Soccer Great Pelé Put the ‘Beautiful’ in ‘Beautiful Game’
Pelé, the Brazilian footballer whose talent and achievements were so legendary that they earned him the nickname “The King,” died on Thursday at the age of 82, his agent Joe Fraga confirmed. While a cause of death was not announced, the football legend had been hospitalized earlier this month for various ailments, including a respiratory infection, after battling colon cancer since 2021.
For the world of sports, and for pop culture, it’s an almost incalculable loss, since Pelé was a true icon, famed for his athletic prowess and beloved for his magnetic personality, both of which made him football’s first modern superstar.
Over the course of a three-decade career, Pelé won a record three World Cups for his native Brazil, along the way scoring 1,279 goals in 1,363 games—the latter a Guinness World Record.