Brazil football legend Pele expected to leave hospital Saturday

Soccer legends Pele (R) and Franz Beckenbauer pose for photographs after they ceremonially turned on the lights of the Empire State Building during an event to celebrate the start of the New York Cosmos 2015 season, in New York April 17, 2015. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian football legend Pele is expected to be released on Saturday after undergoing prostate surgery, the hospital treating him in Sao Paulo said on Friday. In a statement, the Albert Einstein Hospital said Pele was recuperating well after a transurethral resection of the prostate. The hospital said Pele had been treated for benign prostatic hyperplasia, or enlargement of the prostate, and that no tumours were found. According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health's website, the procedure involves removing an internal part of the prostate gland. This was the second time Pele, 74, has been hospitalized in six months. Pele, whose given name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento, was released from the same hospital in early December following a two-week stay with kidney problems. With more than 1,280 career goals, and an unequaled three World Cup titles during his playing career, Pele is considered by many the greatest football player of all-time. (Reporting by Tatiana Ramil; writing by Asher Levine and Brian Winter; Editing by David Gregorio)