Wednesday, 7 May 2025
The World Cup had just finished and many people are still very excited about it. Mr. Kwan talked about the story of how Lionel Messi is changing the life of the little boy, Tommy on Tuesday. Today, I would also like to share the story of another great soccer player, Pele.
Pele was born in Sao Paulo, a city in Brazil in 1940. In spite of living in a very poor family, he loves to play soccer every day. Although he could not afford to buy a soccer when he was a kid, he never gave up on playing soccer. He often played in the streets with a grapefruit or a sock stuffed with newspapers.
At age 17, Pele became the youngest player to play in a World Cup final match. He scored two goals in that final and beat Sweden by 5–2, helping Brazil lift its first World Cup in 1958. Pele’s first goal of this match was selected as one of the best goals in the history of the World Cup. It happened at the 55th minute in the second half. When his teammate from the left wing sent him a long pass, there were two Sweden defenders and the goalkeeper in front of Pele. Pele jumped up and twisted his body in the air in order to control the long pass with his chest. His body balance was so well that by the time he landed on the ground, he already reached the penalty area and the first defender was behind him. Then, the second defender rushed towards Pele, but Pele decided not to shoot directly. Instead, he flicked the ball up and over the second defender’s head. Pele concentrated at the movement of the ball when it dropped from a height of 3.2 metres according to FIFA, then he leant forward and bounced a volley shoot into the bottom corner of the net. The replay of this golden goal can be found in YouTube. It had accumulated 253K views already. I strongly recommend you to go home and watch this video. Just search “Pele 1958 World Cup goal” and you can watch this video.
Pele once said, “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” The theme of this month is Love endures all things. Shungtakians, please remember that there will always be hard times in our life, we should not stop loving when life becomes difficult. If Pele gave up loving and playing soccer when he was a poor kid, he would never be the GOAT. By the way, do you know the meaning of GOAT? It is the abbreviation for “Greatest Of All Time”.
Mr Sham B
6 January 2023