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After being initially rejected by many of the Brazilian sports clubs that existed during the 1940s, some time later, Edson Arantes do Nascimento, better known in the soccer world as ‘Pelé’, became one of the most important players in the history of Brazil.

His soccer journey

At the age of eleven, he worked as a shoe embolador in Três Corações, a municipality located in Brazil. However, his life changed at the age of fifteen, when the Santos de São Paulo soccer team saw him play in several local games and decided to hire him to be their new player.

His great ability to score goals and being practical on the soccer field helped him grow very quickly in his professional career. So much so that, at the beginning of his football life, he won ten Paulista Championships with his club (being the top scorer in eleven games), with five Rio-São Paulo Tournaments, he won the Copa Libertadores twice, between 1962 and 1963. In addition having participated in the first World Club Championship.

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At seventeen years old, the soccer player started in the Brazilian National Team and made his debut for the Santos team in 1956. He participated in three World Cups: the 1958 one -which was played in Sweden-, the 1962 one in Chile and the 1970 one in Mexico. In addition to having scored more than 1000 goals.

In fact, the young man was showing his talent so much that his intuition when it came to playing, his techniques with the ball and the way he scored goals meant that in the World Cup finals in Sweden, in a match against France, the player will leave 3 scores in favor of Brazil, making the Latin American team beat the European with a score of 5-2.

Due to the great potential that he showed from a very young age, he was dubbed ‘The King’ by the French press. Also, the brazilian managed to lead his country’s World Cup victories in Chile and Mexicoreason for which he was considered at that time as ‘the best player of all time’.

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On the other hand, the footballer was a participant in the awarding that Brazil had of the ‘Jules Rimet’ cup, the first trophy of the FIFA World Cup.

It should be noted that since 1904, the year in which it was created, until now, the ‘Jules Rimet’ award has only been won by five selections: England in 1966, West Germany in 1954, Uruguay in 1930 and 1950 and Italy in 1934 and 1938; while Brazil won the same cup three times (1958, 1962 and 1970), as reported by the ‘Conmebol’ portal.

He almost lost his arrival to the New York Cosmos team

Because in the 1960s Pelé was showing the world that he was going to be a soccer star, He was considered a Brazilian icon, when the president at the time, Jano Cuadros, decreed a law in which the player was named a ‘National Treasure’. For this reason, it was considered that the footballer was subject to being ‘forever’ in his team of origin.

However, this was not an impediment to accept -in 1975- the figure of more than four billion dollars with which He started in the New York Cosmos team, the last one he played with.

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Pele’s goodbye

After being offered more than four million dollars, Pelé had to say goodbye to his club to join the New York Cosmos team, a group with which he managed to win several championships and celebrate it at the ‘Guiant Stadium’ in the American city.

NeverthelessAfter having been one of the best players in the world, Pelé said goodbye to the sport that saw him grow. He happened on October 1, 1977 in front of more than 75,000 people at Giants Stadium in New York.

During this last game, the teams that Pelé had been in (Cosmos and Santos) played, which is why the footballer played for a while with each one and scored the goal that closed his historic career.

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The Romance of Pelé

Fame and recognition were not only the benefits that this soccer player had after showing his talent to the world, since he also received the admiration of many women.

However, of all his lovers, Xuxa, a 17-year-old singer and model, was the one who stole the Brazilian’s heart. In fact, they were together from 1981 to 1986.

It all started when they participated in a photo shoot for the Brazilian media ‘Rede Manchete’.

Xuxa narrated her meeting with the footballer some time later, in her autobiographical book ‘Memories’: “It was during a rehearsal for the cover of a magazine. There were four models: Luiza, Marcia Brito, me and a black woman was supposed to, but he didn’t want to. At that time they named Miss Brazil, who came from Brasilia. In the photo, I came out facing him.”

He said then that the thing did not end there and that, after the rehearsal, he came over to talk to him. “He invited me to dinner, I told him I couldn’t because she lived far away and was a minor. So he called my house and my father hung up, thinking it was a joke, but then he ended up agreeing,” she added.After some encounters and romantic situations, they decided to start a love relationship.

Despite the fact that the Brazilian press commented a lot on the age difference between the couple – she was 17 and he was 40 – this did not stop them from fighting for their love. In fact, they became so in love that they got engaged and -although they did not marry- for many, she was with Pelé out of interest, because the player had great purchasing power and a lot of fame; to other people, he “was taking advantage of his girlfriend’s naivety.” However, they were in a relationship for five years.

Something that was attractive to her, At first, it turned into a nightmare as time went by, since the difference in age and lifestyles did not allow them to live well together. On the one hand, the man was forty years old, divorced, children and finished his degree, while she was a young woman who was just beginning to enjoy her life. Although Xuxa considered him her first love, that was one of the small details that prevented him from continuing her relationship.

Another aspect that Xuxa did not like very much was the shape of the player’s feet and “the sweat that he expelled from his body when they had sexual relations”, as she herself explained in her book.

The woman claimed thatrepeatedly- the footballer was unfaithful: “He has cheated on me too much, to the point that those women with whom he betrayed me were in the same place that I was and everyone knew it except me.”

Years later, in an interview for the Colombian weekly ‘Nuevo Estadio’, Pelé assured that the relationship with Xuxa was the first serious one he had after his separation from Rose. “When I met her, she was 15 years old, she was a virgin and she had a boyfriend with whom she had a fight. Her father gave me permission and we went out together. I didn’t like virgins so I told her to solve the problem with her little boyfriend. After that, we go out often. At that time, she was starting her activities on TV and she wanted to have children, but I had three and had just separated from my wife, so we did not agree. Thus, the relationship cooled down, although we remained very good friends, ”she said.

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How did they part?

In the same interview with ‘Nuevo Estadio’, the player confessed that it was the woman who decided to end the relationship when, after a trip to Argentina, he arrived in Brazil. In the airport, a police officer was waiting for him with the divorce papers and, although he signed them, he feared the reaction of the only son.

“She made the decision when I was in Argentina watching the 1978 World Cup. When I returned home, a group of people was waiting for me at the New York airport and asked for my autographs. Among these people was a judicial officer who served me with the separation petition. I didn’t realize it and I signed it. When I returned it to her, she told me that this piece of paper, the notice, should be kept. I did not want to separate, not only for her but also for our son and for all that he would suffer from her, but I had no other option, “said the Brazilian in an interview with the Colombian weekly ‘Nuevo Estadio’.

Pele’s other relationships

In 2010, long after breaking up with Xuxa, the man, then 53, married Assiria Seixas., a 36-year-old woman with whom he had a 14-year marriage and two children – the twins Josua and Celeste. He separated from her in 2014.

However, not content with his bachelorhood, At the age of 75, he married again, this time to Marcia Cibele Aoaki, a Brazilian businesswoman of Japanese origin who was 41with whom he claimed to have been unfaithful to his previous wife in 2010, when they met at a party.

Currently Cibele Aoaki and Pelé are still together and he is in a terrible state of health, since since 2021 he was diagnosed with colon cancer. Although he is still undergoing treatment at the Israelite Albert Einstein Hospital in Brazil, this year they found a problem with his liver and lungs.

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LAURA ALMECIGA AVELLANEDA
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