How Many World Cups Did Pele Win? The Story of Three Titles

Pele won three World Cups, lifting the trophy with Brazil in 1958, 1962 and 1970. No other player has won three. The three tournaments could not be less alike: one gave him six goals in four matches, one ended for him with an injury in the second group game, and one came eight years later in Mexico. At Fizbal, every film sets out to tell the story behind each soccer legend, and few stories run as long as this one.

Which World Cups did Pele win?

Pele won the World Cup with Brazil in 1958 in Sweden, 1962 in Chile and 1970 in Mexico.

Across four tournaments (1958, 1962, 1966 and 1970), Pele scored 12 goals in 14 World Cup matches. Each tournament’s top scorer has a list of its own, the World Cup Golden Boot winners. For every tournament and every champion, the full record sits in World Cup history.

The story of each title

Pele’s three titles came across twelve years. Each tournament is its own story.

1958: the teenager in Sweden

Sweden 1958 was the tournament where Pele first played a World Cup, and he did not appear in Brazil’s opening two matches. Once in the team, he scored the only goal against Wales in the quarterfinal, a hat-trick in the second half of the 5-2 semifinal against France on June 24, 1958, and twice in the 5-2 final against Sweden, the hosts, in Stockholm on June 29, 1958. He ended the tournament with six goals in four matches, Brazil won its first world title, and the name O Rei, the King, dates from that tournament. Four years later, in Chile, a very different story was waiting.

1962: the injury in Chile

The moment came early in Chile: Pele scored against Mexico on May 30, 1962, then suffered an injury in the second group match, a 0-0 draw with Czechoslovakia in Vina del Mar on June 2, 1962, and took no further part. Amarildo took his place, Garrincha carried the team, and Brazil beat Czechoslovakia 3-1 in the final in Santiago on June 17, 1962. At the time, winners’ medals went only to the players on the field in the final, so Pele had none for 1962 until FIFA announced in November 2007 that every member of the winning squads from 1930 to 1974 would receive one. The wait for a third title would run eight years.

1970: the team in Mexico

Brazil’s 1970 side in Mexico gave Pele his third and last World Cup. In the final, Brazil beat Italy 4-1 at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City on June 21, 1970; Pele headed the opening goal, and he laid the ball off for Carlos Alberto to score the fourth. Brazil won all six of its matches in Mexico, scoring 19 goals, and as the first nation to win three World Cups it kept the Jules Rimet Trophy. The tournament has kept producing champions ever since, and you can go on to find out who won the 2026 World Cup.

Why has no one else won three World Cups?

Pele’s record stands because a career at the top rarely covers three tournaments played four years apart.

• A peak has to survive the four-year cycle three times, at least eight years from a first final to a third, and 1958 to 1970 took Pele twelve.
• Garrincha (1958, 1962), Cafu (1994, 2002, and the only player to appear in three straight finals, 1994, 1998 and 2002), and Ronaldo Nazario (1994, in the squad without playing, and 2002) all stopped at two.
• Lionel Messi won in 2022 with Argentina and lost the 2026 final to Spain after extra time, and he retired from the Argentina team on August 31, 2026.

What happened to Pele after 1970?

Pele stayed at Santos until 1974, joined the New York Cosmos in 1975, and spent the rest of his life as the game’s best-known ambassador; he died in Sao Paulo on December 29, 2022. His playing days wound down in New York while the public roles ran on for decades.

• His last match for Brazil was a 2-2 draw with Yugoslavia on July 18, 1971, and his last for Santos came on October 2, 1974, against Ponte Preta.
• He led the New York Cosmos to the 1977 league title. His last match, on October 1, 1977, was the Cosmos against Santos, and he played a half for each side.
• He was a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and for UNICEF, UNESCO’s Champion for Sport from 1994, and Brazil’s minister for sport from 1995.
• A widely repeated but disputed account says Nigeria’s civil war paused for 48 hours so both sides could watch Santos play there in 1969, but newspapers of the time that covered the tour report no ceasefire, and Pele wrote in 2007 that he was not sure it was completely true.

For his claim set against the other greats, Fizbal keeps every era judged in one place.

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