Wellington Phoenix star Carlo Armiento has bravely spoken about his battle with his cancer for the first time in a video released on the club’s socials this week.
The 26-year-old revealed he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in March 2024, after being urged by his teammate at the time Nikola Mileusnic to see a doctor due to a persistent cough.
Subsequent x-rays revealed Armiento had a nine-centimetre mass in his lung, bringing his burgeoning playing career to an abrupt halt after doctors told him to “not worry” about football and focus on making a full recovery.
Armiento – who has now recovered and back to playing weekly for his new club Wellington – hopes to inspire others going through difficult times themselves by telling his life changing story.
Watch the full video here
“It was pretty crazy because you hear a lot of stories about people getting diagnosed with cancer, but you never think it’s going to happen to yourself,” Armiento said.
“It started when I had a cough for a month. I’d taken all of these medications to try to get rid of the cough. I was sick at one stage so maybe they thought it was long Covid, but it came to a point where I had a lot of reflux and I was choking when I was coughing.
“Funnily enough my teammate at the time was Nikola Mileusnic and he was on my back saying, ‘Carlo there’s something wrong, you need to go get checked’.
“So, I went to get an X-ray at Brisbane, when I was there, and they found a nine-centimetre mass inside my lung and at the time I thought it was nothing, it was just maybe a virus or something, not cancer-related.
“Then I went to the oncologist and he simply asked me, ‘What do I think it is?’ And I said, ‘I’m not quite sure’, and he goes ‘I’ll give you the two options. It’s either option one which is Hodgkin’s lymphoma or option two, well, I don’t really want to tell you that option’.
“When he told me that, the first thing I said was ‘When can I play football again?’ He said, ‘Don’t worry about football’. I think that’s the first time I’ve probably broken down there and then, because when you hear cancer, you think your life’s ending.
“I had to have a biopsy the next day and for one week, I was waiting for my results. That was probably the worst week of my life because I was just in my bed waiting for the phone to ring and waiting to hear if it was, not the good option but, the option we were hoping for. I got that call and he told me that I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and the process started from there.”
Armiento returned home to Adelaide to undergo “intense” chemotherapy and described the experience as eye-opening.
“I was in a room with people who were virtually on their deathbed, which was pretty sad to watch,” he said.
“I got talking to a couple of them and some people have months to live or weeks and then I’m there, just a 24-year-old, fit, or was fit, healthy guy who was playing professional soccer at the time. That really opened my eyes. It was pretty scary to be honest.”
During his recovery Armiento was out of contract, with the PFA stepping in to help fund his treatment.
“This is where the PFA were amazing,” he said.
“Beau [Busch] from the PFA and the whole staff there, they helped me massively. Financially, they put in a lot of money to help me because at the end of the day if I didn’t have them the treatment would be coming out of my pocket, and I was off contract, so I had no source of income after my contract was done.
“The PFA did a lot for me and I’m so grateful I had them on board.”
After his being given the all-clear from doctors to return to football, Armiento spent a season in Italy with Turis, before returning to the A-Leagues with Wellington ahead of the current campaign and has flourished, scoring twice in three games.
“I went over to Italy and I enjoyed my time there but it was the right time to come back this year because I’d gotten away from all of the cancer talk. Now I’ve come back and I’m loving my time at Wellington,” he said.
“It is just the perfect time to come out and tell this story, not for people to know what was going on, it’s for others for people who are suffering what I was suffering and think ‘s***, he can get through it, so can I’.
“I’m now feeling the best I’ve felt. I said to a few people yesterday that it’s the first time I’ve ever played back-to-back 90 minutes in my life so I think that just speaks for itself.
“Physically I’m all good. I had a one year check-up with the doctor before the pre-season started and he said I’m all clear, nothing is looking alarming. I think I’ll get it checked in four or five years’ time just to double check nothing has come back. But physically and mentally it’s the best I’ve been for a long, long time.
“I’m happy I’ve got through it and I’m enjoying football and life again. Going through it has made me stronger because I just don’t get fazed by anything now. If I have a bad training, so be it. If I have a bad game, so be it. There are so much worse things going on in this world.”
Featured image: Priyanka Rao/Wellington Phoenix
