troop. At the local junior high someone had arranged a gathering of the neighborhood kids and parents. Pele was the guest speaker. He talked for an hour or so about soccer and scouting, and people got to meet him after.
To this day I'm impressed that he put in the time and effort to show up and talk with twenty or so kids who he didn't know.
It still astounds me that he managed to get as famous as he did almost exclusively from his World Cup performances, as basically nobody outside of Brazil could have seen his club games. Sure he was amazing, but most of the world got to see/hear him play well under 20 games lifetime. Yet somehow seemingly everybody knew who he was for decades
The Brazilian team he played in, Santos, was not really a great team when Pele arrived... but once Pele showed up, that team became a win-everything team, 23 titles including two world championships, for over 10 years. Some claim Pele's Santos was one of the greatest teams to ever have played football. Wherever they went, it was a full house, and they did tour outside Brazil, but not very often, sure. In any case, Pele's fame is in no way exagerated. He won 3 world cups, something nearly unheard of even after all these years, won every championship Santos tried (his teammates were also amazing [1], of course - but Pele's prominency has never been questioned by anyone, specially his teammates) for a really long time... and he just made the game beautiful with every touch... watching his works in situations that did not even end up with a goal has always been as popular as watching his most amazing goals as I grew up.
You should look up how the tournaments were organized back then, you can't compare to things today.
In many Libertadores editions in the 1960s countries only had one spot. In some years Brazil as a whole was denied a spot: 1966, 69 and 70 Libertadores didn't have any Brazilian teams whatsoever (and in both 1966 and 69 Santos would have played).
Even the national championship wasn't "national", as there was only one spot per state, so states with great teams (like the state of São Paulo) would only have one team competing (either Santos or Palmeiras back then).
So Santos only had the chance to play in 4 Libertadores, out of 7 that Brazil was allowed, and won 2. That's a pretty good record. If there were as many spots as there is in UEFA Champions League today history might've been very different. Santos might've won more, or none.
If you applied the same standard to Real Madrid today you'd have a different outlook, as they were only Spanish champions 3 times in that period, so mainly ineligible for most of the CLs they won, and only once were they the Spanish champions before a CL win.
What about Messi's Barcelona? And Manchester City in the past 5 years, by your estimation, could not be considered better than their opposition due to having won no Champions League? I think your standards fail the smell test, but more importantly it is anachronical to suggest the Libertadores was the foremost soccer tourney at the time.
I don't really think comparing across eras is a good thing, but to your last point about CL organization - Madrid did win the first 5 CLs when they were organized in a manner that allowed only the champions from each country to enter.
After the first two World Cups his fame also brought fame to his club, Santos, that had a spectacular team also. They did world tours to showcase their talent. I believe most of his fame around the world came from these tours.
Here is a recollection of such tours, focusing on a debatable feat of stopping a civil war:
Also at the peak NASL, crowds were often 50,000 or more particularly when he was playing…not quite the Maracanã but soccer was more popular in the US than the popular sports narrative tends to report.
Of course only a few years after Pele, I watched the Diplomats play home games in a high school stadium.
I assume that most of the people watching him play there did not watch him play in the World Cup, as the USA missed every World Cup between 1950 and 1990.
while this story is a legend that most likely isn't true (there was a brief pause of the war for the length of the game (120 minutes max), and there was an actual ceasefire two weeks later unrelated to the match), this is actually true for Drogba.His appeal to his fellow citizens literally stopped the civil war. https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/52072592
Drogba's minute long appeal to stop the civil war and conduct elections made the warring factions to put down their weapons and come to negotiation table.
Yes, a big coincidence that the war happened to pause for the length of the game and that nobody questions the correlation of both events. Great respect for Drogba, but these two are not really exclusive events (also, not a competition).
the point was that the anecdote about pele just wasn't correct. Yes, there was a brief pause because of pele/santos for the length of the match (maybe even for the whole day), but the actual cease fire was 2 weeks later unrelated to the match. We don't have to invent stories to honor his legacy. His achievements speaks for himself, and was widely considered the GOAT up until Messi.
