The World has bid farewell to a historic football legend Pele who was laid to rest in his hometown of Santos after decades of belonging to the world. His burial concluded a 24 hours public memorial that attracted 230,000 mourners including Brazil's President Lula da Silva. On Tuesday, mourners lined the streets of Santos, Brazil's coastal city, as Pele's body was carried in a black casket from the Vila Belmiro stadium to the Necropole Ecumenica Memorial Cemetery, where he was laid to rest. A band greeted the coffin as it entered the cemetery, playing a Catholic hymn and the team song for the local Santos football team, where Pele played for much of his career. Fans also serenaded the coffin with samba music to tribute to the fallen sports star.  Pele was buried close to the graves of his father, aunt, brother, and daughter in a 200-square-meter mausoleum. His final resting place will be decorated like a football stadium, with images of his career highlights. 

High school kids to Supreme Court justices were among the mourners, and each one of them waited in line for hours to pay their respects to Pele in the historic century-old stadium where he helped his hometown team become one of Brazil's best. Pele not only grew up in Santos but also made the city a global center of football by becoming famous there. He is still the only player to have ever won three World Cups. A very hard performance to achieve in the sporting world. Some people expressed disappointment that some of Brazil’s most famous footballers were not in attendance. Rows of shirts with Pele’s number 10 were lined up behind one of the goalposts, waving in the city’s summer breeze. A section of the stands was filling up with bouquets of flowers placed by mourners and sent by clubs and star players – Neymar and Ronaldo among them – from around the world as loudspeakers played a song called Eu sou Pele (I am Pele) that was recorded by the Brazilian himself.

Tuesday morning, the just sworn-in President Lula arrived by helicopter and stood by Pele's casket in the middle of the field. Fans continued to pass by the casket as he attended a Catholic liturgy and offered Marcia Aoki, Pele's widow, his condolences. “Few Brazilians carried the name of our country as far as he did,” Lula said last week after Pele’s death. Pele was arguably the most well-known athlete in the world throughout the 1960s and 1970s. He had encounters with presidents and queens; in Nigeria, a civil war was put on hold to watch him play. He is credited by many Brazilians with introducing their nation to the world stage. Celebrities and authorities also paid their respects. One of the first people to arrive at the tribute on Monday was FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who declared he would ask football federations all around the world to name a stadium after the famous sports personnel. Pele may be gone, but his legacy will go on forever.