Thousands of mourners began paying their respects to Pele in a sombre march past his coffin, on Monday, at the Vila Belmiro Stadium in his birthplace of Santos, Brazil.
The legendary Brazilian football player lost his fight with cancer on Thursday. He won the World Cup three times and died at the age of 82.
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The field where Pele scored some of his best goals saw the placement of his casket. In the middle area of the stadium outside of Sao Paulo, which holds 16,000 people, mourners passed by his coffin. He will be buried at a nearby cemetery after a Catholic Mass is said there on Tuesday morning.
Brazilian flags and the No. 10 shirts that Pele began donning for Santos and Brazil were used to decorate Vila Belmiro.
The stands were filling up with bouquets of flowers placed by mourners and sent by clubs and star players—Neymar and Ronaldo among them—from around the world as loudspeakers played a song named “Eu sou Pelé” (“I am Pelé”) that was recorded by the Brazilian himself.
Fans arrived early to honor Edson Arantes do Nascimento, globally known as Pele.
Among them was FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who told journalists that every country should name a stadium after Pelé.
Infantino said;
I am here with a lot of emotion, sadness, but also with a smile because he gave us so many smiles.
As FIFA, we will pay a tribute to the ‘King’ and we ask the whole world to observe a minute of silence.
Pele had undergone treatment for colon cancer since 2021. The medical center where he had been hospitalized said he died of multiple organ failure as a result of the cancer.
He led Brazil to World Cup titles in 1958, 1962, and 1970 and remains one of the team’s all-time leading scorers with 77 goals. Neymar tied Pelé’s record during this year’s World Cup in Qatar.
