We Will Never Forget You, Pelé!

Remembering a Great Brazilian 

By Lawrence W. Reed

Nearly three years ago on December 29, 2022, the game of soccer lost perhaps its greatest player ever when Edson Arantes do Nascimento died in Sao Paolo, Brazil. He was 82. Known to the world by his nickname Pelé, he set numerous records as the highest-paid soccer player of his time. In his 1,363 games, he scored an astounding 1,279 goals—a fact which remains a Guinness World Record.

Americans don’t typically know it, but Pelé was named at birth for the inventor Thomas Edison. His parents at some point decided to remove the “i” and call him Edson. He later earned the nickname Pelé as a youngster in school.

Being from Brazil, Pelé rarely used the word “soccer.” To him, it was football, and he was a footballer. Whatever you choose to call it, there’s no denying that he could play almost any role or position within it better than anybody else. He averaged nearly one goal per game over his 21-year professional career. You can watch his most amazing ones here and here. In 1973, he appeared on NBC’s The Tonight Show to teach Johnny Carson a little soccer.

“Pelé was the only footballer who surpassed the boundaries of logic,” said the Dutch player Johan Cruyff. Carlos Alberto Torres, Brazil's 1970 World Cup-winning captain observed, “His great secret was improvisation…He had an extraordinary perception of the game.”

Another contemporary said of him, “Pelé was the greatest. He was simply flawless…he is always smiling and upbeat. You never see him bad-tempered. He loves being Pelé.” One of his Brazilian teammates noted the passionate, worldwide adulation for him: “In some countries they wanted to touch him, in some they wanted to kiss him. In others they even kissed the ground he walked on. I thought it was beautiful, just beautiful.”

Though Pelé himself said he was “born for soccer, just as Beethoven was born for music,” that did not keep him from recognizing higher values. He also said, “Most important is to be a good man.” I have often quoted these pearls of wisdom from him:

“Every kid around the world who plays soccer wants to be Pelé. I have a great responsibility to show them not just how to be like a soccer player, but how to be like a man.”

“Success is not an accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do. The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning.”

We can also appreciate his June 2022 open letter to Russia’s Vladimir Putin in which Pelé demanded an end to the “evil” and “unjustified” invasion of Ukraine.

Brazilians will mourn this remarkable athlete for a long time to come, and so will many millions around the world. We will never forget you, Pelé!

(Lawrence W. Reed is President Emeritus, Humphreys Family Senior Fellow, and Ron Manners Global Ambassador for Liberty at the Foundation for Economic Education in Atlanta, Georgia.)