curiosities of the career of ‘O Rei’; goals, fights and movies

Year after year, The world of professional soccer sees the birth of new football stars, because as is well known, there are several young people around the world who dream of achieving world success thanks to their skills with the ball.

(You may be interested: Pelé died: how much was his fortune and millionaire investments that made him rich)

Many of them dream of following in the footsteps of great and renowned footballers such as Maradona, Pelé, Messi, Ronaldo, Cruyff, Cristiano, Mbappe and David Beckham, just to name a few.

A few moments ago, the world of soccer was shocked by the death of Pelé, who made his debut in the big leagues and the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, at just 17 years old. Pelé became a legend after winning three World Cups, Sweden 1958, Chile 1962 and Mexico 1970.

Over a thousand goals in his professional career

Unquestionably, Pelé was and will be one of the most extraordinary soccer players. In his professional career, he scored close to a thousand goals with his right foot and close to 400 with his left.

(Also read: The times that Pelé set foot in Colombia; he played against Nacional, Medellín, among others)

He was a goalkeeper four times

Pelé, ‘the king’ of football, in addition to having excellent control of the ball with his feet, also seemed to have it with his hands, as he was a goalkeeper on four occasions: in 1959, 1963, 1969 and 1973. Of these, the most remembered It was in 1963, when Santos was playing in the Brazilian Cup semifinal against Gremio de Porto Alegre. The game was 4-3, thanks to a Pelé hat-trick, of course.

He was the only player to have a referee ejected

It happened in Columbia. After a strong altercation on the field of play between Santos FC players and the Colombian National Team. According to several media outlets, the Santos players attacked Guillermo Velásquez, the match judge, took him off the pitch and replaced him with the linesman. Pelé, at the request of the public, returned to the field, since he had been expelled for bad conduct. The match ended 4-2 in favor of the ‘king’ team.

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He broke the nose of a rival with a headbutt

One of the events that Pelé regretted the most occurred during the match between Brazil and Argentina in the 1964 Nations Cup.

After feeling exhausted and annoyed at not being able to demonstrate his talent, Pelé despaired, and in a hasty and innocent act, he fractured his rival’s septum with a headbutt. The referee, who was doing something else, didn’t see the play, so he couldn’t send off the Brazilian star.

He was an actor in 10 movies

In a little-known facet, ‘the king’ Pelé was an actor and singer.

On the Internet Movie Data Base, IMDB, which records all the movements of the film world, Edson Arantes do Nascimiento appears as an actor in 11 productions: 10 film and one television.