Former Brazilian soccer player Pelé passed away this Thursday at the age of 82. overtook Globo and confirmed agent Joe Fraga told the Associated Press. The player’s daughter, Kely Nascimento, also announced the death of her father on social media.
“Everything we are is thanks to you. We love you infinitely. Rest in peace,” she wrote on Instagram.
The three-time soccer world champion was battling colon cancer, which he was diagnosed with in September 2021. After surgery, Pelé underwent chemotherapy sessions, forcing him to regularly return to hospital.
At the end of November, Pelé was admitted to the Israelite Albert Einstein Hospital in São Paulo for a reassessment of colon cancer treatment, but ended up suffering from a respiratory infection, “treated with antibiotics,” explained the medical team at the time.
Born on October 23, 1940 in Minas Gerais and son of former player João Ramos do Nascimento, Pelé became the greatest symbol of Brazilian soccer and one of the greatest athletes of all time.
Before the glory days, he felt poverty on his skin. He was the eldest of seven children and worked in tea shops to help his family earn extra money. In his spare time his father taught him to play soccer. Since there was no money for balls, he played with a sock stuffed with newspapers and tied with string or grapefruit.
After playing for Sete de Setembro, a team that played on clay, he moved on to Ameriquinha, where he had the opportunity to put on football boots for the first time and debuted as the winner of the tournament.
In 1956, Waldemar de Brito, Pelé’s coach at Bauru Atlético Clube, took the then young promise to Santos, so that he would have the opportunity to experience a professional club. At the club, Brito even introduced the Brazilian as the next “best footballer in the world.” And he was not wrong.
Pelé immediately impressed Luís Alonso Pérez, Santos’ coach at the time, and signed a professional contract with the club in June 1956. In that first contract, the player received six thousand cruzeiros that he always sent to his mother.
Two years later, he won his first title with Santos, the Campeonato Paulista, and stood out as the best scorer in the competition, with 58 goals. A record that still stands today.
Source: TSF
