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(b. Edson Arantes do Nascimento, October 23, 1940, Tres Coraes, Brazil), Afro-Brazilian soccer player, considered by many to be the greatest in the history of the game, and one of the most recognized black people in the world.
Born in a small town in the state of Minas Gerais with a semiprofessional soccer player as a father, Edson Arantes do Nascimento grew up in the city of Bauru. There he occasionally attended school and performed odd jobs until, while still an adolescent, he began to play for the local youth soccer team. It was at this time that he acquired the nickname "Pel," by which he is now known throughout the world. At 15, Pel was transferred to Santos, a team in the much larger port city with the same name. Pel would play for Santos for most of his career, and he would forever become associated with its white Number 10 shirt, along with the yellow shirt of the Brazilian national team.
In the 18 years that Pel played at Santos, the club team won numerous state and national championships in Brazil and two world club championships, in 1962 and 1963. During what has been called Pel's reign (in Brazil he is referred to as "King Pel"), Santos frequently toured throughout the world and enormous crowds gathered wherever they played.
In Asia, Africa, and Europe, fans paid homage to this black Brazilian. Concerned that such devotion might result in offers for Pel to play for teams in richer countries, in 1962 the Brazilian Congress declared the
22-year-old to be a "non-exportable national treasure." And in a story often quoted, a visit to Nigeria by Pel's Santos in 1969 caused the warring factions in a civil war to agree to a temporary truce lasting the duration of the Brazilian's stay.
With the Brazilian national team, Pel played in four World Cups, figuring in Brazil's unprecedented three victories between 1958 and 1970. In 1970 Brazil's military dictatorship claimed as theirs the team's victory in an attempt to associate itself with the triumphant soccer team. General Mdici hosted the team's players and his military government used an image of Pel celebrating a goal as part of its propaganda, fueling years of debate concerning Pel's possible complicity with the authoritarian regime. The song "Pra frente Brasil" (Forward, Brazil), composed for the 1970 team, was also appropriated by the government for its propaganda.
Pel retired from his club team, Santos, in 1974, and it is rumored that even the president of Brazil attempted, unsuccessfully, to convince him to continue playing. In 1975, however, a multimillion-dollar offer lured him back into the game to play for the New York Cosmos as a North American league attempted to spread soccer to the United States. His second and final retirement came in October of 1977.
Pel is considered by many to have been the most complete soccer player in the history of soccer and has been repeatedly chosen as the most outstanding athlete of the century. He scored his thousandth goal in 1969 playing for Santos in Rio de Janeiro's famous Maracana Stadium, a goal he dedicated to the "children of Brazil." Pel would ultimately score a total of 1279 goals in 1362 games, only 50 fewer than fellow Brazilian Arthur Friedenreich, whose reported 1329 goals were scored in an earlier time when games
generally had higher scores.
Pel's importance in Brazil is of such magnitude that some have claimed that he would be elected president if he ever chose to be a candidate, and this in a country which, although black and mestizo in its majority, has had only light-skinned presidents. In 1993, in a move widely praised, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso appointed Pel to the position of Minister of Sports. Yet Pel's fame reaches far beyond the confines of Brazil and sports. He was the first black man to be on the cover of Life Magazine, for instance, and even more than two decades after the end of his professional soccer career, he is certainly among the people of African descent most recognized in the world.
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