pele: how the no.10 shirt passed into legend

One doesn't bother much with sport on this blog, but heck, it's World Cup year! And one must concede that football at its very best is an art. And they don't come greater than Edson Arentes do Nascimento - that's Pele to you and me. It was thanks to Pele that I didn't throw away the 'Sport' pullout of the UK Guardian today. In a sumptuous two page spread, we learn about how a 17-year-old boy walked onto the football pitch in 1958 and passed into history, making the no.10 football jersey the stuff of legend.

Excerpts

About me [the team psychologist] concluded that I should not be selected: "Pele is obviously infantile. He lacks the necessary fighting spirit." ... Fortunately for me... [the coach] was always guided by his instincts and he just nodded gravely at the psychologist, saying: "You may be right. The thing is, you don't know anything about football.

When on June 15 I ran out into Gothenburg's Nya Ullevi stadium, there must have been a fair few of the 50,000 spectators who were taken aback to see a little black kid with the teams. And they must have been astonished when I stripped off my tracksuit to reveal a Brazil shirt with a big number 10 on the back. I imagine there were some who assumed I was a kind of mascot, especially when compared with the Russians, who were all huge. I remember looking at them and thinking, "They're big . . . but big trees can be felled too."

Read the rest, straight from the horse's mouth. The Guardian promises more Pele exclusives over the coming week.