Pele, naturally, was making his own legacy. On the afternoon of 21 June 1970, as he watched Carlos Alberto lift Brazil’s third World Cup with “an intensity of emotion” he had never known, he says he mostly just felt a satisfaction.
“I had played in every game, come through unscathed, and felt as though I had achieved everything I had set out to achieve.” No one else in football history has yet even come close to matching that. Pele is the only player to have won the World Cup three times. And he didn’t just win them: he illuminated and elevated the tournaments, in different ways and even forms.
