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Pelé (Brazil)

World Cups 1958, 1962, 1966, 1970

Appearances 14

Goals 12

Selecting anyone else at No1 would have meant a World Cup form of sacrilege. Diego Maradona may have grabbed Mexico 86 by its lapel in a way that no player has done in a World Cup, before or since, but Pelé’s deeds were spread over four tournaments and when the excellence is that pronounced it will always make a persuasive argument in his favour.

If you consider that he was 17 when he announced himself at the 1958 tournament, and 12 years later his contribution to the finest Brazil team there has ever been, there is certainly a compelling argument that nobody has ever done more.

Everyone remembers 1970, the first World Cup finals to be televised in colour, and the greatness of the team of Pelé, Jairzinho, Gérson, Carlos Alberto, Tostão and Rivelino and so many other ideal wearers of their yellow and blue.

The glories of Brazil in the black-and-white era are not so commonly replayed but Pelé’s contribution was enormous again. The teenage Pelé scored six times in his four games in 1958 and the last two, enabling Brazil to overcome Sweden in the final by a score of 5-2, completed a story so remarkable it left even his opponents in awe.

Pelé’s first remains one of the all-time World Cup goals, chesting the ball down, flicking it over a defender, then volleying in. Sigvard “Sigge” Parling, the Sweden player, would later reflect: “When Pelé scored the fifth goal, I have to be honest and say I felt like applauding.”

Pele’s contribution in 1962 was stifled by injury and the fouling on him was so brutal four years later that he vowed it would be his last tournament. The story of football should be grateful he changed his mind. As Clodoaldo, one of his colleagues in 1970, put it: “In some countries they wanted to touch him, in some they wanted to kiss him. In others they even kissed the ground he walked on.”