How tall was Pelé?

Pelé is commonly listed at 5 ft 8 in (173 cm).

A figure repeated without a date or a measurement. Where this height comes from

Pelé’s 5 ft 8 in (173 cm) is a little below average for a US man: about 39 in 100 US men are shorter.

Where your height falls Everyone about 5 ft 8 in

Pelé beside others

Pelé is one of the shorter association football players we have heights for: Jan Koller (6 ft 7.5 in) stands 11.5 in (29 cm) taller and Chanathip Songkrasin (5 ft 2 in) is 6 in (15 cm) shorter. All 207 ranked, tallest first.

Douglas Costa: 5 ft 7.5 in (172 cm), 0.4 in (1 cm) shorter than Pelé.
Marcelo Vieira: 5 ft 8.5 in (174 cm), 0.4 in (1 cm) taller than Pelé.
Philippe Coutinho: 5 ft 7.5 in (172 cm), 0.4 in (1 cm) shorter than Pelé.

More association football players, most looked up first

Where this height comes from

5 ft 8 in (173 cm)

A commonly listed height: it appears across many profiles, but none says when or how it was measured, so shoes and rounding may be part of the number.

Photo: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, cropped.

Compared with Pelé

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Cite this page

APA	Heightvs. (2026, November 3). How tall was Pelé? 5 ft 8 in (173 cm), drawn beside you. https://heightvs.com/how-tall/pele
MLA	“How Tall Was Pelé? 5 ft 8 in (173 cm), Drawn Beside You.” Heightvs, 3 Nov. 2026, heightvs.com/how-tall/pele.
Chicago	“How Tall Was Pelé? 5 ft 8 in (173 cm), Drawn Beside You.” Heightvs. Last modified November 3, 2026. https://heightvs.com/how-tall/pele.
Link	<a href="https://heightvs.com/how-tall/pele">How tall was Pelé? 5 ft 8 in (173 cm), drawn beside you (Heightvs)</a>

Draw yourself beside Pelé

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Pelé, 5 ft 8 in (173 cm), drawn to scale beside the average US man, 5 ft 9 in (175 cm), and the average US woman, 5 ft 3.5 in (161 cm)