This time he failed to dribble and resist to get out of the obstacle of that damn colon cancer. As he used to do on the green rectangles when he was a player. Or like when he had to have one of his two kidneys removed because of a rib broken by an opponent. Or when he had been placed on a dyalise in 2014 due to a urinary tract infection.
The first real star of the game passed away at the Albert Einstein Hospital in Sao Paulo on Thursday, December 29, 2022. At 82 years old, he no longer had the strength to fight and finally succumbed to the cancer that had been eating away at him for a year.
“The Albert Einstein Hospital confirms the death of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, Pele, this December 29, 2022, at 3:27 pm, due to multiple organ failure due to the progression of his colon cancer,” informs the hospital where Pele was treated and interned for a month.
The first reaction came from one of the legend’s daughters Kely Nascimiento.
“We love you to infinity, rest in peace,” she wrote on her Instagram page.
The death of King Pele has the soccer world in turmoil. Tributes have multiplied on social networks. Some more touching than others.
The International Federation of Football (Fifa), for which Pele had worked after his retirement as a member of the fair play committee, posted “the immortal forever with us”. “Football and the world mourn King Pele,” Fifa wrote on its website in tribute to the man it had named “Footballer of the 20th Century.”
Co-top scorer of the Brazilian soccer team with King Pele, Neymar emphasized how his idol revolutionized soccer. “Before Pele, soccer was just a sport. Pele changed everything, he made soccer an art, he gave a voice to the poor, to black people, and above all: he gave visibility to Brazil,” mentioned the Paris-Saint-Grrmain star on his social networks.
Kylian Mbappé relates that the legacy of Pele is eternal. “The king of soccer has left us, but his legacy will never be forgotten”, said the French prodigy, who was the top scorer at the last World Cup with 8 goals. Mbappé and Pele had a great friendship. They are ambassadors of the Swiss watchmaker Tag Heuer.
For Cristiano Ronaldo, Pele was “a source of inspiration for so many millions” of people, “a reference yesterday, today and tomorrow”.
The legends of the Brazilian national team also pay tribute to King Pele. This is the case of Ronaldo Nazario and Cafu.
“Alone. Great. Technician. Creative. Perfect. Unsurpassed. Where Pele arrived, he stayed. Having never left the top, he leaves us today. The king of soccer – one. The greatest of all time. The world of grief. The sadness of the separation mixed with the immense pride of the written history,” said on Twitter the top scorer of the 2002 World Cup and two-time world champion R9.
“Pele will never die… Pele is eternal, he is King, he is unique… he will live on in every magnificent goal, in every master stroke, in each of us who was inspired by him and his entire generation. Stay calm brother, here we will continue without your genius, but with your legacy.???????? ” tweeted Cafu, considered the best right back in the history of soccer.
France coach Didier Deschamps, a world champion as a player and coach, praised Pele and saluted his memory. “With the death of Pele, soccer loses one of its most beautiful legends, if not the most beautiful. Like all legends, the King seemed immortal. He made dream and continued to make generations and generations of fans of our sport. Who did not dream, as a child, to be Pele? With his number 10, he put his technical virtuosity, his audacity, his creativity at the service of his teams and in particular that of Brazil with whom he won three World Cups (1958, 1962, 1970). Pele was the alliance of beauty and efficiency. His talent and his achievements will remain forever engraved in our memories. To his family, to his loved ones and to the Brazilian people, I send my sincere condolences and sympathy. The king will remain the king, forever.” Didier Deschamps’ message.
French soccer legend Michel Platini is saddened by the departure of Pele, who had been his idol. “I am very, very moved. It is my life. It is my history. It is Pele. It’s my dreams. I saw his goals, his achievements, and I never forgot his 1970 World Cup. I often watched the films showing him, and I loved at least as much the images of his goals in Brazil, with Santos, when he escaped chainsaw massacres to cross the whole field and go to score. It made me dream,” said the three-time gold medalist Platoche.
Real Madrid and FC Barcelona have also welcomed the departure of Pele, whom they present as one of the best footballers in history.
King Pele’s heartland club, Santos FC, believes its former jewel is “Eternal” while New York Cosmos, his last club, insisted on Pele’s immense legacy to world soccer, calling his achievement “priceless”.
Brazil’s new president, Luiz Iniacio Lula Da Silva, who will take office on Sunday, said he was happy to have had the chance to see the aesthete Pele play,” while praising his actions to promote Brazil internationally. “Few Brazilians have carried the name of our country as far as he has,” tweeted Brazil’s president-elect Lula.
The outgoing Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has welcomed the departure of “one of the greatest athletes of all time”.
Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States, paid tribute to Pele, “one of the best athletes of all time”, saluting in passing the dimension of the man.
The wake of the soccer legend, Pele, will take place on Monday at the Santos FC stadium. The ceremony will last about 24 hours. The burial will take place the following day, Tuesday.
“The coffin will be placed in the center of the field,” said the former club of Pele.
The wake, which will be open to the public, will begin on Monday at 10:00 am (local time, 8:00 am in Haiti).
A procession will follow the coffin on Tuesday, going through the streets of Santos, passing in particular the house of Pele’s mother, still alive and aged 100 years. The burial at the Memorial Necrópole Ecumênica cemetery, will be “reserved for family members” underlines the daily L’Équipe.
At the same time, the city of Santos officially declared seven (7) days of mourning in honor of its emblematic figure.
A minute’s silence was observed on Thursday before the start of the Ligue 1 matches in tribute to Pele. This will be the case this weekend on all the grounds around the world.
The only player to have won 3 World Cups, Edson Arantes Do Nascimiento, also known as Pele, died this Thursday, December 29, 2022 at the Albert Einstein Hospital in Sao Paulo, where he had been admitted at the end of November. The treatment that had been administered to him following the removal of a tumor did not work. Author of 1281 goals in 1363 games, Pele is considered the greatest footballer of all time.
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