As Kasparov said about comparing players like Kobe to Jordan or Carlson to himself, it is difficult because they later players had the benefit of being able to study them earlier ones.
Sure you can. Absolute quality of soccer players may have changed, but relative performance probably have not. That's what makes Pelé impressive: how good he was relative to his peers. No soccer player nowadays reach that same level.
Getting to the final and winning the WC is very difficult, and will be even more so with 48 teams. France could've gone home earlier at many points, same as Argentina.
Even getting to PKs was partly luck. That handball penalty could've easily not happened or not been called.
While it's likely France will be a contender for the next decade or so, there's no guarantee of them making into to the final and winning. Plenty of stacked teams have gone home early before (even in this WC).
Do you have any estimation into the relative reverence/awe between Pelé and Ayrton Senna? Both seemed to be dominant in their sport and be fanatically loved by fans and the general public.
Senna is one of the very few people as universally beloved as Pelé here. Since his activity was much more recent he's closer to the heart of a lot of people.
That Senna died with an Austrian flag in his car is one of the greatest acts of sportsmanship left uncompleted. (He traditionally drove his victory lap with a Brazilian flag; Roland Ratzenberger, an Austrian, was killed in a crash earlier that same race weekend and Senna expected to win and honor him by displaying the Austrian flag on his victory lap.)
Which farmers are you referring to? The European nations he defeated in the World Cups?
Besides, Europe didn't always have the strongest clubs in the world. South American clubs were just as good all the way through the 80's.
Many people discredit Pelé's goals in state championships and friendlies, but fail to consider how at the time those state championships were considered more valued than national and continental ones.
And France have easily one of the best teams, with lots of very talented youngsters waiting for a chance to prove themselves. Even with multiple injured highly important players that would have otherwise started (Pogba, Kanté, L. Hernandez, Benzema, Nkunku to an extent) they got to the final. For every player retiring (Benzema, probably Giroud and Lloris) there are younger players ready to step in, all the way down to the youth teams. And this is at every position, unlike most other teams like Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Spain that have obvious gaps in at least one position. The only other ones that come close in terms of all roundness of talent are England.
France will be a menace for at least the next decade.
while france does have a great squad, this sort of prediction goes against world cup history. Hardly ever the favorites win the world cup. In fact, imo the last time the favorites won the world cup was in 2002.
yes the campaign wasn't so good, and the copa before that was disastrous for brazil, but brazil were still the favorites. They had ronaldo, rivaldo, roberto carlos, cafu, kaka, ronaldinho, lucio, juninho in their line up. Granted Ronaldinho and Kaka were yet to hit their peak, but they were the team. If not for injuries and partying, even romario would have been there.
> What wins a world cup is a team, not individuals.
Also just luck. You can be in an "easy" play-off pool or a "difficult" one, you can have "easy" or "difficult" quarter finals, semi-finals, and finals.
Of course it still takes great skill and preparation from the entire team to win no matter what, and I don't want to take away from that, but the way the thing is set up means that in the end, "winning" doesn't mean nearly as much as it's made out to be.
This is exactly one of to reasons to guess that Mbappe will achieve this. Even if he, as individual, get injuried or worse at playing, France still has an incredibly strong young generation.
It is impossible to predict but we can talk about the past: Messi is Argentinian and Maradona too. A goal like this will be difficult to see in the future: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wVho3I0NtU
In his book "Soccer in Sun and Shadow", Eduardo Galeano beautifully captures the essence of Pelé's status: “those of us who were lucky enough to see him play received alms of an extraordinary beauty: moments so worthy of immortality that they make us believe immortality exists.”
It's hard to imagine these days, when we have multiple camera angles for even the most mediocre of plays, but most of Pelé's games were never even captured on film.
We have to rely on people's memories, newspaper articles, etc. His favorite ever goal had to be re-created in computer animation.
