Pelé, the Brazil­ian king of soc­cer who won a record three World Cups and be­came one of the most com­mand­ing sports fig­ures of the last cen­tu­ry, died Thurs­day. He was 82.

The stan­dard-bear­er of “the beau­ti­ful game” had un­der­gone treat­ment for colon can­cer since 2021. He had been hos­pi­tal­ized for the last month with mul­ti­ple ail­ments.

His agent Joe Fra­ga con­firmed his death.

Wide­ly re­gard­ed as one of soc­cer’s great­est play­ers, Pelé spent near­ly two decades en­chant­i­ng fans and daz­zling op­po­nents as the game’s most pro­lif­ic scor­er with Brazil­ian club San­tos and the Brazil na­tion­al team.

His grace, ath­leti­cism and mes­mer­iz­ing moves trans­fixed play­ers and fans. He or­ches­trat­ed a fast, flu­id style that rev­o­lu­tion­ized the sport — a sam­ba-like flair that per­son­i­fied his coun­try’s el­e­gance on the field.

He car­ried Brazil to soc­cer’s heights and be­came a glob­al am­bas­sador for his sport in a jour­ney that be­gan on the streets of Sao Paulo state, where he would kick a sock stuffed with news­pa­pers or rags.

In the con­ver­sa­tion about soc­cer’s great­est play­ers, on­ly the late Diego Maradona, Li­onel Mes­si and Cris­tiano Ronal­do are men­tioned along­side Pelé.

Dif­fer­ent sources, count­ing dif­fer­ent sets of games, list Pelé’s goal to­tals any­where be­tween 650 (league match­es) and 1,281 (all se­nior match­es, some against low-lev­el com­pe­ti­tion.)

The play­er who would be dubbed “The King” was in­tro­duced to the world at 17 at the 1958 World Cup in Swe­den, the youngest play­er ever at the tour­na­ment. He was car­ried off the field on team­mates’ shoul­ders af­ter scor­ing two goals in Brazil’s 5-2 vic­to­ry over the host coun­try in the fi­nal.

In­jury lim­it­ed him to just two games when Brazil re­tained the world ti­tle in 1962, but Pelé was the em­blem of his coun­try’s World Cup tri­umph of 1970 in Mex­i­co. He scored in the fi­nal and set up Car­los Al­ber­to with a non­cha­lant pass for the last goal in a 4-1 vic­to­ry over Italy.

The im­age of Pelé in a bright, yel­low Brazil jer­sey, with the No. 10 stamped on the back, re­mains alive with soc­cer fans every­where. As does his trade­mark goal cel­e­bra­tion -- a leap with a right fist thrust high above his head.

Pelé’s fame was such that in 1967 fac­tions of a civ­il war in Nige­ria agreed to a brief cease-fire so he could play an ex­hi­bi­tion match in the coun­try. He was knight­ed by Britain’s Queen Eliz­a­beth II in 1997. When he vis­it­ed Wash­ing­ton to help pop­u­lar­ize the game in North Amer­i­ca, it was the U.S. pres­i­dent who stuck out his hand first.