Take a look at this video of Pele’s top twenty goals.

What stands out? Is that Samba magic, like Ronaldinho juggling the ball and teasing the defenders. Not really. His runs from the halfway line down to the goal, dancing effortlessly pass opposing defenders like he was Mikhail Barishnikov? Not so much. What about devastating speed? Not that either.

These things happened, but it’s not what stands out.

You could even argue that Pele was very different from the Platonic ideal of the Brazilian footballer.

Firstly, he was known at his peak as the best header of the ball alive and thrived off his teammates launching balls into the air in front of the goal, rather than them delicately slipping past defenders to feed him the ball.

Part and parcel of that was that he was a power player. He does jink past defenders in tight areas, but his moves are efficient rather than flashy. No step-overs for him. When a defender does get on him he uses his physical strength to hold them off and stay on his feet. Most importantly, he goes direct for goal.

You could say he’s a classic poacher, haunting the eighteen yard box for a ball to latch on to. When he finds such a ball, he was absolutely clinical with the finish. Which is also why he also put away a lot of rebounds, because he always stayed as close as he could to the goal.

Even his long distance strikes are poacher’s goals. What do I mean? That he’s not taking speculative shots. He sees that a opposing defender is screening him from the goalie, so that the goalie won’t be able to clearly see him take the shot. He also sees the open space in the goal. He’s not trying for the spectacular, he’s just always looking for the smallest opening to strike.