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Pele profile Brazilian star stands head and shoulders above the rest
By Simon Hooper, CNNSI.com Born: October 23, 1940 International record: 92 caps for Brazil (77 goals) Clubs: Santos, New York Cosmos (U.S.) Pele stands head and shoulders above all others as the most successful player ever. He won three World Cups with Brazil, the first in 1958 as a 17-year-old, and scored over 1,000 goals for Santos with whom he won two World Club championships. Any doubt over his greatness largely stems from the lack of television footage of Pele at his peak, although ironically his bright yellow Brazilian No. 10 shirt remains the memorable image of Mexico 1970, the first World Cup to be captured in glorious colour. Pele burst onto the international scene as a teenage striker at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, scoring a 23-minute hat-trick in Brazil's semi-final win over France, and then firing two more in their 5-2 win over the host nation in the final. Injury limited his contribution to Brazil's defence of the trophy in Chile in 1962 and he was again crudely kicked out of the 1966 finals in England. But four years later Pele flourished in a team which sauntered to the final and then demolished Italy 4-1. Pele scored the first goal, but it was his nonchalant rolled pass into the path of Carlos Alberto to set up Brazil's fourth which summed up the lazy dominance achieved by a team generally regarded to have been the greatest ever. The sportsmanship with which Pele conducted his playing career has served him well in retirement, acting as a global ambassador for the sport to which he contributed so much, and in 1994 becoming Brazil's sports minister.
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