Greatest-ever across all sports Brazilian footballer Pele passes away

New Delhi: Pele, the legendary Brazilian soccer player called the greatest-ever sports personality across all sports, died on Thursday at the age of 82.

Pele rose from barefoot poverty to become one of the greatest and best-known athletes in modern history.

The death of the only man to win the World Cup three times as a player was confirmed by his Twitter handle.

A inspiração e o amor marcaram a jornada de Rei Pelé, que faleceu no dia de hoje.



Amor, amor e amor, para sempre.

.

Inspiration and love marked the journey of King Pelé, who peacefully passed away today.



Love, love and love, forever. pic.twitter.com/CP9syIdL3i

— Pelé (@Pele) December 29, 2022

In his pomp, Pele was Muhammad Ali from the 'Rumble in the Jungle', Jesse Owens in Hitler's Olympics. He was Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros, Tiger Woods at Augusta, Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps in Beijing, London and Rio.

All rolled into one, many times over, through a glittering career headlined by three World Cup title triumphs, and more than 1200 goals, though only 784 of them are recognised by FIFA.

He was one of the first global sporting superstars who transcended continents, admired for his wizardry with football and sometimes vilified for his political stance, or the lack of it.

Born Edson Arantes do Nascimento in 1940, Pele was the embodiment of the commercialization football underwent since the first world Cup television broadcasts in the 1950s, something -- besides his extraordinary skills -- that played a part in taking him to all corners of the world, including India's Kolkata (then Calcutta) in 1977, when Mohun Bagan pulled off a coup of sorts.

That would be his first of the three visits to the country, the latter two coming in 2015 and 2018.

Born in a country battling corruption, military coups, censorships, and repressive and regressive governments, 17-year-old Pele transformed Brazil's image with his stunning show in his very first World Cup, in 1958.

In the tournament in Sweden, he scored six goals in four games, including two in the final, to lead Brazil to a 5-2 win over the hosts and give more than a peek into what was to come over the next decade and a half.

Labelled the "greatest" by world football governing body FIFA, he was also the apolitical who seemed happy to appease anyone in power.

Ahead of the 1970 World Cup, Pele was also the man who was seen sharing the stage with President Emílio Garrastazu Médici, one of the most ruthless members of the country's authoritarian regime.

This was after the military took over Brazil following a bloodless coup in 1964. Brazil won the 1970 tournament with Pele leading one of the greatest teams of all time to their third World Cup triumphs, climaxing the black person of working-class background's spectacular rise to fame against the backdrop of Brazil's politics, which was dominated by the military regime from the 1960s to the 1980s.

He was the national treasure who once managed to bring about a 48-hour ceasefire between two warring factions during the Nigerian civil war in the 1960s, just so they could watch Pele play in an exhibition game in Lagos.