Considered the greatest football player ever, Pele has died at age 82.
He died at the Albert Einstein Israelita Hospital in Sao Paulo after news that his colon cancer had worsened and family kept a bedside vigil..
Born Edson Arantes do Nascimento, Pelé is the only player in football history to have won the World Cup three times – in 1958, 1962 and 1970 – and a committee of experts voted him as the Fifa ‘Player of the Century’ in 2000.
He scored 77 goals in 92 international matches for Brazil and, his lifetime career goal tally sits at 1,279 goals in 1,363 games.
Pelé was just 17 in 1958 when he became the youngest player to appear in a World Cup.
He scored six times in the knock-out phase, including a hat-trick in the semi-final against France and then two goals in the final against Sweden, to inspire Brazil’s victory. Pelé was then again part of Brazil’s 1962-winning squad before famously spearheading the team in 1970 that beat Italy 4-1 in the final and is regarded as the greatest in international history.
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