The stadium where football great Pelé played some of the best matches of his career will also hold his funeral on Monday and Tuesday. The burial will be on Tuesday.

Santos, the club where Pelé played in Brazil, said in a statement that the public will be able to pay their final respects at Vila Belmiro Stadium, outside Sao Paulo.

Outside Sao Paulo’s Albert Einstein hospital, where Pele had been undergoing treatment, fans gathered to mourn the loss of one of the greatest-ever exponents of the beautiful game, displaying Pele memorabilia on a clothesline by the entrance.

“I’ll never forget him,” said 67-year-old Antonio da Paz. “He provided us with joy even in our saddest times.”

Santos said the coffin carrying the three-time World Cup champion — who died at 82 on Thursday after a long battle with cancer — will leave the hospital early on Monday morning and will be placed in the centre circle of the field.

Visitation will start at 10am on Monday and finish the next day at the same time.

Pelé’s casket will be carried through the streets of Santos and will pass in front of the home of his 100-year-old mother, Celeste. Recent reports in Brazilian media say Pelé’s mother cannot leave her bed and is not lucid.

The burial will take place at the Memorial Necrópole Ecumênica, a vertical cemetery in Santos, on Tuesday where only family will attend.

Pelé has a home in Santos, where he lived most of his life. He spent his last years in Guarujá. He had a colon tumour removed in September 2021. Neither his family nor the hospital have said whether it had spread to other organs. He returned to the hospital on November 29 with Covid-19 and a respiratory infection.