Taking prescribed anti-seizure medicine on schedule is part of everyday life, not an optional extra.
FOOTBALL WAS THERE FIRST.
Football did not enter Eduardo’s life as therapy, publicity or a response to adversity. It was there long before any of that. He began structured football-school training in Brazil from the age of six and grew up with the same uncomplicated dream shared by millions of children: to become a footballer.
That distinction matters. His medical story did not create his love for the game. It changed the price he would sometimes have to pay to keep pursuing it.
Over the years, football would take him from Brazil to Italy and then to England. Different languages. Different coaching cultures. Different teams. But the relationship with the ball remained one of the most stable parts of his identity.
Football First
The story is not about a medical condition that found football. It is about a footballer whose journey later had to make room for a medical condition.
ONE EVENT CAN CHANGE THE MAP.
In London, Eduardo became the victim of a violent assault. It is important not to turn that event into a dramatic device for a website. Violence is not branding. It was real, serious and capable of producing consequences far beyond football.
The attack became a dividing line in his family’s memory. In the period that followed, seizures entered Eduardo’s life and epilepsy became a new medical reality to manage. What can responsibly be said is that the assault came first and the epilepsy journey followed. Questions of medical causation belong to clinicians, not to marketing.
Why the event must be treated seriously
A HEAD INJURY IS NEVER “JUST A KNOCK”.
The NHS lists a seizure after a head injury as a reason to call 999, and notes that epilepsy can sometimes result from brain damage after a head injury. That does not establish the cause of Eduardo’s individual epilepsy; it explains why the family refuses to minimise what happened.
There was a path in which the story could have ended with far more serious neurological injury. Instead, Eduardo was left with a different challenge: learning how to live, study, train, compete and plan a future while respecting a condition that cannot simply be ignored.
“The life he had planned did not disappear. It became a life that required more discipline.”DUGOL • Beyond The Pitch
NOT THE LABEL. NOT THE LIMIT.
Epilepsy affects the brain and causes seizures. It is a serious neurological condition, but no two people experience it in exactly the same way. Some people achieve good seizure control with treatment; others face a much more difficult course.
Eduardo’s position has never been that epilepsy is insignificant. Quite the opposite. Respecting the condition is precisely why routine matters so much. Medication, sleep, recovery, medical follow-up and awareness are not side notes. They form part of the work required to keep health and ambition in the same conversation.
He also never wanted the diagnosis to become a shortcut to opportunity. For a long time, the instinct was simple: be evaluated for the football first. Not because there was anything shameful to hide, but because a medical condition should not become the first lens through which a young player is judged.
The Invisible Work
What may look from the outside like a simple decision — rest, miss a late night, protect sleep, take medication on time — can be part of a much larger risk-management routine.