Such a shame, not having access to that material feels almost like the tragedy of the Library of Alexandria. How things have changed.
It is almost impossible to explain his role in Brazilian culture. All great Brazilian writers of the 20th century adored him. Musics about his goals. Expressions we use to this day( like “ gol de placa”).
He was also very conscious in separating his public persona, Pele, from his private one, Edson, the man.
There is a banned commenter who tried to reply to you to point out (without any substantive explanation) that fútbol is the Spanish word, while futebol is Portuguese. So Pelé himself would have referred to his sport as "futebol".
This is a fancy way of saying that Portuguese, unlike English, really doesn't like "tb" occurring together with no vowel in between, so people added one! (In other words that have a longer history you sometimes don't have the vowel written, but it's commonly still spoken, like advogado /a.d͡ʒi.voˈɡa.du/ 'lawyer', from Latin advocatus. IPA again from Wiktionary.)
Oh, I was looking for that but didn't remember that I had to click on the timestamp. Thanks for the reminder.
I'm not sure I would call the original comment a "good" comment; it was pretty low-effort since it just consisted of a single word and didn't mention "Spanish" or "Portuguese" at all. But it wasn't a malicious comment and it had a point.
I was very impressed with how honest he was about himself. He didn't downplay or avoid his own mistakes and shortcomings yet he also didn't seem to have much guilt or anguish about them. I left that documentary respecting him even more.
So sorry to hear this. Pelé was, and continues to be, a true legend. He made football beautiful and full of wonder.
He was also there in 1958, and scored two goals, when Sweden had its chance to become world champions, a chance I don’t believe my country will ever get again. RIP
Luckily I got to see him play, back in 1976 when he was playing for the New York Cosmos, close to the end of his career. I sat way up high in the Superdome, so he was hard to make out, but at least I can say I saw him play.
As a brazilian football fanatic, who grew with my dad and uncle who are equally fanatics, the "greatest of all time" or "that I have seen" conversation has happened my entire life. For that reason, Pelé is one the human beings I most talked about. It is also surely the football player who stopped before I was even born that I most watched, from entire games I was able to find to movies to clips... just so I could have a better argument at the table with the grown ups... Sad day, RIP.
I'm a big fan but most of his printed media show a 20-something year old footballer. If the septugenarian Pelé was standing in front of me at the supermarket checkout line I probably would have a hard time recognizing him too.
Hearing this news and letting my buddies know honestly gave me those bone shivers.
He changed everything with football. He has been sick for a while now but adds to his humility that he never was looking for attention. He was just a lover of the sport. He was the god of the sport. When you hear Pele you think; football.
Here's a comment from u/DarkJayBR on Reddit, many great quotes:
RIP to the King of Football!
Here is what some legends had to say about him back in the days:
*Johan Cruyff*: I can be a new Di Stefano, but I can't be a new Pelé. He is the only one who goes beyond the limits of logic.
*Eric Cantona*: An artist in my eyes is someone who can light up a dark room. I have never found and will never find a difference between Pelé's pass to Carlos Alberto in the 1970 World Cup final and the poetry of the young Rimbaud. There is in each of these human manifestations an expression of beauty that touches us and gives us a sense of eternity.
*Bobby Moore*: Pelé was the most complete player I've ever seen, he had everything. Two good feet. Magic in the air. Fast. Powerful. He could beat people with skill. He could outrun people. He was only 5ft 7in, yet he looked like a giant athlete on the field. Perfect balance and impossible vision. He was the biggest because he could do anything and everything on a football field. I remember Saldhana, the manager, being asked by a Brazilian journalist who was the best goalkeeper in his squad. He said Pele. In his opinion, the man could play any position. Sometimes I feel like football was invented for this magical player.
*Michel Platin*i: There's Pelé, the man, and then Pelé, the player. And to play like Pelé is to play like God.
