Where is pele from

He was the first Black man to be on the cover of Life Magazine, for instance, and even more than two decades after the end of his professional soccer career, he is, certainly among the people of African descent, one of the most recognized in the world.

To become a Professional Athlete. Today's Articles People, Locations, Episodes. A name short in length, but long in significance. There are many stories that explain where the name came from, but none can explain the phenomenon. It all started in the backwoods of Brazil, where a young boy nicknamed Dico was playing his favorite game better than any of the other neighborhood kids.

One day, the other boys started calling him Pele. He didn't know where the name came from, since it had no meaning in Portuguese, but he didn't like it. Dico fought the other kids thinking the name Pele was an insult.

No matter. The name stuck. Pele, the athlete, came out of nowhere as well. In , people turned on the television to watch the first international broadcast of the World Cup. Black and white screens flickered as a skinny year-old, playing with imagination and verve, ran circles around seasoned veterans.

By the end of that World Cup, the name Pele had shot across the globe. In the s and s, Pele traveled the world with his club team Santos and his national team Brazil, entertaining crowds with his magical brand of soccer.

He scored 1, goals in his year career. But you didn't have to see him to believe in him. Eight years in later, however, his so-called joke became a reality when he won the first of his record-breaking three World Cup titles. It was a rubbish name. Edson sounded so much more serious and important. When he was 6, the family moved to a larger town in southern Brazil, where he shined shoes and sold roasted peanuts outside movie theaters to earn money for a soccer ball.

Unable to afford shoes himself, he also frequently played barefoot, and his friends eventually formed a team called the Shoeless Ones. But at that time, we didn't have too many Brazilian players outside the country.

I was very happy at my team, Santos. His greatness also served as a cultural exchange. In his autobiography, he said no one really remembers how he got it. The name drew meaning from his prodigious talents. As a year-old, he led the Brazilian league in scoring. At 17, he made the first of his four World Cup appearances in Sweden in