Pelé's last match: one half for the Cosmos, one half for Santos, and the winner scored by his replacement

On the afternoon of 1 October 1977, 75,646 people filled Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, to watch Pelé play the last match of his career. At half-time he changed teams. He had worn the New York Cosmos shirt for the first 45 minutes, and he came out for the second half in the shirt of Santos, the Brazilian club where he had made his name. 12 The Cosmos won 2–1. 3

The two clubs had agreed in advance that nothing else would change at half-time. There would be no change of ends: the Cosmos would defend the west goal all afternoon, Santos the east goal, which is unusual for a football match. The only person who switched sides was Pelé. 4

A footballer appearing for both sides in the same match is impossible in a competitive fixture. This one was an exhibition: a friendly between the only two club teams Pelé had ever played for besides Brazil, arranged as a send-off at the ground the Cosmos had moved into that season. 45

The competitive season had already finished. On 28 August 1977 the Cosmos beat the Seattle Sounders 2–1 in Portland, Oregon, to win the North American Soccer League championship, and that was Pelé's last competitive game. 6 Six weeks later he had nothing left to play for except the leaving, which is what made the arrangement possible. 2

Santos went ahead in the 14th minute through Reynaldo. Pelé levelled for the Cosmos with a free kick from about 30 yards, with two minutes 34 seconds left in the first half — the last goal of his career. 27

Then he changed shirts. Playing the second half for Santos, he left the Cosmos to bring on Ramon Mifflin in his place, and Mifflin scored the winner. 3 The winning goal in Pelé's farewell match was scored by the man who replaced him, against the team he was playing for at the time. It began to rain. 2

The match was a production with a football game attached. Nine youth teams — six of boys, two of girls, and one from the Special Olympics — formed a circle on the field and their captains presented Pelé with flowers. The captains of the last five World Cup-winning squads, from 1958 to 1974, walked out together. 4

At half-time he handed his Cosmos shirt to his father, himself a former player, and was given the Santos No. 10 for the second half. The Cosmos announced that no one would ever wear their No. 10 again. 4

Before kick-off he had taken the microphone. "I want to take this opportunity to ask you... to please take more attention to the young ones, to the kids all over the world," he told the crowd. "I want to ask you — because I believe that love is the most important thing we can take from life, because everything else passes — to say with me three times, Love! Love! Love!" 3 The Times put the speech in its headline the next morning. 1

Muhammad Ali was on the field for the ceremonies, and after embracing him shouted, "Don't forget — you and I are the two greatest in the whoooole world!" Henry Kissinger was in the stands with him, along with 343 reporters, 168 photographers, 165 radio and television people and 90 film crew members. 3 When it was over, the two Cosmos goalkeepers, Shep Messing and Erol Yasin, carried Pelé around the soaked field on their shoulders; Messing remembered that when they set him down, Pelé asked for one more lap, and that he told him he could not go another round. 8 A Brazilian newspaper ran the line the next day: "Even The Sky Was Crying." 28

The crowd has more than one figure attached to it. The report the next morning says 75,646; the pre-match preview had the stadium's capacity at 76,500 and said the show was oversold by several thousand tickets; later retellings round the crowd up to 77,000. 148

The order of the halves is easy to get backwards, and at least one anniversary piece gives the first half to Santos. The preview written before the match, the paper's report afterwards and the encyclopaedic record all put the Cosmos first. 2478

His career total depends on what gets counted, and the quoted numbers differ by design. FIFA's figure, repeated in most retellings, is 1,281 goals in 1,363 games, which counts friendly club matches and games Pelé played for Brazilian armed-forces and São Paulo state teams. Guinness World Records recognises 1,279 goals in 1,363 games. The RSSSF archive counts 1,301 goals in 1,390 appearances, friendlies and tour games included. 28

The No. 10 announcement is worth quoting with its date attached. The Cosmos said at half-time in 1977 that the shirt would never be worn again, and then, as the club was revived for a 2014 relaunch, announced that it would retire Pelé's No. 10 — 37 years after it already had. 49

What the afternoon left behind is the arrangement itself: the last game of a career staged so that the man being honoured could wear one club's shirt and then the other's, in a match won by the substitute who took his place. 34