Even for grown-ups there are fairy tales beginning with the words "once upon a time". The story of Edson Arantes do Nascimento is the better for being absolutely true. Sometimes, though, fact is stranger than fiction. So, once upon a time there was a poor black boy who lived in Brazil, and like all the other boys his age, he had a passion for the games of "fotebol" which took place in the streets, played barefoot with a ball made out of rags. One day, along came a genie in the shape of Waldemar de Brito (who had been a member of the World Cup team in 1934 in Italy) who divided his time between journalism and coaching the junior team of BAG Bauru. When he saw young Edson play he was immediately impressed by his facility and by the unusual range of his abilities. Pele's career had just begun, but as yet no one except the talent scout Waldemar knew it. Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known as Pele (most Brazilian footballers have a nickname by which they become known) wore the Bauru colors until the day when Waldemar telephoned his friend Lula, team manager at Santos to tell him about his new protege. Pele joined Santos, a large seaside club where he found himself among some of the country's best players. Although they started by calling him "the kid" (he was only 1 6 years old) it was not long before he had risen through the ranks to become one of the leading names in international football. Certainly soccer in Brazil is an institution and Pele is the idol of 90 million fellow-countrymen, but that alone does not explain why a road in his native town was named after him, or why a statue has been put up to him, or why he has a free place for life (No. 10, of course, like his number of the football field) in the Belo Horizonte stadium. The fact is that Pele is a football genius, a man who has brought a whole new dimension to the game. He bade farewell to the game on Oct .1, 1977, at the New York Giants Stadium, before a crowd of 77,691. He scored a goal—the 1281st—in a game opposing FC Santos to the Cosmos, the only two clubs for which Pele had played.