Pelé saw his father crying listening on the radio how the ‘Maracanazo’ was perpetrated and he did not hesitate to promise him that he would win a World Cup… and ended up being a three-time world champion
He was nine years old when he saw his father crying inconsolably next to an old radio while listening to the story of a soccer game. It was July 16th, 1950 and in the Maracana Stadium, filled with more than 200 thousand people, the worst (soccer) defeat in Brazil´s history was perpetrated: the team lost the World Cup at home to Uruguay. And there was Pelé’s father expressing the bitter feeling there can be in front of his little son.
Why are you crying, Dad? Little Edson asked him innocently. He received no response, but neither did he hesitate to make a promise. “I’m going to win the World Cup for you,” he said without imagining that his words would not only ease his pain, but also mark his destiny. He would be a footballer just like his father, Joao Ramos do Nascimento, but he would go much much further.
Football glory
Eight years later, Pelé was called up to be part of the Brazilian team to play in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. In those long and sunny days of the Swedish summer, Edson Arantes do Nascimento, now 17 years old, would lift the World Cup for the first time, as well as being the youngest champion and scored two times in the final, something that no one has even been able to attain. He had not reached the age of majority, but he already knew how much the golden trophy weighed, the one that Lionel Messi celebrates to the fullest today.
Curiously, Pelé once recounted that when he arrived in the European country, nobody knew anything about Brazil and that they even asked him through an interpreter how Buenos Aires was. Angry, he replied: “Listen, Buenos Aires is in Argentina, not in Brazil,” and left. Perhaps that is why, despite the rumors of transfer proposals to Real Madrid or Manchester United, he preferred to stay in his country where he says he felt comfortable and for him that was worth much more.
Pelé had already kept his promise. But wanted more. Furthermore, he was still 17 years old and destined to give Brazil the history it has today. He played three more World Cups and won two. The second was in Chile 1962, just four years later, becoming the only human being on earth to be a two-time world champion at such a young age. An incredible mark that Kylian Mbappé sought to reach in Qatar 2022, but was left on the doorstep of glory: Argentina, led by Leo Messi, came out champion!
In England 66 he was to have achieved the three-time championship, but in the match against Eusebio’s Portugal he was kicked until he couldn’t go on. The reprehensible strategy of coach Otto Glória paid off and the Europeans won 3-1 with a double score from the ‘Black Panther’, while Pelé was unable to score.
In Mexico 70, Pelé increased his legend and put him in a place on Olympus that no one could reach: he became a three-time world champion. No one has achieved it so far. They can surpass his records, they can surpass him in goals, but they will never match his legacy. Above all, the joy he could give his father will remain in history. “I could say that God gave me everything back,” he once recounted.
How is Pele´s health?
A large part of the children and grandchildren of former Brazilian soccer player Edson Arantes do Nascimento “Pelé” spent Christmas night at the hospital where the three-time world champion has been admitted for almost a month, at a time when his delicate state of health is a reason of care and concern.
“Almost everyone,” said Kely Nascimento, one of the daughters of what many consider to be the best soccer player of all time, posting a photo on her Instagram account in the early hours of Sunday morning in which she appears together with her brothers and her mother. in the hospital room where Pelé was admitted on November 29th.
In the image are the wife of the “King”, Marcia Aoki, their three eldest children, including the exporter Edinho, who arrived in Sao Paulo on Saturday, and some of the grandchildren, but the bed in which Pelé is under care does not appear.