*Eusebio*: Pelé played in an era that had many great players and in that environment he stood out above the rest. He was a complete player in every way, as well as being a kind human being. Cristiano Ronaldo is still young, and has many years ahead of him. But so far, I don't see anyone who compares to Pele.
*Franz Beckenbauer*: Pelé is the greatest player of all time. He reigned supreme for 20 years. All others - Diego Maradona, Johan Cruyff, Michel Platini - are below him. There is no one who compares to Pele.
*Cesar Luis Menotti*: It's ugly to compare, but the greatest was Pelé. If we believe that God made man, God made Pelé perfect. Gave it all to him. Nothing was missing, heading, physical strength, dribbling, finishing, inspiration, genius, temperament, vision, goal. All.
*Gianni Rivera*: However, I think there is someone who was even better (than Messi) and that is Pelé. He used both feet on the field. He was just as dangerous with his right as he was with his left. He was strong in the air too, and created a lot of chances.
*Hugo Gatti:* Pelé had the skin of a player, head, rhythm, everything. It was a panther dressed in white, I played with him. He came in to play at the last minute and managed to turn the game around. And the big difference is that Pelé created fear on the field, Maradona didn't... For me it's Pelé, Alfredo Di Stefano and Maradona, in that order. Thanks to Diego, he's a great player. But Pelé was from another planet.
*Tarcisio Burgnich*: I said to myself before the game, 'he's made of skin and bones like everyone else'. But I was wrong.
*Ferenc Puskas*: The greatest player in history was Di Stefano. I refuse to classify Pelé as a player. He was above that.
*Sigge Parling*: After the fifth goal, even I had to applaud him.
*Costa Pereira*: I arrived with the hope of stopping a great man, but I left convinced that we just had been destroyed by someone who was not born on the same planet as the rest of us.
*Tostão*: Pelé was the greatest - just perfect. And off the field he was always smiling and excited. You never see him moody. He loves being Pele.
*Just Fontaine:* When I saw Pelé play, I felt like I should hang up my boots, I've never felt so dominated and outclassed like that.
*Andy Warhol*: Pelé was one of the few who contradicted my theory: instead of 15 minutes of fame, he will have 15 centuries.
Pele is the Bradman of Soccer. His skills and dominance simply elevated the game to what it is today.
The lack of singular "GOAT" character in other tier 2/3 sports like Cricket (now)/Rugby Union/Field Hockey explain their total free-fall in popularity.
One of the few soccer players I heard about before the US sports media tried to start cramming the sport down our throats in an attempt to create a new market. Pele and Maradona (although Maradona was only known to us because of a blown ref call).
Well, you know when someone is an icon, when he becomes synonymous with being the best at something. When we say that someone is the Pelé of some area, it is synonymous with excellence.
I know people who don't like football will have a hard time appreciating this, but that to me is like saying Michelangelo was a guy who wiggled about a brush on a ceiling, or Beethoven was a guy who wrote some funny dots and lines on a piece of paper.
The nice thing about Pelé is that he was by all account an all around nice guy and remained a positive influence right until death. You can't say the same about Maradona who will be remembered perhaps more for cheating and dying a fat cokehead than for his ball carrying.
I hate to be that guy, but.. he had a daughter that he didn't want to recognize, Sandra, she had to sue him (she did prove he was her father, but ended up receiving no money. she however could use his surname)
She also died of cancer, just like he died today, but back in 2006. Not even after she died he would show up - he sent flowers through his company, so.. that's not my definition of an all around nice guy
That's also not a man that somehow didn't want children. He also had 6 other children that he treated just fine. How would you live knowing that your father rejects you, but not your brothers and sisters?
Lawyer and former Congressman Vicente Cascione is a staunch supporter of Pelé. He guarantees that he was called by the King of football for a meeting that would be held at the house of Lúcia, Pelé's sister, in Ponta da Praia, in Santos, in August 1992.
The meeting, four years before Sandra Regina (Pelé's daughter) went to court to demand recognition of paternity, would be held with the presence of Pelé, Lúcia, Davi, a former soccer player and married to Lúcia, and Sandra.
