Thousands of Brazil fans swarmed the Lusail stadium on Saturday as they held ‘Pele get well soon’ flags at the start of Brazil’s final group G encounter against Cameroon.
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Brazilian football legend Pele is fighting a battle with cancer and was admitted to hospital recently. The 82-year-old is a triple World Champion, starring in Brazil’s World Cup triumphs in 1958, 1962, and 1970 and scored 12 World Cup goals in his illustrious career.
On Tuesday Pele wrote a post on Instagram
where he said that he was on his monthly visit to the hospital, thanked his
fans for the good vibes and also was grateful to Qatar for the wishes for his
recovery.
Brazil’s coach Tite said that the country’s
final Group G encounter against Cameroon was dedicated to Pele. “All of us want to wish good health to Pele, our greatest representative, the
extraterrestrial who is terrestrial. Good health, our solidarity to
everyone,” Tite was quoted to have said by Marta.
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As per
FIFA’s records, Pele is the highest goal scorer in football history with 1,281
goals in 1363 matches. He is also Brazil’s highest goal scorer with 77 goals
and is trailed by Neymar Jr with 75. With Neymar not having featured in Brazil’s
World Cup matches after the opening encounter with Serbia owing to injuries,
Pele’s record is expected to stand for a little while longer.
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Five-time
world champions Brazil are trying to end a 20-year-long World Cup drought and have
started this event in the best possible manner, cruising to wins over Serbia (2-0)
and Switzerland (1-0).
The World number one has already reached
the round of 16 with a game to spare and with a win over Cameroon, can become
the first side at this World Cup to enter the knockouts with a perfect score of
9/9 (three wins in as many games).
