BRAZILIAN football legend Pele and his family are spending Christmas together in hospital.
The family members of the football great gathered at the Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo today, where the 82-year-old, widely considered the greatest footballer of all time, has been since late November.
Doctors said earlier in the week that Pele’s cancer had advanced and that he requires care related to renal and cardiac dysfunction. His family said he would remain in a Sao Paulo hospital until after Christmas.
Pele has received regular medical treatment since a tumour was removed from his colon in September last year.
“Almost all of them. Merry Christmas. Gratitude, love, togetherness, family. The essence of Christmas. We thank you all for all the love and light you send,” his daughter Kely Nascimento wrote on Instagram with a picture of their family in the hospital.
Pele’s son Edinho, who played as a goalkeeper for his dad’s old club Santos in the 1990s, posted a picture of himself holding his father’s hand to Instagram today, with the caption “Father… my strength is yours.”
Pele is a true legend of his sport, which he once famously referred to as the ‘beautiful game’, scoring twice in the 1958 World Cup final as a 17-year-old as Brazil won their first title in 1958.
He won two more World Cups with Brazil and was his country’s all-time international top scorer until recently.
