Mourning A Genius

It is with profound sadness that the world learnt this evening that one of the progenitors of the beautiful game and certainly one of it’s most exquisite exponents, Pele, has passed away.

Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known to the world as Pele, is the giant on whose shoulders every player since he retired stands, and many who took football further. His playing career ended decades before I was born, but from watching tapes of him it is clear that he was the man who took the game of football and made it beautiful.

Exploding into the world consciousness by inspiring Brazil to World Cup victory as a 17year old, he backed this up by carrying them through the defence of their title 4 years later. The only thing that stopped him making it a hat-trick of world cups in 1966 were an inspired England team on home soil.

No matter though as he completed the unprecedented, historic and yet-to-be-matched hat-trick next time out in 1970 as the fulcrum of what many consider to be the greatest team in the history of our sport. The Brazil team that put on an exhibition of just how gorgeous the beautiful game could be, without surrendering the ultimate goal of winning, was stacked with talent but none were greater than Pele.

Thank you for making the game beautiful you immortal genius, RIP Pele.