In the small Brazilian town of Três Corações, where the roads were cracked and the houses leaned ...

In the small Brazilian town of Três Corações, where the roads were cracked and the houses leaned tiredly against time, mornings began with dust rising under bare feet and evenings ended with silence broken only by distant laughter, and it was here that Pelé first learned that life itself was a struggle long before football ever became a dream. Children played wherever space allowed—between walls, beside drains, across empty lots—but Pelé played differently, his eyes always fixed on