Pelé dies aged 82: tributes paid to a football great – updates and reaction

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Barack Obama is the latest to pay tribute.

Pelé legacy on football (or soccer, of course) in the US should not be underestimated. He signed for the New York Cosmos in the twilight of his career and transformed the league there. Here is some nice detail from the Guardian’s obituary.

He played his last game for the club in October 1974 but, with financial clouds still hanging over him, he came out of retirement a few months later after receiving an offer he simply could not refuse. To the astonishment of football fans, particularly in Brazil, he went to play for New York Cosmos in the fledgling North American Soccer League (NASL). They would pay him $7m for three years as a player, plus another three as a “goodwill ambassador”.

As well as a salary that would make him the highest-paid sportsman in the world, he was also tempted by the offer of a new challenge laid down by the Cosmos manager, Clive Toye, perhaps one that suited a footballer past his peak: “I told him don’t go to Italy, don’t go to Spain, all you can do is win a championship. Come to the US and you can win a country.”

And so it proved: Pelé and the Cosmos were a perfect fit. The astonishing skill that had beguiled football fans in almost every country in the world was a revelation to a new American audience, and he loved the razzmatazz of the NASL – his easy charm was a gift to sports marketing men who were selling, in effect, a brand new product.

Over three seasons he scored 65 goals in 111 games for the Cosmos, and led them to the 1977 American championship. The team became a huge commercial presence and regularly sold out their 60,000-seater stadium – unthinkable before his arrival. His last game came in October 1977, an exhibition match in New York between his two clubs, Santos and Cosmos, broadcast to dozens of countries, in which he played one half for each side, and scored his last goal, his 1,283rd in 1,367 games. Those figures are remarkable in themselves, but the fact that more than 500 of those games were friendlies played all over the world is testament to his popularity and box office appeal.

From Tom Phillips, our Latin America correspondent

Pelé’s death has sparked a huge outpouring of emotion in his native Brazil, with politicians, celebrities and sporting icons uniting to celebrate Brazil’s departed king.

The Brazilian government led the tributes tweeting: “Football perfection; the King was almost synonymous with his homeland. Generations to come will remember him as a gentleman off the field, and a magician on it”.

Brazil’s incoming president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said he believed Pelé would join a heavenly kickabout with football greats such as Garrincha, Socrates and Maradona.

“Few Brazilians carried our country’s name so far,” Lula tweeted. “However different their language was to Portuguese, foreigners from all over the planet always found a way of pronouncing the magic word: ‘Pelé’”

“Thank you Pelé for all the happiness you gave us!” tweeted the samba star Zeca Pagodinho.

Pelé’s former club Santos tweeted an image of a crown alongside a single word: “Eternal”.

The mayor of Rio, Eduardo Paes, described Pelé as an everlasting football icon and a unique ambassador for Brazil on the world stage. “The genius and talent of the planet’s most popular King of Sport will enchant and inspire generations to come,” Paes wrote.

“Thank you, Pelé! Thank you for the smiles you gave us. For the tears of emotion. For the cheers of goal Thank you for the happiness you gave the Brazilian people and the people of the world. Never was there such a beloved king,” wrote the former president Dilma Rousseff.

Brazil’s new culture minister, the singer Margareth Menezes, said her country had lost “the greatest player in history”.

Brazil’s most famous football commentator Galvão Bueno tweeted: “My friend Édson has gone!! ... But not Pelé!! Pelé is eternal!!”

Speaking of tributes, here are two significant messages. Lionel Messi leads with a very simple message – “Rest in peace” – while Cristiano Ronaldo has posted:

My deepest condolences to all of Brazil, and in particular to the family of Mr. Edson Arantes do Nascimento. A mere “goodbye” to the eternal King Pelé will never be enough to express the pain that currently embraces the entire world of football. An inspiration for so many millions, a reference from yesterday, today, forever.

The affection he always showed for me was reciprocal in every moment we shared, even from a distance. He will never be forgotten and his memory will live on forever in each of us football lovers. Rest in peace, King Pelé.”

This made me smile. When Maradona died in 2020, Pelé was one of the first to pay tribute: “One day, I hope we can play football together in the sky”.

