By Pelé

1940's 1950's 1960's 1970's

In the first half of 1957 I was getting regular games and was scoring a few goals. I was well-known, however, only at a local level. It was only in June that I really got the chance to announce myself to the rest of the country. There was to be a tournament in Rio de Janeiro between four European clubs and four Brazilian clubs. One of the Brazilian sides was to be made up of players from both Santos and Rio’s Vasco da Gama. I was picked to play centre-forward in the team.

The trip was the first time I had been to Rio, which is a 300-mile drive up the coast from Santos. I didn’t really know what to expect. I knew the city was Brazil’s capital, and was a bit bigger than Santos. I wasn’t a tourist, however, and our coach took us straight to São Januário, the Vasco stadium, where we slept in dorms and trained during the day.

It was also the first opportunity I had to play in the Maracanã. I knew all about the Maracanã from the 1950 World Cup. It was built for the competition and was still the largest stadium in the world. We had one training session there and I when I saw it, it really felt like a dream. I thought, ‘Something of this size is out of this world!’ The place was absolutely enormous. When I walked on to the pitch for the first time I realised that the pitch was pretty big too. It made the Vila Belmiro look minuscule. I was completely taken aback with it. When we were training sometimes I just stared and stared at the stands.

Even though I played at Santos all my career in Brazil, the Maracanã has a very special place in my heart. I know that it was the scene of the tragic defeat in 1950, but for me I played many of my most important games there (more about those later). The first game, for the Santos/Vasco all-stars against Belenenses of Portugal, was possibly a sign of how lucky the Maracanã would be for me. The stadium was full, there were firecrackers as we ran on to the pitch. The atmosphere was fantastic. And I got a hat-trick. For the first goal I received the ball surrounded by three defenders in the box, and whacked it into the net. For the second I dribbled past the defence and tapped it over the diving keeper. And the last was a thunderbolt from outside the box. Three very different goals, and I think I showed everyone there what I was capable of.

We played two more games in that tournament, against Flamengo and São Paulo, and I made the scoresheet in both. I must have impressed, since immediately afterwards I got a call-up for the national team. The game was the first leg of the following month’s Copa Roca, a traditional challenge against Argentina. I was still just 16. Again, the match was at the Maracanã, against Argentina. I came on in the second half (again, for my club colleague Del Vecchio), wearing the number 13 shirt. Brazil were 1–0 down, and a few moments later I scored. Argentina won that game 2–1, and so it was all to play for in the second leg.

The match was at the Pacaembu in São Paulo and, for the first time, I was included in the starting line-up. I played well from the start and after 18 minutes ran into the box and opened the scoring. Mazzola scored the second, the game finished 2–0, meaning that Brazil had won the Copa Roca. It was my first international title; I did not realise it would be the first of many …