The footballer died at the Albert Einstein hospital in São Paulo, where he had been hospitalized for a month.
A symbol of the Brazilian jogo bonito, the only player to win three World Cups with his country's national team and considered by many to be the best player in history, Pelé's death after a battle with colon cancer was announced on Thursday.
It is one of the greatest losses ever suffered by the most popular sport on the planet.
Since he dazzled everyone at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden at the age of 17, Pelé became an icon of the magic and global reach of soccer, and remained so until his last days, although his life was not without controversy either.
Pelé went from playing as a child with balls made of socks in the town of Baurú to making his debut for Santos at the age of 15. He scored a goal in that first game and later also achieved glory with the club he represented until 1974: two Libertadores Cups, two Intercontinental Cups, five Brazilian Cups, a dozen São Paulo championships...
During his career, Pelé scored 1,283 goals, 767 of them in official matches. He averaged 0.9 goals per game and is to this day the only player to have won three World Cups: Sweden 1958, Chile 1962 and Mexico 1970.
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