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The man, the legend, the numbers.
It’s easy to underestimate the impact of Pele, especially when you’re relying on surviving footage from his heyday to judge his career. He’s widely accepted to be the greatest player of all time but there are still some people who claim his genius was overexaggerated.
In response, we decided to look at some of his career statistics. After all, the numbers don’t lie.
3: The number of World Cup winning teams that Pele was on. He played in four World Cups with Brazil and won three, which is a pretty respectable return! He’s still the only player to have three World Cup winners’ medals.
10: Pele’s jersey number for Brazil. They’ve had some pretty iconic number 10s over the years but there’s still only one person everyone thinks of when they picture a Brazilian jersey with a number 10 on the back.
15: The age Pele was when he started playing professionally for Santos. He would go on to make his Brazil debut and score his first goal for the Samba Boys when he was just 16. In doing so, he became the youngest person to score an international goal at the time.
77: The number of goals Pele scored for Brazil in 92 appearances. The fact that he remains Brazil’s top scorer speaks volumes, as does his goal scoring average of 0.84 goals per game for Brazil.
126: The number of goals Pele scored in 1959, according to the Guinness Book of Records. Think about that for a moment. He scored that many goals in just a single year.
1281: The number of goals Pele scored in his professional career, earning him a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the most goals scored over a specific period. Taken over 21 years, that’s an average of 61 a year. Not bad. Not bad at all.
10,000,000: The number of people who tuned in to watch the live CBS broadcast of Pele making his debut for New York Cosmos in 1975. Even in the twilight of his career and in a country that wasn’t renowned for soccer, Pele was box office material right up until the end.
Play like Pele and win! Send a photo or video of you recreating one of Pele’s iconic kicks and you could score yourself a trip to Barcelona to train with the legend himself. See the Snickers Facebook page for more information. T&C’s apply.
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