Edson Arantes do Nascimento was born in Três Corações, Brazil, in 1940. You probably know him better as Pelé.
In 1958, at the age of 17, he became the youngest footballer to represent his country at the Fifa World Cup finals, a record that stood until 1982.
In 1999, he was voted footballer of the century by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics. The same year, he was voted Athlete of the Century by the International Olympic Commission
He won three World Cups with Brazil, during a glittering career, and remains his country’s highest goalscorer with 77 goals in 91 appearances.
We caught up with the sporting superstar for a chat about his life and illustrious career, and Pelé: Birth of a Legend, a dramatised biopic about his early life, which is in cinemas now.
It’s almost surreal to find myself talking to you – what is it like to be Pelé? Do you ever wake up in the morning and pinch yourself and say “Woah – I’m Pelé”?
First of all, it’s a big pleasure for me to be here and to talk with people – I want to be best for all these people that love me. Even myself I don’t know why (they do), I’m just grateful for that.
The film Pelé: Birth of a Legend takes place at an incredible point in history, during the years leading up to Brazil's 1958 World Cup win. It was a time when Brazil was becoming a footballing power, but also one in which it emerged as a country in its own right after colonialism and the Second World War – and Pelé became a symbol of that. Did you have any notion at the time of the historical importance of the era?
I was very young. At that time I just wanted to be one of the players that was selected for the World Cup. Just to be one of the players that was selected from Brazil to go to Sweden (for the 1958 World Cup finals) was a big responsibility because nobody knew at that time what Brazilian football was. It wasn’t on TV like today – and I thank God for that. I was 17 years old and we won the World Cup and I became a champion. It was a dream.
You have a cameo role in Pelé: Birth of a Legend – but this is not the first film you have appeared in, or been the subject of. How does this one measure up?
This is the first time we made a film where they cover my family. I’ve been in other films with some great names – with (Sylvester) Stallone, with Max von Sydow, with Michael Caine – but this is the first one that tells my history, my beginnings, my family, how I had to clean shoes to help my father.
After so many years, the football, the World Cup, people just know about Pelé the champion – now they’re going to know the rest.
You mentioned Stallone, Caine and von Sydow, which brings us neatly to what is possibly the greatest football film ever made – Escape to Victory, in which you and a host of other international footballers starred with them in a prisoner-of-war drama. How was it to appear as a footballer alongside not only such a stellar cast of actors, but some incredible fellow footballers, too? Who was more overawed?
I'm very proud to have been part of this great film. We had others who knew about football and made films, but nothing like Victory. It was a complete film about football, and I learnt so much from those great artists.
There is a sense that comes across at one point in Birth of a Legend that you were not very keen on the nickname Pelé at first.
It was difficult to understand why, when people first called me it. I hated it in the beginning. Pelé came as a mistake and the kids started to tease me.
I was very proud when I was young because my mother and father gave me the name Edson, after Thomas Edison, who invented the light bulb. I was born at the same time as the light came to Minas Gerais, where I was born, so they named me Edson and I was very proud.
But then some kids when we started to play football in the street, they called me Pelé. I honestly don’t know why or what it meant. I don’t know if it was a mistake or what happened.
I tried to tell everybody: “My name is Edson, I don’t like Pelé.” That’s probably why I got stuck with it.
cnewbould@thenational.ae
