Pelé, why he is the great inventor of soccer | PROFILE

Pelé invented soccer. The English regulated it, but the Brazilian was the one who gave him his spirit. With his bare feet he rubbed together two wooden sticks to create the fire of this sport. Each of the plays that we have celebrated with our stars, he had already made between the fifties and seventies. Zidane’s roulette, Ronaldinho’s elastic, Messi’s dribbles against traffic, Cristiano Ronaldo’s double jump, Mbappé’s attacks.

He was born in Minas Gerais on October 23, 1940, in a humble home where soccer was not synonymous with happiness but rather with suffering: his father was never able to demonstrate his skills due to an arterial injury that withdrew him early and his mother, who witnessed that ordeal, did not want the same for Dico, as his family called the boy who would sit on the throne of this unspeakable passion.

He shined shoes and helped his father find the real one. Until he passed a test at Santos, and made him legendary. He gave her the best eighteen years of his life. From 1956 to 1974, he won three World Cups (Sweden 58, Chile 62 and Mexico 70), the first being a minor. He made Brazil bigger. Before him, it was a wounded nation after losing the World Cup they organized in 1950 (his own father was devastated). With him, they placed the soccer crown. Crown that no one has been able to take away from them yet.

Pelé gave meaning to the number ’10’ shirt. Only after he used it did it become the most desired by all the generations that have come after it. Nobody imagines Maradona or the most famous stars without the ’10’. The most talented from any corner claims that number as the jackpot.

But Pelé not only masterfully cultivated deception, nor did he push his body to the limit of its physicality, but he was also a goal machine: 1,283 goals to be exact. An insurmountable figure that neither Messi nor Cristiano Ronaldo comes close to. He never played in Europe. He always said that he didn’t have the need. And rather, in the latter part of his career, he interned at the New York Cosmos.

He was not a coach. That incessant stress was not made for him. He was an ambassador for the United Nations, an actor in various Hollywood films, Brazil’s Sports Minister, FIFA image, Xuxa’s boyfriend, among other eccentricities. He always expressed himself best through soccer. His statements were not usually so well received. He was compared to Maradona and then to Messi. Before with Di Stéfano and with Cruyff. But the throne did not cease to belong to him.

Pelé passed away yesterday at the age of 82, of colon cancer. Let no one think of saying that he lost this game. He got tired of coming to Peru. The white heads that lament his departure know very well about that. Blessed are those who were able to see it in color, live and direct. We have the repetitions that will continue to surprise us. The King is dead! Long live the king!