If you’re a lover of Brazilian culture (and particularly its sports scene), you probably have been dragged into an argument about the greatest athletic superstar of all time. In one corner is an American sports enthusiast, who will almost always trumpet the achievements of Michael Jordan, who has been dubbed by many as the man who defined professional basketball for billions around the world.

In your corner, you might inevitably go with Pelé, the man who many consider the greatest soccer player of all time.

In some ways, the two men are quite similar. After all, without the popularity of Jordan, the NBA wouldn’t have become the  worldwide brand name it is now today.

Likewise, Pelé was a superstar who not only was the idol of many in the worldwide soccer community – but he is also the athlete most responsible for taking the sport to the brave new frontier of the United States. Before he joined the New York Cosmos in 1975, soccer was a fringe sport mostly played by immigrants. His arrival thrust the Cosmos, the North American Soccer League and the sport itself into the American athletic pantheon as his team drew upwards of 70,000 fans. Today, just three decades after Pelé’s arrival inspired millions of American kids to make it the nation’s most popular youth sport, the Americans are a world power who came within one goal of shocking the Brazilians at the recent Confederations Cup.

You can keep piling up the similarities. Jordan (Chicago) and Pelé (Rio) were used as the de facto symbols and spokesmen of their citiy’s recent 2016 Summer Olympic bids. Each has made the jump to other aspects of mass culture, from major commercial   endorsements to movies (Jordan in “Space Jam,” Pelé in “Victory,” the 1981 film directed by John Hustion and also starring Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone).

But this is where you can stick it to your Jordan-loving friend: Which athlete has written and performed a song in a movie about himself? And did it alongside one of the icons of his country’s music scene?

Certainly, not Jordan. But yet, in the dusty bins of used record stores, you might find a vinyl copy of the soundtrack for the 1977 movie “Pelé.”

Released the same year that the icon retired from both the Cosmos and soccer for good, it came out on Atlantic Records – the label founded and fronted by Cosmos owner Ahmet Ertugun.

Featuring a score by Sergio Mendes, the 13-track collection also includes two songs Pelé wrote and performed for the movie: “Meu Mundo e Uma Bola,” which he sings with Gracinha, and “Cidade Grande.”

Surprisingly enough, neither track is an embarrassment. In fact, Pelé has a deep rich voice that naturally matches the softly strumming guitars and the gentle Bossa beat. He’s no Tom Jobim or Milton Nascimento, but the world’s greatest soccer player shows that he might have had a future if he had stayed in the recording studio – rather than enchanted billions with his performances on the soccer pitch.

The soundtrack itself is a mixed bag – as many always are. Mendes plays it safe and the themes get a little repetitive at times. Nonetheless, there is a special bonus for jazz fans. Saxophone legend Gerry Mulligan is featured throughout the album, even matching his baritone saxophone to Pelé on “Meu Mundo e Uma Bola.” But the best Mulligan performance may be on the album’s liveliest track “Voltando a Baurú,” where Mulligan switches to soprano saxophone to keep up with Mendes’ lively samba beat.

Long out of print, the album is now available as a Japanese import. But you can always troll through those used record bins…