“I remember well. It was a Saturday afternoon. I was not Pelé's lawyer. I saw Pelé start his football career at Santos. He just called me so I could listen to the conversation I was having with Sandra. Pelé would acknowledge paternity, without any problem”, says Cascione.
The problem, according to Vicente's account, was caused by Sandra's lawyer at the time.
“This lawyer, who has already passed away, called the press to the meeting. So, he arrived and started giving interviews on the street. Sandra didn't even go to the meeting. The lawyer appeared. It would be the first contact that Pelé would have with Sandra. But the one who showed up was the lawyer. A terrible situation was created. Pelé was very irritated with the lawyer's attitude and decided to just assume paternity in court", said Vicente Cascione.
“When Pelé saw that the lawyer had called the press to the meeting, he looked at me and said: I was betrayed. Now I will only recognize paternity in court”, remembers Vicente Cascione.
> “When Pelé saw that the lawyer had called the press to the meeting, he looked at me and said: I was betrayed. Now I will only recognize paternity in court”, remembers Vicente Cascione.
I understand he was pissed, and I don't fault him for this specifically (even though it was a poor decision)
The trouble was all the other decisions he did regarding her, during her whole life. Do you think he acted like he did just because of the PR stunt caused by the lawyer? It would be kind of lame to hold this grudge for decades.
Lol. It's super easy to judge all that when you're not using his shoes. Anyway, his achievements won't overcome his failures and vice-versa, just as any human in this planet.
Sounds like Steve Jobs and his daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs whom he denied paternity for several years.
No success can compensate for failure in the home.
Just spent a month in Rio and a friend brought this up when we were discussing Pele’s legacy (right when he was rumored to be in hospice).
I also learned that a lot of Brazilians (at least in Rio) are bigger fans of their local/favorite club team than the national team so many who aren’t Santos fans don’t consider him the greatest (even though they obviously loved him).
I’m not qualified to say one way or the other what the majority thinks since I haven’t travelled the country talking football. But I was certainly surprised that it’s not a forgone conclusion, especially for young people who think other star players have accomplished more in the Brasileirão.
I honestly don't have any horse in this race: Pelé probably was an all-around great guy. To call a lifetime of ignoring your child "one mistake" feels like a mischaracterization, though. It might not even be considered a bad thing, but it's definitely an ongoing decision.
As an analogy, I eat meat. Future generations might see that as immoral. It's definitely not a mistake I made one time, though, it's an ongoing choice that I'm making repeatedly over the course of my life.
Adoption and disowning have very different connotations. Generally adoption is seen as a best attempt to find someone who can take care of the kid. Generally disowning is seen as just washing your hands of the situation I think.
I dunno, never met her, not able to analyze her motives. That seems like a lot to project on a person who died in 2006 though. Perhaps she felt like she deserved to be treated like the rest of his children or something.
Unfortunately his daughter wasn't put up for adoption (which would be an entirely fine thing to do!). When you are put to adoption, you have a new family, and it is complete in itself.
She was deprived not only of the contact of his father but also her siblings and extended family from the father side, and for no reason at all. She always knew who her father was and knew that he wanted nothing to do with her.
It's not like he forgot to tip the waitress. He rejected his own daughter. How would you like it if your father actively tried to ignore your existence? Have some empathy for a fellow human being. It's horrible behavior, regardless of Pele's fame.
No need for the comparison, few will ever know the weight that some of these icons carry, the people they are surrounded by who change the course of their lives, for better or for worse. Maradona was no saint or role model, but this is a celebration of what Pelé was able to accomplish.
Many comparisons were made for decades, that doesn't mean you should bring it up unprompted during the announcement of the death of one of the subjects purely to disparage the other side. If you want to honor pele, act as he would, instead of using his death as another opportunity to bring up what was effectively an old timers console war.
If you want to do Pelé any favours, I would stick with the ball carrying.
