PELE: The Long Journey

BY JAVIER I. SEGURA

Many people know popular sports players like Lebron James or Houston’s own, Jose Altuve. But the world should know about the most famous soccer player, Pele, whose real name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento.

Pele died at the end of last year, December 2022. He was 82 years old and lost a battle with cancer. But his legacy lives on - even here at Roberts Elementary.

Pele had a hard childhood. He was very poor. In fact, he could not even afford a real soccer ball. So, he made one out of clothes by tying them together. He did not own shoes until he was seven years old.

Even though he started with little, Pele became the best player to have ever played the game. His father taught him how to play, but his mother was against it. His father was a professional soccer player until he injured his knee and had to give up his dream. Pele’s mother was worried that the same would happen to her son, and she wanted him to focus on school. But Pele’s talents were too hard to stop. At the age of 13, he started playing professionally.

He made his first World Cup appearance at the age of 17. In the 1958 Cup, Pele had to miss the first two games because of a knee injury, but he recovered to score his first goal against Wales. He led the team to Brazil’s first-ever World Cup and became a huge national hero.

After a long career, he took his skills on the road and joined the New York Cosmos from 1975-1977. He was a part of the first professional soccer league in the United States and became the highest-paid player in the league. Pele’s move to the United States helped to spark the popularity of soccer in the United States. My grandfather remembers when Pele traveled to Houston to promote the Cosmos, who were playing against the Houston Hurricanes – our professional soccer team at the time. My abuelo (grandfather) saw Pele at a local high school. As he remembers, “Pele was just a few feet away from me. I can’t believe I got a chance to see the best player of all time.”

So how does this relate to Roberts? Well, one of the main reasons that soccer is so popular in the United States is because of Pele’s profound influence. People wanted to play soccer just like him. Without Pele, soccer might not have grown in the U.S.A. Today, we see dozens of our friends playing soccer each day on the field during recess. When we play his beloved sport, let’s remember Pele for inspiring us with his gift.