A few emails are trickling through from readers.

“I was fortunate to see the 1958 World Cup final, live on television, and it is still to this day the most extraordinary game I have ever seen, and Pelé was at the heart of it,” Peter Rist writes. “I couldn’t believe the things that were done by the Brazilian players, especially Pelé – how he was able to control the ball with his feet, legs, shoulders and head. And, having won three World Cups, He is surely the real GOAT – and a wonderful human being, to boot.”

It’s worth remembering that HE WAS JUST 17 when he won football’s greatest prize for the first time. Imagine that: 17. He scored twice in the final against Sweden, a remarkable 5-2 victory. Here is the Guardian’s report from 1958, courtesy of WR Taylor.

The GOAT (greatest of all time) debate is a tiresome, futile exercise, but it has reignited over recent years with the exploits of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Different players in different eras can never truly be compared: the standard of opponents, training, pitches and even equipment (balls, boots) have completely transformed the sport. Pelé, Maradona and Messi should be seen only in the context of their own time.

Pelé’s legacy looms large over all who have followed him. Maradona, Cruyff, Iniesta, Zidane, Messi, CR7 have all borrowed something from his wheelhouse. The video below is evidence of that. Everyone should bow down to The King.

The Guardian's obituary

(features a sensational photo of him at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival!)

It is worth remembering that Neymar equalled Pelé’s scoring record for Brazil at the World Cup. Both players have 77 goals for their country.

Neymar, the player who now wears the Brazil No 10 shirt made famous by Pelé, posted on Instagram:

Before Pelé, “10” was just a number. I’ve read this phrase somewhere, at some point in my life. But this sentence, beautiful, is incomplete. I would say before Pelé football was just a sport. Pelé has changed it all. He turned football into art, into entertainment He gave voice to the poor, to the blacks and especially: He gave visibility to Brazil. Soccer and Brazil have raised their status thanks to the King! He’s gone but his magic remains. Pelé is FOREVER!!

The emergence of the teenaged Pelé during the 1958 World Cup opened a door to a new dimension of football. The brief televised highlights of the matches in Sweden were broadcast in a black and white that was actually more like blurred shades of grey but already the Brazilian prodigy seemed to be sharply focused and bathed in a golden glow.

The skinny 17-year-old with the flat-top haircut scored six goals, several of them executed with an impudent wit and a hitherto unimaginable level of technique, and then wept openly on the shoulder of Gilmar, the team’s goalkeeper, when the triumph was secured. For many of his new fans in foreign lands, Edson Arantes do Nascimento was the first complicated foreign name they committed to memory.

Twelve years after that first eruption of genius he won his third World Cup winner’s medal. The 1970 tournament was watched by many viewers on colour television sets, a high proportion of them purchased specially for the occasion. Football has never seemed as splendid as when Pelé – now a mature man of 29 – was at the heart of a team including Tostão, Jairzinho, Gérson, Roberto Rivellino and Carlos Alberto, an ensemble of masters surrounded by their own golden aura as they took the game to a new level of creative interplay, with the No 10 as their conductor.

Read the full tribute here:

France’s Kylian Mbappé called Pelé the “king of football” in a social media post.

Another England footballer, Sir Geoff Hurst, said he was “proud” to have shared a pitch with him.

Former England footballer Gary Lineker has posted on Twitter paying tribute to the “divine” Pelé.

A hospital statement read: “The Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein regretfully confirms the death of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, Pele, today, December 29, 2022, at 3:27 pm, due to the failure of multiple organs, a result of the progression of cancer of colon associated with his previous clinical condition.

“Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein sympathizes with the family and everyone who suffers from the loss of our dear King of Football.”

A statement on Pele’s official Instagram account said: “Inspiration and love marked the journey of King Pele, who peacefully passed away today.

“On his journey, Edson enchanted the world with his genius in sport, stopped a war, carried out social works all over the world and spread what he most believed to be the cure for all our problems: love.

“His message today becomes a legacy for future generations. Love, love and love, forever.”

Pelé has died

One of the greatest footballers to ever play the game – perhaps the greatest – has died.

Here is our news report:

And here is Richard Williams’s long read on the great man.