sao paulo football great pele said on thursday he is feeling better and joked that he cant wait to get back to playing the beautiful game just two weeks after leaving hospital following surgery on a colon tumorthe 80yearold spent a month in a sao paulo hospital recovering from his operation while also receiving chemotherapythanks to god im better im even ready to play on sunday he jokedin all seriousness thank you for everything thank you to everyone that has sent me hugs and given me strength he added in a video message published on the instagram accounts of two of his childrenhe underwent surgery on september 4 after a routine checkup had detected the suspicious looking tumorthe results of his biopsy have not been made public and neither the player his family nor the medical center where he received treatment have commented on whether the tumor was cancerous although chemotherapy is typically used to treat cancerpele who turns 81 in just over a week is widely considered one of the greatest footballers of all timea former striker he scored more than 1000 goals during his career which is officially recognized as a recordhe is the only player in history to have won the world cup three times and also coined the phrase the beautiful game to describe football