He was named after American inventor Thomas Edison , and was originally nicknamed Dico by his family. He originally disliked the nickname, being suspended from school for punching the classmate that coined it, but the more he complained the more it stuck.
Taught to play by his father, whose own professional football career with Atletico Mineiro ended prematurely due to a knee injury, he could not afford a proper football and usually played with either a sock stuffed with newspaper, tied with a string or a grapefruit. His first team was called the "Shoeless Ones" formed by himself and other boys from the Sete de Setembro and Rubens Arruda street but, when they entered a local tournament organised by the mayor of Bauru that required footwear, they were no longer shoeless and were renamed Ameriquinha.
They reached the final in BAC Stadium in front of thousands of spectators and won with Pele ending up as the tournament top scorer. In , several members of the Ameriquinha team, including Pele, were invited to join the Baquinho boy's team to be managed by former Brazilian international Waldemar de Brito, who played in the World Cup in Italy.
For the first time, Pele was paid to play football. In that match, he scored his first goal for Brazil, three months before his 17th birthday. He was the youngest player of that tournament, and at the time the youngest ever to play in the World Cup.
He scored his first World Cup goal against Wales in quarterfinals, the only goal of the match, to help Brazil advance to semifinals, while becoming the youngest ever World Cup goalscorer at 17 years and days.
He scored two goals in the final as Brazil beat Sweden It seemed the ball was somehow attached to his feet as he moved down the field. When he announced that he would retire from international competition after a game to be played July 18, , plans were made to televise the event throughout the world.
By the time he left the game he had scored a total of 1, goals. A year later New York was at the top of their division, and in the Cosmos won the league championship. Later that spring, he married his second wife, Assiria Seixas Lemos. In May of , he was elected Minister of Sports in his home country of Brazil.
Bodo, Peter, and David Hirshey. New York: Norton, His father's coaching paid off, for when he was 11 he played for his first soccer team, that of the town of Bauru, Brazil. He moved up in competition with outstanding play, and when he was 15 he was playing for the team from the village of Santos. He soon received broader exposure when he was loaned to the Vasco da Gama team in Rio di Janeiro.
In he went to Stockholm, Sweden to compete in the World Cup championship. His play there helped his country win its first title. To many, his accomplishments on the soccer field will never be equaled, and virtually all great athletes in the sport are measured against the Brazilian who once made the world stop to watch his transcendent play.
We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives. Soccer player Ronaldo starred for the Brazilian national team and several European clubs over the course of a career that spanned nearly two decades.
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