(Sao Paulo) One of Pelé’s daughters said Wednesday that she and her family are going through times of sadness and despair as the 82-year-old Brazilian soccer great has been hospitalized for almost a month.
The three-time World Cup winner’s cancer has progressed and doctors at Albert Einstein Hospital recently said he was in ‘high care’ due to ‘kidney and heart dysfunction’.
Pelé was admitted to the Sao Paulo facility on November 29. The hospital has not released any news for the past week.
“These moments are difficult to explain. Sometimes it’s a lot of sadness and despair, other times we laugh and talk about funny memories,” Kely Nascimento posted on Instagram.
Other family members are also in the hospital.
“And what we learn the most from all of this is that we have to look for each other, to hold each other close. It’s the only way to make it worth it. All together,” she wrote.
One of Pele’s sons, Edson Cholbi Nascimento, known as Edinho, visited him on Saturday but returned on Tuesday to a town in southern Brazil where he works as a soccer coach. He has not spoken to reporters since leaving Sao Paulo.
Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known to the world as Pelé, had a colon tumor removed in September 2021. Neither his family nor the hospital said whether it had spread to other organs. .
The newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported last weekend that Pele’s chemotherapy was not working and doctors had decided to place him in hospice care. Pelé’s family denied this information.
Pelé led Brazil to victory in the 1958, 1962 and 1970 World Cups and remains one of the top scorers in team history with 77 goals. Neymar equaled Pelé’s record at the last World Cup.