{"id":6558,"date":"2023-02-13T00:07:04","date_gmt":"2023-02-13T00:07:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drmirkin.com\/?p=6558"},"modified":"2023-02-13T03:03:18","modified_gmt":"2023-02-13T03:03:18","slug":"pele-the-greatest-soccer-player-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/?p=6558","title":{"rendered":"Pel\u00e9, the Greatest Soccer Player Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pel\u00e9 was a Brazilian soccer player who was the best soccer player of all time because nobody could stop him from scoring. During his entire career, he averaged almost one goal in every game he played. He scored a Guinness World record 1,279 goals in 1,363 games because he could run faster than everyone else (under 11 seconds in the 100 meter dash) and jump higher than everyone else (more than six feet off the ground). He was also the highest-paid athlete in the world at the time he was playing.<\/p>\n<p>In 2021, at age 81, Pel\u00e9 was diagnosed with colon cancer, a disease that is often linked to unhealthful lifestyle factors. He had his colon removed and was placed on chemotherapy, but in early 2022, the cancer had spread to his intestines, lung and liver. He was hospitalized with kidney and heart failure and with a lung infection from COVID-19, and he died on December 29, 2022, at age 82. His 100-year-old mother survived him.<\/p>\n<p>The F\u00e9d\u00e9ration Internationale De Football Association (FIFA) called him &#8220;the greatest of all time.&#8221; The International Olympic Committee called him the \u201cAthlete of the Century,\u201d and <em>Time Magazine<\/em> listed him as one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century. In 2000, the International Federation of Football History &amp; Statistics (IFFHS) named him World Player of the Century.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How Did He Get the Name Pel\u00e9?<\/strong><br \/>\nEdson Arantes do Nascimento was born in 1940 in S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil. His family was so poor that they couldn\u2019t afford a real soccer ball, so he used either a grapefruit or a stocking stuffed with newspapers for a ball. His favorite soccer player was a local goalkeeper who was nicknamed &#8220;Bil\u00e9,&#8221; but when he called out the name to his friends his accent made the name sound like Pel\u00e9, so everyone called him Pel\u00e9 and the name stuck.<\/p>\n<p>By age 14, Pel\u00e9 was so good that he was on adult teams and ended up the top scorer on his team. By age 15, he was playing professional soccer for a top local team, Santos, and at age 16, he led the league in scoring and was playing for the Brazil national team in world cup competition. At age 18, his Santos team won the Campeonato Paulista World Cup Tournament and he was the top scorer, with 58 goals. That record still stands today.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/m4dNSscdn7o\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nHe was offered professional contracts by wealthy European clubs, such as Real Madrid, Juventus, Manchester United and Inter Milan. He signed with Inter Milan, but tore up the contract after fans of his Santos team rioted because they didn\u2019t want him to leave his local team. In 1961, when Pel\u00e9 was 21, the government of Brazil under President J\u00e2nio Quadros declared Pel\u00e9 an &#8220;official national treasure&#8221; to prevent him from transferring to teams outside the country. The next year, at age 22, he was rated as the best player in the world. In each tournament he continued to score an incredible number of goals that were usually the most of any player in each tournament. In 1969, at age 29, the warring sides in the Nigerian Civil War agreed to a 48-hour cease-fire so they could watch Pel\u00e9 play an exhibition game in Lagos.<\/p>\n<p><strong>New York Cosmos<\/strong><br \/>\nAfter 19 seasons playing for Santos, he retired from Brazilian club football, but in 1975, at age 35, he signed to play for the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League.&nbsp; In 1977, at age 37, he led the Cosmos to the 1977 Soccer Bowl with the team drawing more than 60,000 fans to each of their playoff games. Later that fall, he closed out his career in a sold-out exhibition match between his two major clubs, the Cosmos and Santos. Pel\u00e9 played the first half with the Cosmos, the second with Santos with the Cosmos winning 2\u20131 and Pel\u00e9 scoring with a 30-yard free-kick for the Cosmos.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uCrqwZ7-edU\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>His Wives, Partners and Children<\/strong><br \/>\n\u2022 In 1964, Pel\u00e9 had a daughter with Anizia Machado, a housemaid.<br \/>\n\u2022 In 1966, at age 26, he married Rosemeri dos Reis Cholbi and they had two daughters and one son. They divorced in 1982.<br \/>\n\u2022 In 1981, at age 41, he was linked with 17 year old TV presenter Xuxa.<br \/>\n\u2022 In 1994, at age 54, he married psychologist and gospel singer Ass\u00edria Lemos Seixas, who in 1996 was artificially inseminated and gave birth to twins. The couple divorced in 2008.<br \/>\n\u2022 In 2010, at age 70, he started dating 35 year old Marcia Aoki, a Japanese-Brazilian importer of medical equipment from Pen\u00e1polis, S\u00e3o Paulo. They married six years later in 2016.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Health Issues Leading to Colon Cancer<\/strong><br \/>\nOne of the greatest athletes of all time died from colon cancer, a disease that is associated with several unhealthful lifestyle choices (<em>The Amer J of Gastroenter<\/em>, Dec 2, 2022:10.14309). Fewer than 30 percent of colon cancer cases are traced to inherited causes (<em>Gastroenterology<\/em>, Jun 2010;138(6):2044\u20132058). In later life, Pel\u00e9 suffered from severe hip damage that resulted in a hip replacement that limited him to living in a wheelchair. Being immobilized markedly increased his risk for weight gain, diabetes, heart failure, kidney failure and liver failure.<br \/>\n\u2022 In 2012 at age 72, he had his right kidney removed and later that year, he had his hip replaced.<br \/>\n\u2022 In 2017 at age 77, he was hospitalized for exhaustion.<br \/>\n\u2022 In 2019 at age 79, he had a urinary tract infection and had to have surgery to remove kidney stones.<br \/>\n\u2022 In 2020, his hip hurt him so much that he was not able to walk and spent most of his time at home.<br \/>\n\u2022 In September 2021, he had a cancer removed from the right side of his colon and started chemotherapy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Important Lessons about Colon Cancer from Pel\u00e9&#8217;s Death<\/strong><br \/>\nThe same lifestyle factors that increase risk for colon cancer also increase risk for several other types of cancers, heart attacks, strokes, obesity, diabetes and dementia, so making the lifestyle changes recommended to reduce colon cancer risk will also help to protect you from other major diseases (<em>Curr Colorectal Cancer Rep<\/em>, 2014; 10(1): 45\u201354).<br \/>\n\u2022 Follow a plant-based diet with plenty of vegetables, fruits, nuts, whole grains, beans and other seeds<br \/>\n\u2022 Avoid or restrict mammal meat, processed meats, sugar-added foods, sugared drinks and fried foods<br \/>\n\u2022 Try to exercise every day<br \/>\n\u2022 Maintain a healthful weight<br \/>\n\u2022 Avoid smoking, alcohol and unnecessary drugs<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pel%C3%A9\">Pel\u00e9 (Edson Arantes do Nascimento)<\/a><br \/>\nOctober 23, 1940 &#8211; December 29, 2022<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pel\u00e9 was a Brazilian soccer player who was the best soccer player of all time because nobody could stop him from scoring. During his entire career, he averaged almost one goal in every game he played. He scored a Guinness World record 1,279 goals in 1,363 games because he could run faster than everyone else (under 11 seconds in the 100 meter dash) and jump higher than everyone else (more than six feet off the ground).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7602,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[276],"class_list":["post-6558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-histories-and-mysteries","tag-colon-cancer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drmirkin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}