He lead the Sao Paolo League in scoring for ten straight seasons. He was not only a high scorer, but a master of ball handling as well. 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. Displaying remarkable speed, athleticism and field vision, the year-old erupted to score three goals in a semifinal win over France, then netted two more in the finals, a win over the host country.
Regardless, Santos club ownership ensured its star attraction was well paid by scheduling lucrative exhibition matches with teams around the world. Four years later, in England, a series of brutal attacks by opposing defenders again forced him to the sidelines with leg injuries, and Brazil was bounced from the World Cup after one round. He played his final game in an exhibition between New York and Santos in October , competing for both sides, and retired with a total of 1, goals in 1, games.
He has also served as Brazil's Extraordinary Minister for Sport and a United Nations ambassador for ecology and the environment. It is like in the theatre, in a play, where there is a great star. If the star is not well, the whole cast suffers.
Pele has helped raise millions of pounds for charitable causes including Great Ormond Street and Harlem Street Soccer. Pele once said: "A penalty is a cowardly way to score. In March , Brazilian model Gisele Bundchen was offered special intensive training in flag-waving in advance of the 32nd Brazilian Grand Prix.
Organisers wanted her to do a better job than Pele, the previous year's flag waver, who got "distracted" and failed to notice Michael Schumacher crossing the finish line! Pele and Maradona are hardly friends. He had the God-given gift of being able to play football, and that is why he is lucky. He belongs in a museum. His family gave him the nick-name "Dico". He did not get the nickname Pele until he started school, where he used to pronounce the name of the local Vasco da Gama goalkeeper Bile as Pile.
Despite it being present in the game for well over 30 years, Pele restarted the trend in a match between Brazil and Belgium in The player received a cross from the left wing but instead of facing the goal, he had his back towards it.
As everyone wondered what the footballing genius was up to, he tilted his body backward and sprung in the air to unleash a shot with his highly renowned right foot. Like the keeper, the rest of the world were stunned with what they had just seen, as it redefined norms of conventional football. Pele went on to perform the feat quite a few times over his career with Santos and Brazil , although the lack of video footage means that we might not be able to see some of them ever again.
Such was the rarity of the move at that time. I scored 1, goals, and only two or three were bicycle kicks. The move was so mesmerizing that director John Huston cast Pele in a movie called Escape to Victory so he could perform the kick on camera. The movie also contains English legend Bobby Moore and several players from Ipswich town.
While Pele was the trendsetter, several players have gone on to perform the kick after his retirement.
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