A 17-year-old Pelé cries on the shoulder of goalkeeper Gilmar after Brazil's 5-2 victory over Sweden in the 1958 World Cup final in Stockholm. Photograph: AP
Pelé's iconic blue No 10 Brazil shirt from the 1958 World Cup final is expected to fetch around £4.5 million ($6 million) at auction, making it one of the most expensive football artefacts ever sold. The shirt was worn by the Brazilian legend when he scored two goals in the 5-2 win over Sweden, securing Brazil's first World Cup title and cementing his place in football history.
Auction Details
Sotheby's will auction the shirt in New York in July. The auction house anticipates the shirt will sell for more than $6 million, placing it behind only Diego Maradona's "Hand of God" jersey from the 1986 World Cup, which sold for $9.3 million in 2022. A collection of six Lionel Messi shirts from the 2022 Qatar World Cup fetched $7.8 million in 2023.
Condition and Significance
Brendan Hawkes, Sotheby's vice president of sport strategy, described the shirt as being in extraordinary condition for its age. "It's just a really vibrant blue colour with the Brazil yellow on the back. One of the things that struck me when I actually first handled it was how small it was. Pelé wasn't a very large man and he wore this shirt when he was 17. He was a lean young kid at that point, and if you look at the pictures from that match, the shirt is actually quite small on him."
Pelé finished the 1958 tournament with six goals in four matches and remains the youngest player to appear in a World Cup final. After the game, he gave the shirt to his roommate Didi, and it remained in Didi's family until 1993, when it was donated to the Museu dos Esportes Edvaldo Alves Santa Rosa in Brazil. The museum offered the shirt at auction in London in 2004, where it sold for £59,000. Now, due to the boom in sports memorabilia, it is expected to fetch nearly 100 times that amount when bidding closes on 16 July.
Historical Context
Pelé revealed in his autobiography that some teammates worried wearing blue against Sweden would be a "bad omen." However, Dr Paulo, the head of the delegation, turned it around cleverly, saying blue would be lucky as it was the colour of Brazil's patron saint, Nossa Senhora de Aparecida, and had served previous teams well. And so it proved.
