Pele funeral: Farewell to a football legend as Brazilian is buried in Santos

Brazilian legend Pele was buried on Tuesday after a procession of his coffin in Santos.

One of the greatest players of all time, Pele is Brazil’s joint top scorer with 77 goals in 92 matches.

He is the only player to have won three World Cups and was named FIFA’s Player of the Century in 2000.

Thousands of fans had gathered on the streets as the hearse carrying his coffin arrived at the Urbano Caldeira stadium, home of Pele’s former club Santos, in Sao Paulo on Monday.

On Tuesday, his coffin, draped in the Brazilian flag, was carried through the streets of the city of Santos on a fire engine, and, poignantly, the funeral procession passed the house where his 100-year-old mother, Celeste Arantes, still lives.

It continued to the Memorial Necropole Ecumenica cemetery, where a private funeral was held for family members on the ninth floor of a vertical cemetery overlooking Santos’ stadium.

Amongst the hundreds of thousands of mourners – the majority wearing No.10 Santos and Brazil shirts – was Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. “Pele is incomparable, as a soccer player and as a human being,” Lula said, per Reuters.

The former Santos forward was hospitalised on November 29 with complications related to colon cancer, and the Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein said on December 28 that his cancer had advanced and that he required care for renal and cardiac dysfunctions.

Fears grew for Pele’s health when news broke that his son Edinho had travelled from Londrina, which is 540km east of Sao Paulo, to join two of Pele’s daughters, Kely Nascimento and Flavia Arantes do Nascimento, by his bedside.

Pele was born Edson Arantes do Nascimento on October 23, 1940.

He began his playing career aged 15 with Santos and made his Brazil debut at 16.

He appeared at four World Cups, winning three – in 1958, 1962 and 1970 – and is Brazil’s joint top scorer alongside Neymar.

For Santos, he scored 643 goals in 659 games, leading the club to success in the Copa Libertadores and the Intercontinental Cup, in 1962 and 1963. He also collected 10 Paulista titles and won the Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A on six occasions.

In 1975 he came out of retirement to sign for the New York Cosmos, where he won the Soccer Bowl in 1977.

He retired in 1977 after an exhibition match between Cosmos and Santos at the Giants Stadium.