Brazil 2-0 Soviet Union (1958)
By Conor Hogan
The date was 15 June 1958, the place was Ullevi, Gothenburg.
Brazil had already secured qualification to the quarter-finals after their first two matches of the 1958 World Cup (a comfortable 3-0 victory over Austria and a scoreless draw against England). Their final group game was a fairly routine 2-0 victory over the Soviet Union.
Atletico Madrid striker Vava scored both goals in that match, but the game is best remembered for the World Cup debut of a young footballer, who was just 17 years and 239 days old at the time. His name was Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known to you and me as Pele.
In 1956, and at the age of just 15, Pele made his debut for Brazilian club Santos. He made an immediate impression, and was top scorer in the Brazilian league in 1957. Just ten months after starting for Santos, he was being called into the Brazilian national team.
In Sweden, he became the youngest man to ever play in the World Cup, a record that would stand until 1982 (when it was broken by Norman Whiteside). Pele, who was nursing a knee injury, had an good if not outstanding game against the USSR. However, he would be the undoubted star of rest of that World Cup.
He scored his first World Cup goal against Wales in the quarters, before proceeding to help himself to a hat-trick against France in the semis, and two goals in the final against the hosts Sweden (in a 5-2 victory). It would be the first of three winning medals for ‘the black pearl’, who would go on to score 77 goals for his country, and over 1000 for his club.
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