Brazil soccer legend Pele's family gather at hospital bedside
The Hindu
Doctors said this week that Pele's cancer had advanced
Brazilian soccer legend Pele's family members gathered at the Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo on December 24, where the 82-year-old, widely considered one of the greatest footballers of all time, has been since late November.
Doctors said this 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 over Christmas.
Pele has received regular medical treatment since a tumor 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 in goal for Santos in the 1990s, posted a picture of himself holding his father's hand to Instagram on Saturday, with the caption "Father... my strength is yours."
He has worn India’s blues, albeit in an Under-19 World Cup, with K.L. Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Harshal Patel and Jaydev Unadkat as his teammates. He has proudly adorned the Lion’s Crest — the famed Mumbai cricket logo — in all three formats. He has played with Yuvraj Singh, against Virat Kohli and Rahul Dravid and has the likes of Rahul and Joe Root in his illustrious list of dismissals. He is also a software developer for an IT giant, based in California. Virtually every middle-class Indian over the last three decades at some stage dreams of being either a cricketer or an IT professional. Saurabh Netravalkar has been combining two dreams, even after relocating to USA to pursue academics at the prestigious Cornell University in 2015.