Pelé vs. Poverty

Pelé, born as Edson Arantes de Nascimento, showed raw talent for a world favorite sport we love today. Pelé was born in a small village in the country of Brazil. Pelé’s earliest dream was to become a professional soccer player. Pelé was born so poor the he would usually have to practice with a makeshift ball--a sock stuffed with newspaper and tied with string. One time Pelé saw his dad cry: it was when Brazil lost the 1950 World Cup against Uruguay.

He promised his dad he would win the world cup, saying to him, “Don’t cry, don’t cry. I am going to win the World Cup for you.” Everyday Pelé and his father would have to scrub toilets to make enough money to feed their family. In his free time, Pelé and his friends were so determined to play soccer that they did so without any shoes, and so were called the ‘shoeless ones’. But they did not care because that was their temporary escape out of poverty.

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They were so poor that they did not own cleats, but since they really wanted to play, they played barefoot. They also learned that even if they did not have money, they had determination to win. When they did not have a soccer ball, they didn’t let this fact stop them from playing and practicing to get better at soccer. They thought of an idea to make a ball out of socks and rags, and filled it with free newspapers.

Other days, Pelé used grapefruits that he would find and learned to play with them without make them pop. He loved the sport so much that they didn’t let anything stop them from playing, nor the rain nor the mud. Pelé told his father at a very young age that one day he would win the soccer World Cup for his country and because he believed it so much, he persevered and made it happened even if he was poor. He didn’t let anyone talk to him out of it and he kept playing. He listened to people who supported him, like his dad, and tuned out others who did not believe in him. Pelé loved his dad very much and wanted to make him proud of him, so he practiced endlessly to win for him. He showed determination prevailed over poverty, by practicing with anything, anytime, anywhere.

Helping Hand All in all he had a dream and believed achieving his dream was possible. So, he used his imagination to find solutions to any problems that would come in between him and achieving his dream of winning his first World Cup in 1958. Then he won it two more times, in 1962 and in 1970. In 2000, he was named FIFA Player of the Century. Today, he travels around the world helping people who have a dream but are discouraged because of poverty. He quotes “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” ― Pelé. For him, “A penalty is a cowardly way to score.” With his humble, modest character he knew he had to be on fire to score.  His challenge was poverty but he had a goal and he overcame it. Like many other players, he believed a career in football was possible for him. If you put your mind to something you can achieve it, no matter what. Despite a very humble background, and being extremely poor, and having to work as a young child, his love for football, for his family and for himself gave him the strength to achieve what seemed impossible and became reality. In his autobiography, he proclaimed, “The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning.”