Some Interesting Pele facts

To me at least, these are self researched so I'm open to additions and corrections, people are welcome to add their own, I'll certainly be adding a lot more!

To get us started I'll note that from what I can tell Pele, at one point or another, played against every Balon Dor winner from 1956 to 1979 excluding Stanley Matthews (1956), Florian Albert (1967)*, Oleg Blokhin (1975), and Allan Simonsen (1977). That's a total of 15 Balon Dor winners with a combined 19 Balon Dor awards faced. The criteria is any time spent on the pitch playing in official and/or unofficial matches against a player who won or would go on to win a Balon Dor.

So for example Kevin Keegan played against Pele in an exhibition match for England against the NASL (Pele scored a penalty in a 3-1 loss with Keegan grabbing a brace); or Omar Sivori (in a match against Juventus in the Torneio Italia in 1961 where Pele scored a a famous goal after a lovely Cruyff turn); as well as the official games such as against Eusebio's Benfica in the Intercontinental Cup in 62 (five goals in two games) or against Gianni Rivera's AC Milan in 63 (2 goals in 1 game). He also faced both in WCs as well as Lev Yashin (58 got an assist as Brazil won 2-0), Bobby Charlton (70 got an assist as Brazil won 1-0), Josef Masopust (62 got injured after 25 minutes in a 0-0 draw), and Raymond Kopa (scored a hat trick in a 5-2 win).

In fact Pele missed out on facing Florian Albert in 1966 being injured for the match against Hungary where Albert tore Brazil apart and inflicted their first defeat in three WCs. Not forgetting missing the Brazil Spain match in 1962 again due to injury. That would have seen him play Luis Suarez while Di Stefano was also out injured (Puskas played in that match but of course never won a Balon Dor though surely would have wracked them up in they existed in his pomp with Hungary/Ferencvaros). By my reckoning and non exhaustive research the six Balon Dor winners Pele played against is the most of any player in history beating the four Lothar Mattheus played against (Platini in 86, Gullit and Van Basten in 90 and Stoichkov). There may well be other contenders but that's easily the most from the players I checked, of course it's complicated by non Europeans being shunned prior to the mid 90s, e.g. Maradona doesn't count for Mattheus or Romario wouldn't for Baresi or Maldini but that doesn't mean they weren't Balon Dor level opposition/stars, far from it.

I won't document every game against a Balon Dor winner (maybe later) but it's pretty remarkable that Pele played every single one during his career bar three understandably exceptions. This is especially true given that football of the era wasn't anywhere near as centralised as it is now. Granted they met far less frequently than Baoln Dor players today would and the competitions are more structured and streamlined. Still very impressive though even if some were just the odd game like Alfredo Di Stefano.

By my admittedly hasty research/calculations the fifteen Balon Dor winners Pele faced is significantly above the 10 Messi faced during his career. Granted Messi would have faced more if he hadn't won 8 Balon Dors himself! Not to mention he has likely played against a fair few future Balon Dor winners, we just don't know which ones yet.

Against the 15 for Pele the 10 for Messi are Ronaldinho, Cannavaro (teenage Messi famously tore Cannavaro apart against Real Madrid with a historic hat trick), Kaka, Cristiano Ronaldo, Modric, Benzema, Rodri, Zidane (only one match, a handy 3-0 win for Barca against Real Madrid Nedved (only played one game in a pre season friendly when Messi was very young but I'm counting unofficial games for Pele so this counts for Messi) and Dembele. Of those he only faced 2 in WC matches (Modric and Dembele with big showings against both).

Kind of surprising that Pele has actually played against more Balon Dor winners both overall and at WCs.Of course the cross era comparison is just a bit of fun historical trivia and not meant to be read any further than that. The overall context and conditions of football are vastly different today. Pele's numbers would also look drastically different if we took away the 7 Balon Dors he was retroactively awarded.

 

Round two...Pele's official 1957 debut for Santos in the Rio Sao Paulo tournament was against a team managed by Bela Guttmann who after leading Sao Paulo to the 1957 Paulista title would then manage Porto to the Portuguese title the next season before switching to Benfica and winning back to back European Cups and league titles. He then quite and cursed Benfica moving to Uruguay and managing Penarol to the league title while losing to Pele's Santos in the Libertadores final (he managed in the European Cup final and Libertadores final in the same season, surely a unique record.

