The legendary life of Pele in photos

A three-time World Cup winner who scored 1,281 goals in 1,363 games, Pele is known as the “king of soccer,” the world’s most beautiful game.

“The difficult, the extraordinary, is not scoring a thousand goals like Pelé. It is creating a goal like Pelé,” wrote Brazilian poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade.

It aptly encapsulates, if it is possible to summarize, the grandeur of the greatest soccer player of all time. It’s more than a tribute; it’s a bow to the greatest soccer player, and sports figure, of all time.

– Pele, king of ‘beautiful game,’ dies at age 82

“Pelé was one of the few who contradicted my theory: Instead of 15 minutes of fame, he will have 15 centuries,” Andy Warhol said. He was deeply and eternally right.