Metropolis Desk-
The black pearl is no more. His death was announced in a statement shared by his official social media accounts. Additional details were not immediately available, but Pelé had been hospitalized in São Paulo, Brazil, for the past month, undergoing treatments for colon cancer.
Pelé’s eminence in soccer spanned three decades in which he helped Brazil win World Cup titles in 1958, 1962 and 1970. Quick, agile, adept with both feet and laser-like with his headers, Pelé was built for scoring and blessed with a jazz master’s improvisational skills on the soccer pitch.
During his 22-year professional career, Pelé appeared in more than 1,300 matches and scored almost as many goals, yet he was hardly a one-man show. He saw the field the way a chess champion sees the board — two, three, four moves ahead — with the tactical savvy to pass to teammates better positioned to strike.
He was barely 20 when the president of Brazil proclaimed him an official national treasure. It was an honorific and an economic restraint; it barred him from being transferred to a wealthy European club willing to pay hugely for his services. Pelé was an asset too essential to the national interest to export.
Nonetheless, born and reared in poverty, the soccer champion formally known as Edson Arantes do Nascimento was among the world’s first athletes to recognize the power and riches of the personal brand.
