Seventeen Years, 239 Days: The Boy Who Broke Football

# Seventeen Years, 239 Days: The Boy Who Broke Football

1958. Sweden. Quarterfinal. Brazil vs Wales. A skinny kid named Edson — nobody called him Pele yet — received the ball in the box. Seventeen years, 239 days old. He flicked it over a defender's head and volleyed home. Youngest goalscorer in World Cup history. Still standing. Sixty-eight years.

Days later, semifinal vs France: hat-trick. Final vs Sweden: two goals — including lobbing the ball over a defender, running around him, and volleying. A seventeen-year-old. In a World Cup final.

Pele was also the youngest player in a final, and the youngest champion. These three records would have crushed anyone. Pele just cried. Sat on the grass after the final whistle and sobbed. The world looked at this seventeen-year-old child, this impossible child, and understood: football had just changed forever.