Brasilia,SANA- Brazil starts three days of national mourning on Friday for football legend Pele, the three-time World Cup winner widely regarded as the greatest player of all time, who has died at age 82.<\/p>\n
The death of “The King” who transcended football triggered a wave of tributes around the globe from the sports world and also from political and cultural leaders.<\/p>\n
Pele died Thursday at the Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo after a long battle with cancer.<\/p>\n
“We love you infinitely. Rest in peace,” daughter Kely Nascimento wrote on Instagram.<\/p>\n
The football world — from his former teammates to current stars — came together to honor “O Rei”, who transformed the sport during a long professional career that began when he was still a teenager.<\/p>\n
Brazil star Neymar said Pele “transformed football into an art.” France’s Kylian Mbappe said his legacy “will never be forgotten,” and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo called him an “inspiration to millions.”<\/p>\n
Argentina’s World Cup-winning captain Lionel Messi wrote: “Rest in peace.”<\/p>\n
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who declared three days of national mourning, paid tribute to a man who “transformed football into art and joy”, while president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is due to take office Sunday, tweeted: “There had never been a number 10 like him.”<\/p>\n
Pele is the only footballer in history to have won three World Cups — in 1958, 1962 and 1970.<\/p>\n
He had been in increasingly fragile health, battling kidney problems and colon cancer — undergoing surgery for the latter in September 2021, followed by chemotherapy.<\/p>\n
A wake will take place on Monday, followed by a funeral on Tuesday in Santos, the southeastern city where he played most of his career, his former club said.<\/p>\n
The city declared seven days of mourning as fans flocked to the team’s stadium to leave flowers.<\/p>\n
In front of the Sao Paulo hospital where he died, fans held up a banner which read: “Eternal King Pele.”<\/p>\n
In Rio de Janeiro, the Christ the Redeemer statue which overlooks the city was illuminated in homage to Pele, as was the legendary Maracana stadium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brasilia,SANA- Brazil starts three days of national mourning on Friday for football legend Pele, the three-time World Cup winner widely regarded as the greatest player of all time, who has died at age 82. The death of “The King” who transcended football triggered a wave of tributes around the globe from the sports world and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":294529,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6987,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-latest-news","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294528"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=294528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/294529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=294528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=294528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=294528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}