''To watch him play was to watch the delight of a child combined with the extraordinary grace of a man in full.'' -- Nelson Mandela.

___

''I told myself before the game, he's made of skin and bones just like everyone else _ but I was wrong.'' -- Italy's Tarcisio Burgnich, after playing against Pele in the 1970 World Cup Final.

___

''Pele was one of the few who contradicted my theory: Instead of 15 minutes of fame, he will have 15 centuries.'' -- Andy Warhol.

___

''I sometimes feel as though football was invented for this magical player.'' -- Sir Bobby Charlton, retired England great who won 1966 World Cup and Ballon d'Or in same year.

___

''Pele was the only footballer who surpassed the boundaries of logic.'' -- Johan Cruyff, the late Dutch star and standout manager who won the Ballon d'Or three times.

___

''He is the most complete player I ever saw.'' -- Retired German great Franz Beckenbauer.

___

''If you take the qualities of Cristiano Ronaldo and (Lionel) Messi, put them together, then you'd have a player to compare to Pele!'' -- Retired Brazil forward Tostao.

___

''The best player ever? Pele. (Lionel) Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are both great players with specific qualities, but Pele was better.'' -- Alfredo Di Stefano, the late Argentine star for Real Madrid.

___

''His great secret was improvisation. Those things he did were in one moment. He had an extraordinary perception of the game.'' -- Brazil defender Carlos Alberto Torres.

___

''This debate about the player of the century is absurd. There's only one possible answer: Pele. He's the greatest player of all time, and by some distance, I might add.'' -- Retired Brazil star Zico.

___

''The greatest player in history was Di Stefano. I refuse to classify Pele as a player. He was above that.'' -- Hungary star Ferenc Puskas.

___

''We went up together to head a ball. I was taller, had a better impulse. When I came back down, I looked up in astonishment. Pele was still there, in the air, heading that ball. It was like he could stay suspended for as long as he wanted to.'' -- Italy defender Giacinto Facchetti.

___

''When I saw Pele play, it made me feel I should hang up my boots.'' -- Just Fontaine, the Morocco-born French star who scored 13 goals in six games in the 1958 World Cup.

___

''The moment the ball arrived at Pele's feet, football transformed into poetry.'' -- Italian poet Pier Paolo Pasolini.

___

''The difficulty, the extraordinary, is not to score 1,000 goals like Pele - it's to score one goal like Pele.'' -- Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Brazilian poet.

___

''Pele was the most complete player I've ever seen. Two good feet. Magic in the air. Quick. Powerful. Could beat people with skill. Could outrun people. Only 5-feet-8 inches tall, yet he seemed a giant of an athlete on the pitch. Perfect balance and impossible vision.'' -- Bobby Moore, captain of the 1966 World Cup champion team from England.

___

''I arrived hoping to stop a great man, but I went away convinced I had been undone by someone who was not born on the same planet as the rest of us.'' -- Benfica goalkeeper Costa Pereira after 5-2 loss to Santos.

___

''There's Pele the man, and then Pele the player. And to play like Pele is to play like God.'' -- Retired France star and three-time Ballon d'Or winner Michel Platini.

___

''Pele is the greatest player in football history, and there will only be one Pele in the world.'' -- Cristiano Ronaldo, Portugal star forward.

(For more sports news and updates, follow Ahram Online Sports on Twitter at @AO_Sports and on Facebook at AhramOnlineSports.)