O Rei dominated the World Cup – and his legacy stays strong

Words Chris Flanagan Additional reporting Caio Carrieri

With two goals in a resounding Brazil win, a teenage striker announced himself on the global stage at the 1958 World Cup.

Already a star of his country’s Campeonato Paulista, for clubs in and around Sao Paulo, he had travelled to Sweden as one of South America’s brightest talents, eager to deliver the Selecao their first ever World Cup trophy.

In the tiny town of Uddevalla, north of Gothenburg, things couldn’t have begun any better for 19-year-old Palmeiras forward Mazzola. It was he, not Santos’ 17-year-old striker, Pele, who started Brazil’s opening game of that tournament and scored twice in a 3-0 win over Austria.

As it turned out, Mazzola would never net for Brazil again. Three days later, he was injured in a 0-0 draw against England, just as Pele was returning to fitness following a knee problem. While the Palmeiras man faded into the background in Sweden, before joining Milan that summer and appearing for the Italian national team under his original name of Jose Altafini, Brazil’s even younger starlet made the World Cup his own.

By the tournament’s end, Pele had bagged a brace in a 5-2 final win against the hosts, scored six times in all, and wowed the world in a way no footballer had before. And for the next decade, he was the best player on Earth.

FULFILLING A PROMISE

At first, Pele just wanted to emulate his dad. Dondinho was a striker with Bauru, a small city north-west of Sao Paulo. “My father scored a lot of goals,” Pele told FourFourTwo in an exclusive interview back in 2010. “I said, ‘One day, I’m going to be like him’.”

Aged nine, he saw his father cry as Brazil missed out on lifting their first ever World Cup trophy, beaten on home soil by Uruguay in the infamous Maracanazo of 1950. “I said, ‘Don’t worry, Daddy – I’m going to win the World Cup for you’,” recalled Pele.

Dondinho instilled in him an ethos that practice made perfect. “He always advised me to work on things,” said the forward. “He said, ‘If you’re well prepared and train how to kick with your left foot, nobody’s going to stop you’. So, I trained more, instead of going to the beach or the movies. Always, I was better prepared than anybody else.”

IN THE SPACE OF 12 MONTHS, PELE HAD WON EVERYTHING IT WAS POSSIBLE TO WIN. HE WAS STILL 21 YEARS OLD

03 DIEGO MARADONA

How do you separate the three greatest footballers of all time? A worthy case could be argued for each – yet we can pick only one. Longevity, trophies and sheer #numbers give our No.1 and No.2 the slightest of edges, but boy, was Diego Maradona exciting.

El Pibe de Oro outgrew his ‘Golden Boy’ status, if not the nickname; more than just a man, Maradona became a deity in Argentina and Naples, his adopted home. His otherworldly dribbling skills enthralled a generation from the moment he made his Argentinos Juniors debut at 15 and nutmegged a player with his first touch. After scoring 116 goals in 166 games, he joined Boca and won the league title.

A year later, Barcelona paid £5m, and within months he’d taken Real Madrid apart at the Bernabeu, earning him a rare ovation from Madridistas. When injury, illness, illicit substances and an infamous brawl in the Copa del Rey final ended his brief time in Spain, Napoli made him the first player to set a world-record transfer fee twice. Diego more than repaid them: he inspired – some would say dragged – the Partenopei to the only three Italian and European titles in their history.

Either side of Napoli’s two scudetti, the 5ft 5in maestro won Argentina the 1986 World Cup (five goals, five assists), then captained a weaker team to 1990’s final. Two unremarkable sides, immortalised by El Pibe. His unique mark of true greatness. Career highlight Never mind the Hand: to watch Maradona ride tackles and run rings around England – part ballerina, part bulldozer – to score the greatest individual goal, in the greatest individual World Cup, was to see the face of God.