On top of that the line up for Sao Paulo contained Nilton De Sordi who started at right back every game for Brazil in the 1958 WC before getting injured in the semi final and missing the final. Not to mention Mauro Ramos a double WC winning centre back who captained the 1962 side to their triumph. Dino Sani scored in this game and played the first two games of the 58 WC. After the shake up introducing Garrincha and Pele against USSR Sani lost his place. He moved to Boca Juniors briefly before ending up as a mainstay in the Milan side that won the Serie A title then the first ever European Cup by an Italian team.

Other notable players included Gino Orlando, an excellent goalscorer, Maurinho who played for Brazil in the 54 WC, and Canhoteiro who was seen as an exceptional talent. Zizinho, one of Brazil's best ever players was missing for the match. That's just the level of competition Pele faced on official debut at 16 coming on as a substitute (and scoring in a 3-1 win).

The following game Pele played against Gilmar (two time WC winning and starting goalkeeper for Brazil) and Oreco (part of the successful 58 squad). Other notable players included Olavo, Roberto Belangero, Luizinho, and Indio who again were all highly regarded players. Corinthians were managed by Oswaldo Brandao who is considered one of the greatest Brazilian coaches ever with an array of titles to back it up.

Pele's third official match was in the same competition against a Flamengo side containing Mario Zagallo (a key player in 58 and 62), Moacair (part of the 58 squad), Joel Martins (part of the 58 squad), though Dida (part of the 58 squad and one of Flamengo all time best players and leading scorer was missing for this match). Flamengo were managed by Fleitas Solich a highly innovative coach who led Paraguay to their first Copa America just a few years prior and would go on to have significant success in Brazil.

Next up (after a chastening defeat by Flamengo), Santos and Pele faced Portuguese and lost again. Nothing particularly noteworthy here though Portuguese did have some fine players nothing to rave about though Djalma Santos was missing and is considered one of the best full backs in history and one of less than a handful of players to make the WC team of the tournament for three tournaments in a row (54, 58 and 62).

So for his fifth ever official game at 16 Pele faced a Botafogo side with Nilton Santos (double WC winner and one of the best defenders, a reference point in football history), Garrincha (double WC winner and one of the best players in history), Didi (double WC winner and one of the best midfielders ever. In addition Botafogo had excellent attackers Paulo Valentine and Quarantinha who boasted fantastic scoring records. Coached by Geninho this Botafogo team were, along with Pele's Santos, about to become the glamour team of world football. They would have to wait a while though as they lost the match 5-1 to Santos!

Next up was Palmeiras who had a young Mazzola/Jose Altafini leading the line and were managed by Aymore Moreira. Altafini would play the first two matches for Brazil in 58 scoring twice yet was still dropped when Pele and Garrincha were brought into the team against USSR. Shortly after Altafini would move to AC Milan and have a fine career in Europe. Moreira would go on to lead Brazil to WC success in 1962.

After that was Fluminense who were without their double WC winning goalkeeper Castilho (who was back up in 58 and 62) but did field Altair who was part of the 62 squad. They were managed by Sylvio Pirillo (with Tele Santana as an important player) who was another innovative manager and would play a pivotal role in Pele's career. Pele must have impressed in this 2-2 draw because Pirillo was interim national coach and called Pele up for his debut shortly after the Rio Sao Paulo tournament ended.

After playing a middling America team Santos faced a Vasco side managed by Martin Francisco. Fancisco was a revolutionary manager and football 'intellectual' who had a profound impact on Brazilian football and is credited with inventing/popularising the 4-2-4 they would go on to dominate the world with. Of course Guttmann and others had their part to play too. That team also had double WC winning centre back and captain of the 1958 team Bellini marshalling the defence while Orlando Pecanha was a squad member in 58 (and would have an excellent career with Boca Juniors and Santos thereafter). Let's not forget Vava hero of the 58 and 62 WCs leading the line for Brazil on both occasions and having a fantastic career otherwise.

So if we count those first official games Pele played as a 16 year old for Santos, he faced up to five legendary managers two bona fide all time greats not including the WC winning manager! He played at least 7 players who would be part of a WC winning squad at least once as well as facing eight players who would win back to back WCs including mainstays of the XIs such as Gilmar, Zagallo, Nilton Santos, Garrincha, Vava. I won't even get into the number of excellent to good players Pele played against in these eight games but it's possibly a surprising amount given how many people dismiss the competition Pele faced and these are just his first 8 official games.

It's actually entirely possible I undercounted or missed some players but that's what I've got so far. By my reckoning there are 20 players in history who have won the WC twice, Pele played against 8 of them in his first eight games (he also played with 2 of them on his own team in Zito and Pepe). So if we include the Santos contingent (excluding Pele as he won three WCs of course) then in the tournament Pele debuted in exactly fifty percent (possibly higher) of all players to have won two WCs were playing.

