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Edson Arantes do Nascimento aka Pele, the legendary Brazilian football player who rose from barefoot poverty to become one of the greatest players of all time, died on Thursday at the age of 82.
Sao Paulo’s Albert Einstein hospital, where Pele was undergoing treatment, said he died at 3:27 p.m. “due to multiple organ failures resulting from the progression of colon cancer associated with his previous medical condition.”
Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known as Pele, was born on October 23, 1940, and was a Brazilian footballer who played as a striker. He was the only player to win three World Cups, in 1958, 1962 and 1970.
At the time, he was the youngest player to win a World Cup, at the age of 17.
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Here we explain why Edson Arantes do Nascimento was called Pele.
For that you have to go back to his childhood. According to his uncle Jorge, when Edson Arantes was a little boy, they put him in as a goalkeeper in order to give his opponents an advantage.
Pele was quite good as a striker that his opponents didn’t stand a chance.
When he made saves, some compared him to Bile, a goalkeeper his father had played with. They began to call him Bile until his nickname evolved into Pele for good.
Pele himself admitted that he had never liked this pseudonym, since his real name ‘Edson’ came from the inventor Thomas Edison and he was proud of it. He even came to blows with the schoolmate who invented it, which resulted in a two-day suspension from school.
He also said that since it means nothing in his language, he thought it was an insult but that changed once he discovered that, in Hebrew, it means “miracle”.
“Over the years I have learned to live with two people in my heart. One is Edson, who has fun with his friends and family; the other is the football player Pele,” he once said in an interview.
His name took second place, as he was called Pele from an early age. After his three World Cups he also earned the nickname ‘King’. The 1958 World Cup that brought Pele’s Brazil to prominence was the first time the nickname ‘O Rei’ arrived.
Paris Match, a French magazine, was the catalyst for this (‘Le Roy’ in French) after this title.
