These are hours of concern for the conditions of Toto Schillaci, that was hospitalized. The former Juventus, Inter and national team player was taken to the Civico hospital in Palermo and is under observation. Schillaci, 59, was previously in another hospital in the Sicilian capital but in the last few hours he was taken to the Civico and developments on his condition are awaited. The situation is causing concern throughout the world of football and beyond.
INSIGHTS
How is Totò Schillaci? The latest
Salvatore has rectal cancer (a part of the colon) that was initially local and then transformed into metastatic cancer.
He also contracted a bad pneumonia and is currently on high oxygen flows. The conditions are quite worrying.
The family’s message
Meanwhile, Schillaci’s family has given a statement on the former footballer’s condition via an Instagram story: “Given the countless calls from many newspapers and given the bad news circulating, we inform you that our beloved Totò is in stable conditions and is being monitored by teams of doctors continuously, night and day. Forza Totò”.
Totò Schillaci, hero of Italia ’90
Schillaci, 59, also talked about his illness, the therapies, the fear at the time of diagnosis and then the illness that marked him. An illness that he had defeated and that now would return. A career in Messina that then landed at Juventus, Inter and Jubilo Iwata (Japan), more than 200 goals, a sporting life that culminated in the 1990 World Cup where he was top scorer with 6 goals and the face of the magical blue nights, dragging Vicini’s national team to dream of the World Cup but finishing third. A career, which ended in football in Japan, that began on the asphalt of the Cep neighborhood, one of the most popular and difficult in the capital. A modest family, three brothers and a sister, his father, who was a bricklayer, was always his biggest fan and accompanied him everywhere just to let him play. He worked as a tire dealer, a pastry shop boy, a street vendor. Until his recruitment in Messina. Schillaci was at the La Maddalena oncology clinic when, on January 16, 2023, the boss Messina Denaro was arrested. “It was 8.15 in the morning – he himself said – I was waiting for my check-up, because there I am being treated by doctors Mezzatesta and Mandalà. I had just finished breakfast at the bar, in an instant I found myself surrounded by hooded people with guns drawn. I thought it was an attack. Then the carabinieri identified themselves, but for a moment I and those around me were scared, there was confusion”. “A person like Messina Denaro who walks around the city calmly and goes to the clinic like any other citizen, makes me think. I have my own theory, but it’s good if a problem that had been dragging on for thirty years has been solved”, he commented. The former bomber also managed for years a sports center for young people. “I love Palermo and it really bothers me to see it associated only with crime, because it offers so many beautiful things. We need to invest in the neighborhoods, that’s true, taking young people off the streets. I took over the sports center, Louis Ribolla, in a popular area, precisely to give back something of what the city gave me”, he said. In 2004 he participated in the Island of the Famous, a year ago he participated with his wife Barbara in the program Beijing Express. Shortly before, he had undergone two operations for cancer. “The show,” he said, “was a revenge on the disease that made me suffer so much.” Now the new worsening.