Not preseason as we would understand it today but yes Santos and Pele did tour extensively/excessively often playing a match every three days or less including a fair few back to back games in different cities. It was absolutely a money spinning operation that stretched out all over the globe at various times with an absurdly tight and packed schedule. I think we can certainly understand how and why it happened and it was a product both of the era and of the unbelievable fame, phenomenon and hype Pele achieved from basically his first game for Santos. It's just a bit wild from a modern lens and I suspect many or most modern or young fans wouldn't know or particularly appreciate this context/information. Could be wrong on that of course but it's interesting to me at least.

 

A 'quick' one, in 1958 when Pele broke the record for the most goals in a Paulista season (58 goals in 38 games) he set a mark that was 19 goals above any previous scorer top scorer. The previous record was held by Feitico from the 1931 season. In the previous 68 Paulista season's a player had scored 30 goals and above on only eight occasions and one of those was Pele in 1957 as a 16 year old (36 goals).

So before Pele ever played in the Paulista across 67 editions there was a total of seven 30+ goal season by any player*. From the age of 16 to 24 Pele went 36, 58, 44, 33, 47, 37, 22, 34, 49. So in his first eight season's Pele eclipsed the combined total of every Paulista top scorer from 1902 to 1956. After Pele this feat has been achieved twice though the number of games has fluctuated mostly being reduced and this has happened throughout the tournament's history including during Pele's era.

*Actually I just realised I was only checking the top scorers and there could well be seasons where a player top scored with 39 goals and another player scored 31 or whatever. This definitely happened with Pele, Pepe and Coutinho so it could have happened in other seasons too. It would be more accurate to say that there were 7 top scoring Paulista season's with 30+ goals before Pele who managed eight (including a couple of 40+ and a 50+ season) in his first nine years.

Though Pele's 58 goal season is still 19 goals ahead of any other top scorer ever in the Paulista it wasn't his best goals per games or minutes ratio (that was the absurd 47 goals in 26 games in 1961*). In addition Pepe was second top scorer with 30 goals and that Paulista season Pele scored precisely 5 penalties but more interestingly Santos scored another 8 penalties while Pele was on the pitch (7 by Canjica and 1 by Pepe). The season before Pele had scored 3 penalties while 8 were scored by teammates when he was on the pitch. In 1959, the season after, Pele scored 44 goals in 32 matches while Pepe scored 40 goals. Remarkably Pele didn't take or score a single penalty and Pepe took 15 penalties while Pele was on the pitch. In total 16 penalties were scored while Pele was on the pitch (Feijo took the other).

* In that 1961 season across those 26 games Pele played he scored two penalties while Pepe scored five.

Basically his early years numbers could have been even more insane if he was the dedicated penalty taker though tbf Pepe seems to have been an excellent taker and there were a few others who seemed to regularly get the nod over Pele in those years (Tite was the regular taker When Pele started playing for Santos, then it was Canjica then Pepe. Pele didn't become the primary penalty taker until after the 1962 World Cup.

Data for the 1958 season taken from here: https://www.historical-lineups.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Weeks-01-38.pdf

 

Excellent research, do you have the same analysis for Messi? Funnily enough Messi did play against Nedved in an unofficial match. It's harder in some ways for Ronaldo and Messi purely because they won so many of the awards themselves. Of course since football talent is far more centralised and they both played in Europe it's expected that they would have more opportunities and certainly face Balon Dor winners more regularly.

I suppose there's also the sligh complication that South Americans were ineligible during Pele's era so he presumably faced a fair few likely winners over the course of his career (and he would have also likely reduced the number of candidates by dominating the award for his peak years). Additionally if there had been winners prior to 1956 he likely would have faced a couple of them at some point.

I was going to add that Cristiano Ronaldo has faced Paolo Maldini so therefore already had matched Pele's number but then remembered Maldini never won the Balon Dor.

🚨 𝗗𝗜𝗗 𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗞𝗡𝗢𝗪: Cristiano Ronaldo has played against Paolo Maldini (born 1968) and Lamine Yamal (born 2007) 😳 pic.twitter.com/BDFZD0JnDV

— TCR. (@TeamCRonaldo) April 1, 2026

On the topic of this thread Pele's ninth official match was his debut for Brazil, coming on and scoring as a substitute in a 2-1 loss to Argentina at home. He was 16 years 9 months old. His tenth official match he started in his full debut against Argentina, again at home, and scored in a 2-0 win securing the Roca Cup. After playing and excelling in the 57 Paulista and 58 Rio Sao Paulo tournament on an individual level Pele had still yet to win a trophy with Santos.

