Word: peled
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Heroes walk alone, but they become myths when they ennoble the lives and touch the hearts of all of us. For those who love soccer, Edson Arantes do Nascimento, generally known as Pele, is a hero...
Performance at a high level in any sport is to exceed the ordinary human scale. But Pele's performance transcended that of the ordinary star by as much as the star exceeds ordinary performance. He scored an average of a goal in every international game he played--the equivalent of a baseball player's hitting a home run in every World Series game over 15 years. Between 1956 and 1974, Pele scored a total of 1,220 goals--not unlike hitting an average of 70 home runs every year for a decade and a half...
...born across the mountains from the great coastal cities of Brazil, in the impoverished town of Tres Coracoes. Nicknamed Dico by his family, he was called Pele by soccer friends, a word whose origins escape him. Dico shined shoes until he was discovered at the age of 11 by one of the country's premier players, Waldemar de Brito. Four years later, De Brito brought Pele to Sao Paulo and declared to the disbelieving directors of the professional team in Santos, "This boy will be the greatest soccer player in the world." He was quickly legend. By the next season...
...understand Pele's role in soccer, some discussion of the nature of the game is necessary. No team sport evokes the same sort of primal, universal passion as soccer. During the World Cup, the matches of the national football teams impose television schedules on the rhythm of life. Last year I attended a dinner for leading members of the British establishment and distinguished guests from all over the world at the staid Spencer House in London. The hosts had the bad luck to have chosen the night of the match between England and Argentina--always a blood feud, compounded...
...Pele is therefore a different phenomenon from the baseball or football star. Soccer stars are dependent on their teams even while transcending them. To achieve mythic status as a soccer player is especially difficult because the peak performance is generally quite short--only the fewest players perform at the top of their game for more than five years. Incredibly, Pele performed at the highest level for 18 years, scoring 52 goals in 1973, his 17th year. Contemporary soccer superstars never reach even 50 goals a season. For Pele, who had thrice scored more than 100 goals a year, it signaled...