Brazil Finally Bids Farewell To ‘King’ Pele

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva led a memorial service on Tuesday as Brazil bid a final farewell to the late football legend Pele, widely regarded as the greatest player of all time.

In the southeastern city of Santos, home to the club where Pele died last week at the age of 82, many fans, politicians and footballing dignitaries bestowed upon the player known as ‘The King‘.

Santos FC said about 250,000 people attended his 24-hour memorial rally at his Vila Belmiro stadium.

Massive funeral processions followed, including emotional stops outside homes, across the city as Pele’s coffin, draped in black and white Santos flags and Brazilian greens and yellows, was placed on top of a fire engine. The last parade was held. where his 100 year old mother is still alive.

Lula, who was inaugurated in a ceremony that began with a minute’s silence for Pele on Sunday, saw First Lady Losangela da Silva hold the coffin and the player’s widow Marcia Cibere Aoki. “Farewell King. Rest in Peace Pele,” the president tweeted.

～Final Parade～
Born Edson Arantes de his Nascimento, Pele is the only player in history to have won the World Cup three times (1958, 1962, 1970).

He scored a world record 1,281 goals during his more than two-decade career with Santos (1956-74), the New York Cosmos (1975-77) and the Brazilian national team.

He died Thursday after a battle with cancer.

Tributes have poured in from around the world since his death, with current and former football greats hailing his genius for the “beautiful game,” including Brazil star Neymar, France’s Kylian Mbappe and Argentina’s Lionel Messi.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who attended the wake Monday, called Pele “a global icon of football” and said the sport’s governing body would ask all member countries to name a stadium in the player’s honor.

The wake ended Tuesday morning with a brief Catholic service, after which 10 state police guards in dress uniform placed the lid on Pele’s black casket.

A bright red firetruck then transported the coffin through the city, as huge crowds of fans, some in tears, lined the streets and gathered on balconies to say a last goodbye, chanting “1,000 goals, only Pele!”

The longest stop was outside the beige house where Pele’s mother, Celeste Arantes, still lives.

“Dona Celeste,” as she is known, has cognitive difficulties, and is unaware her world-famous son has died, according to the family. But Pele’s sister, Maria Lucia, who lives with her, clasped her hands and tearfully bowed her head to the massive crowd in gratitude, surrounded by family on the house’s balcony.

The funeral procession ended at the port city’s Memorial Cemetery, near the stadium, where a private funeral service will be held before Pele is interred in a 10-story mausoleum that holds the Guinness World Record as the tallest cemetery on Earth.

The cemetery said Pele’s embalmed body would rest in its coffin, displayed in the middle of a 200-square-meter (2,150-square-foot) replica football stadium with artificial turf, surrounded by gilded images from his glory days.

– ‘Pele was everything’ –
Life-long Santos fan Katia Cruz, 58, who lives a block from the stadium, said she had stood in line for four hours overnight to get into the Vila Belmiro, attending Pele’s wake without her husband because he was “inconsolable.”

“Pele was everything. He was the King. He deserves this,” she told AFP.

Tributes continued pouring in from around Brazil, which held three days of national mourning.

Rio de Janeiro’s mayor said the city would rename the street outside the iconic Maracana stadium Pele Avenue.

At the headquarters of the Brazilian Football Confederation, a giant poster with Pele’s image bore the word “eternal.”

Pele’s son Edinho said the family was grateful for the gestures.

But “any homage we can pay to him is small compared to what he represents and the life story he wrote,” he said.

“I am just so grateful and proud.”