He then played his third game for Brazil appearing with limited minutes across three warm up games for the 58 WC- his 49th, 50th and 51st official matches. Obviously what he did next at the WC is legendary and depending on how you view the Roca Cup his first ever official trophy at senior level was the WC won in his 55th official match aged 17 years and 8 months.


So in just under a year from 16-17 Pele played 9 matches for Brazil scoring 11 goals in 685 minutes (a goal every 62 minutes). He won a WC in the process showing his highest levels in the most pressurised and important matches. In those nine matches Pele faced Amadeo Carrizo, Nestor Rossi, Angel Labruna, Omar Oreste Corbatta (twice as well as several other Copa America or double Copa America winning Argentinians), Cayetano Re, Georgi Naydenov (2 times), Manol Manolov (2 times), Lev Yashin, Yuriy Voynov, Igor Netto, Nikita Simonyan, Robert Jonquet, Raymond Kopa, Just Fontaine, Roger Piantoni, Nils Liedholm, Lennart Skoglund, Gunnar Gren, Kurt Hamrin, and Agne Simonsson.

I've tried to be somewhat selective about the players chosen here and all are legends/extremely highly rated in their era. I'm leaving out a number of very accomplished players but wanted to highlight the depth of top end talent Pele faced. Remember these are all players who Pele played in his first nine international games between 16-17 while scoring a goal every 62 minutes including 5 goals across the WC semi final and final.

I'd not even know where to start to look to find a comparable set of legendary players and more high stakes pressurised games for any players first nine national team games (Yamal possibly?). It's genuinely astonishing and to think this player who performed that well against all of these legends right from the start of his career at an unusually young age now gets laughed at by some apparent football fans for facing no competition. The funny thing is it's actually entirely arguable that Pele was playing better players in the Paulista and Rio Sao Paulo tournament. Not in terms of depth per team obviously but in terms of just overall star power I'd say it's a legitimate argument to be had.

The players he had played in the Paulista and Rio Sao Paulo tournament to that point included every player in the 1958 WC squad (expect Pepe and Zito who were on his team tbf). Then we have Zizinho, Julio Botelho, Waldo, Paulo Valentim, Quarentinha, Luizinho, Cahoteiro, Canario, and many, many others. That's all before the WC.

 

Keeping on the point of Pele's official debut and subsequent first few games, his first official tournament (the Torneio Rio Sao Paulo in 1957) saw Pele play nine matches. If we exclude the numerous other legendary players who were playing for the teams in same tournament and restrict ourselves to only future WC winners...

To date there a 471 players who have won the WC, Pele played against just over 3% of them in those first nine official games alone. However if we look at just the players who won the first seven WCs (i.e. the WCs from 1930 to 1962 when Brazil won their second title) Pele played against 16/136! So Pele faced 11.7% of all players who won the WC by 1962 in just those first nine 'official' games in 1957 at 16 years old! If we add in Djalma Santos and Casthilo who missed the Santos games we get to 13% of WC winning players in the squads for that tournament. We should actually add in the three Santos players who won WCs in 58 and 62 so the real number is 21/136- i.e. over 15% of all players who won WCs between 1930 and 1962 were available for selection in the tournament where Pele 'officially' debuted for Santos. A tournament where he scored 5 goals, bagged 2 assists and another 2 non opta assists. He was a substitute 5 times and played a total of 571 minutes so a goal every 114 minutes, a goal contribution inc. non opta of every 63 minutes (and just goals and opta assists a goal contribution every 81 minutes).

During the beginning years of his career Pele was playing in, winning and dominating competitions that had 30/136- 22%- of all players to have won the WC up to 1962. It's absurd, extend this to 1970 and cover the first 9 WCs and you have Pele being the outstanding player completely dominating competitions that contained 57/179 players to have won the WC by 1970. That's nearly 32%* of all players to have won the WC by that point. For their career, Pele played regularly with/against 65% (13/20) of all players who have two WC medals (*being generous with Altafini who Pele played in the Intercontinental Cup as well as domestic games before Altafini went to AC Milan). If we look at just players who won the WC during Pele's career from 57-77 then Pele played routinely played in competitions which had well over half of all active WC winners.

I'm not counting Pele among the players to have won 2 WCs for the purpose of this exercise because a) it's not like Pele could play against Pele (though that actually happened one match tbf) and b) Pele actually won three WCs!