33 years ago on October 1st: Pele's last match.

They say all good things must come to an end and that proved to be true today in 1977 as the career of the world’s most famous footballer came to a close, as Brazilian legend Pele played his last game at Giants Stadium in New York.

For the last three years Pele had been plying his trade for the New York Cosmos in the short-lived NASL, where he shared the pitch with the likes of Franz Beckenbauer, Carlos Alberto and Giorgio Chinaglia. His final game was a friendly with Santos, the only other club side he had played for during his illustrious twenty-one year old career.

As was the case with the NASL, hype and over exuberance were the order of the day. Covered by 650 journalists from 38 nations, the game was the hottest ticket in town, and the Cosmos had unintentionally over-sold the fixture, as almost 100,000 had managed to buy tickets for the 77,000 capacity stadium. A public relations disaster, and a host of lawsuits were narrowly avoided when the organisers gave out refunds and free tickets for future games.

Celeb-spotters had a field-day also, as President Jimmy Carter made a speech for Pele and he was joined in the dressing by a certain Muhammad Ali, who characteristically said that “I don’t know if he’s a good player, but I’m definitely prettier than him.” He would later admit that “now there are two of the greatest,” confirming their place as the planets two most recognisable sports stars.
The game itself saw Pele play the first half for the Cosmos, where he would score his final goal with a thirty-yard free kick, and the second half for Santos. At half-time Pele’s number ten shirt was retired and full-time saw yet more speeches and flag-waving amongst the pomp and circumstance of the day. The only sour note of the day was the fact that it was pouring it down with rain by the end of the game, but a Brazilian newspaper explained that it was because “even the sky was crying.”