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‘The King’ Pele: A lifetime of football memories

Pele was feted as ‘The King’, a title given to him by playwright Nelson Rodrigues when he was just 17.

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Brazil's Pele, centre, is hoisted on the shoulders of his teammates after Brazil won the World Cup in 1970. [AP Photo]
Published On 29 Dec 2022

Brazilian football icon Pele, widely regarded as the greatest player of all time and a three-time World Cup winner who masterminded the “beautiful game”, has died at the age of 82, his family said on Thursday.

“Everything we are is thanks to you. We love you infinitely. Rest in peace,” daughter Kely Nascimento wrote on Instagram.

Born Edson Arantes do Nascimento, Pele spent most of his career with Brazil and in club football at Santos and the New York Cosmos.

With Santos, he won the Copa Libertadores and Intercontinental Cup twice, along with 10 Paulista state championships and six Brazilian league titles. He remains the only player to win the World Cup three times and famously scored more than 1,000 professional goals.

Marking his 80th birthday in 2020, he said with a laugh in a short video sent to the media: “Now that I am 80, I need to thank God for giving me the health to get this far, and lucidly, although not always intelligently.”

Wherever he went, Pele was feted as “The King”, a title given to him by playwright Nelson Rodrigues when he was just 17.

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Pele with his mother Celeste in March 1965. [File: AP Photo]
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Pope Paul VI poses with Pele and his wife Rosemeri during a special audience granted in the pontiff's private studio in 1966. The Brazilian couple had been honeymooning in Germany, Austria and Italy. [File: AP Photo]
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Pele kicks the ball over his head during a game in 1968 at an unknown location. [File: AP Photo]
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Britain's Queen Elizabeth II with Prince Philip present a cup to Pele, right, at a stadium in Rio de Janeiro during a state tour of South America in 1968. [File: AP Photo]
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Pele shows the form which may help him to score the magic number of 1,000 goals when he took the in November 1969 in Rio de Janeiro. [File: AP Photo]
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Pele holds up his team's Jules Rimet Trophy, or the FIFA World Cup Trophy, following Brazil's 4-1 victory over Italy at the World Cup at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, on June 21, 1970. [File: AP Photo]
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Pele in action during his farewell game in Rio de Janeiro on July 18, 1971. [File: Matias Rezende/Gervasio Baptista/AP Photo]
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Pele holds a ball he autographed for US President Richard Nixon, who holds a 1957 newspaper clipping shown them together in Sao Paolo, Brazil, and Pele's wife Rosemeri dos Reis Cholbi looks on, at the chief executive's office in Washington, DC, on May 8, 1973. [File: Henry Burroughs/AP Photo]
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Pele with his wife Rosemeri and daughter just after the birth of his son Edson, in Brazil, in 1976. [File: AP Photo]
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New York Cosmos player Pele, centre left, kisses his team's trophy, held up by captain Werner Roth, at New York's Kennedy Airport as the team returns after winning the North American Soccer League Championship against the Seattle Sounders in 1977. [File: AP Photo]
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Pele clowns during a practice session with the New York Cosmos at Robert F Kennedy Stadium in Washington, DC in 1980. [File: Jim Wilson/AP Photo]
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Pele (front row, second from right) minutes before the start of the celebrative match between Brazil and an all-star selection for his 50th birthday. [File: Luca Bruno/AP Photo]
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Argentina's Diego Maradona, left, Pele of Brazil, centre, and France's Michel Platini pose shaking hands during Platini's jubilee at Nancy stadium, eastern France. [File: Lionel Cironneau/AP Photo]
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Pele, left, holds the Olympic torch as Arthur Nuzman, president of Brazil's Olympic Committee, right, applauds at the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro, June 13, 2004. [File: Giuseppe Bizzarri/AP Photo]
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Pele shows off his six domestic championship medals at a Brazilian football confederation event. The confederation reissued new medals to Pele for winning the championship during his time with Santos in the 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965 and 1968 seasons. [File: Bruno Domingos/Reuters]
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Pele, centre, speaks to young football fans during a training session in Hong Kong, March 8, 2011. [File: Kin Cheung/AP Photo]
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Pele, centre, with other former Santos players hold up the Libertadores championship trophy during the centennial anniversary celebration of the team in Santos, Brazil, April 14, 2012. Santos, the Brazilian club which ruled football with 'The King' Pele in the 1960s, turned 100 with a rich history to show, including many major titles and remarkable victories that make the club one of the most successful in football. [File: Nelson Antoine/AP Photo]
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In this photo taken on April 5, 2013, Pele and businesswoman Marcia Cibele Aoki pose on the red carpet of The Foundation for AIDS Research event in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The 75-year-old Pele married Aoki at a ceremony on July 9, 2016, in the resort of Guaruja, near Sao Paulo. [File: Andre Penner/AP Photo]
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Pele is taken around the stadium in an open vehicle while attending the Subroto Cup match in New Delhi, India, October 16, 2015. [File: Saurabh Das/AP Photo]
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The ball with which legendary Brazilian player Pele scored his 1,000th career goal is displayed during a tour of Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. [File: Bruna Prado/AP Photo]
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General view as the Brazil fans display a get well soon banner for former player Pele inside the Lusail Stadium before the Cameroon vs Brazil match on December 2, 2022. [File: Jennifer Lorenzini/Reuters]