Outside ball carrying, at least to me, Maradona was much more admirable because he remained unapologetically himself. Pelé on the other hand, eventually became a salesman of his own image: a permanent smile on his face, always talking in platitudes to keep everyone happy, fully aligned with his (not so innocent) FIFA bosses.
Imho that's not entirely true. Pelé used his own image to try to make Brazil a better place to his people and to contribute to the sport, sometimes even in a naive and childish way.
He certainly wasn't a perfect person, with controversial attitudes throughout his life, but let's remember that he had humble beginnings like many black poor boys in Brazil whose destiny was to starve and, at least publicly, he always acted as a citizen of the world trying to sell a good image from Brazil. he was never involved in drugs.
>You can't say the same about Maradona who will be remembered perhaps more for cheating and dying a fat cokehead than for his ball carrying.
Despite him being a scumbag in many aspects of the personal life, this is way off the mark. He is one of the all time GOATs and his adoration in Argentina borders on the fanatical.
Seconded. Here in Argentina Maradona is (was?) a highly polarizing celebrity, and of course has detractors, but his admirers are multitude and he is worshipped as a person, not just as a soccer player.
It's absolutely not true that he is widely remembered as a scumbag; some people of course do, others acknowledge that he struggled with drugs all of his life but he came from humble beginnings and never forgot nor reneged on this, and many call him D10S (a play on Spanish "dios" and the number 10 he wore on his t-shirt). That's not the mark of someone widely remembered as a scumbag.
I’m from Argentina, and
I think for the people of my generation (90s onwards) the image we have of el Diego is that he was a cheating fat coke head who supported all the wrong politicians, and left us with an infinite amount of memes and phrases, mostly related to cocaine.
My parents generation will probably have a different feel about the guy, as they saw him in all his glorious days, whereas we only knew his decadent state.
The same kind of posters came out of the woodwork when Kobe died. Several posts with dozens of replies each were flagged to death, such that there wasn't really a place to discuss it on HN. An unfortunate side effect of tech being a safe haven for those of us who aren't physically-gifted (in a society that prizes and privileges athleticism) is that a subset will resent any mention of sports.
My point was more "Anything that good hackers would find interesting." It's not an exclusively tech site but does lean heavily in that direction. And you're correct I'm not a soccer fan.
Does this mean that unless everyone who you deem great and worthy get praise, people can't respect humans they heard of, grew up watching or had as idols?
In Pele's case, you really should read about that man and what he did outside the game he was famous for.
You're someone who managed to find hackernews, make an account and you have no excuse for not informing yourself before writing such a stupid comment. Correct it next time you get the urge to classify who should praise who and when.
Pelé impacted politics through his game [Nigerian war, cold war]. When Pelé was visiting Nigeria, a truce was brokered so the entire country could enjoy watching him - while politicians could not make any headway. Many countries behind the Iron Curtain could not get Western news, but when Pelé was playing even the dictators allowed watching the games.
> Meanwhile, many great people who did amazing things are unknown to the public.
It would be more constructive if you provided a list or reference.
It's hard to see the intangibles of most athletes. They donate tons to charities, start foundations, give speeches, work with kids, etc. Who can count how many kids were inspired enough by his play or works or interactions to be 'saved', the world will never know.
Surely more on all counts than you or me.
It's kinda blind to reduce him to 'a ball kicker.' Sure, he did that, but not only that.
I don’t think so. The rivalry between Brazil and Argentina is nowhere remotely intense as the media likes to portray (and profit from) - with the exception toxic fans on both sides.
Wasn't Einstein a womanizer too? I know it's a bad thing but conversely, bad acts do not necessarily diminish a person completely.
I think there needs to be nuance in recognizing people who were great, not just boxing them as either good or bad since at the end of the day, they were still people with faults.
Exactly, I like to say the good does not nullify the bad, but the bad does not also nullify the good.
Both stand on their own in the same person. Of course, like God, we would like to enhance the good in people, and diminish the bad, helping them to become better versions of themselves
