Garrincha

At 49 years old, Garrincha has this physical status:

Garrincha was already married and a parent when he signed for Botafogo in 1953. Team officials were ecstatic to learn that he was over 18 and able to be treated as a professional. In his first training session, he demonstrated his extraordinary skills by dribbling the ball through the legs of Nílton Santos, a Brazilian international defender and defensive midfielder who had 16 international caps. Santos was so impressed with the young Garrincha, he asked that Botafogo sign him. He played in a 5–0 win for Botafogo's reserves and then scored a hat trick on his first-team début against Bonsucesso on 19 July 1953.

Garrincha continued to play brilliantly, but Brazil had other talented players in his position, notably Julinho and together with a new European style of play centered on teamwork, he was not named in the squad for the 1954 World Cup. He helped Botafogo win the Campeonato Carioca in 1957 by scoring 20 goals in 26 games finishing second in the league scoring charts and this convinced the national team selectors to name him to the 1958 World Cup squad. After the 1962 World Cup, Garrincha returned to Rio and carried Botafogo to victory in the 1962 Campeonato Carioca final against Flamengo. Garrincha played for Botafogo for 12 years, the bulk of his professional career. He won the Campeonato Carioca three times with them, scored 232 goals in 581 matches, and became a symbol of the history of the club.

In 1966, with his career declining, he was sold to Corinthians. Two years later, he signed for Colombian team Atlético Junior. The same year he went back to Brazil and joined Flamengo, where he would stay until 1969. In 1971, there were rumours that Garrincha, 38, would join French club Red Star, but he never signed and stayed in Brazil.

An entertainer renowned for his dribbling skills in taking on opposing players, Garrincha inspiring the first bullfighting chants of olé to be used at football grounds; during a 1958 club game for Botafogo he gave a footballing lesson to River Plate defender Vairo, constantly teasing, feinting and going past him to ole's from the crowd, and when he "forgot" the ball and sprinted away with Vairo running after him the chants of olés changed to laughter. Garrincha's professional career as a footballer lasted until 1972, when he played for Olaria, but he played occasional exhibition matches until 1982.

Garrincha was subject to numerous transfer attempts by rich European clubs like Juventus of Turin, Italy who tried to sign him in 1954. Real Madrid of Spain tried to sign him in 1959 after some stunning performances by him on a tour of Europe. Internazionale, AC Milan and Juventus of Italy considered jointly signing him in 1963 (he would have to spend a season with each); a deal that would have been unique in football.

International career

Garrincha played 50 international matches for Brazil between 1955 and 1966, and was a starter for the national team in the 1958, 1962 and 1966 World Cups. Brazil lost only one match with him on the pitch, against Hungary at the 1966 World Cup. This was the last time Garrincha played in National team. Pelé did not play the game against Hungary, and thus Brazil never lost when Garrincha and Pelé were in the same lineup.

His first cap was against Chile in Rio de Janeiro in 1955. He played two matches at the Copa América of 1957 and four in the 1959 edition, Brazil finished runners up in both editions.

On 29 May, ten days before the 1958 World Cup finals started, Garrincha scored one of his most famous goals, against Fiorentina in Italy. He beat four defenders and the goalkeeper, before stopping on the goal line. Rather than kicking the ball into the open goal, he then dribbled past the returning Enzo Robotti to score. Despite his stunning performance his coaches were upset at what they considered an irresponsible move and this likely led to Garrincha not being picked for Brazil's first two matches of the 1958 tournament. However, he did start their third match against the USSR; this match marked the debut of both Garrincha and Pelé (although Garrincha was seven years older than Pele, both being born in October, respectively in 1933 and in 1940). The Soviets were one of the favourites for the tournament, and the Brazilians had been nervous about playing them. Their manager, Vicente Feola, decided to attack directly from the kickoff. Garrincha received the ball on the right wing, beat three opposing players and took a shot which hit the post. With the match still less than a minute old, he set up a chance for Pelé, who hit the crossbar, and continually caused problems for the Soviet defence. Brazil were so impressive in the opening moments that the game's start is often referred to as "the best three minutes of football of all time". Brazil won the match 2–0.

Following the Brazilians' narrow 1–0 quarter-final win against Wales on 19 June 1958, Mel Hopkins (the fullback who faced him that game) described Garrincha as "a phenomenon, capable of sheer magic. It was difficult to know which way he was going to go because of his legs and because he was as comfortable on his left foot as his right, so he could cut inside or go down the line and he had a ferocious shot too."

In the final against Sweden, Brazil fell behind 0–1 early, but rapidly equalized after Garrincha surpassed his marker on the right wing and sent a cross for Vavá to score. Before the end of the first half, Garrincha made a similar play, again setting up Vavá to make the score 2–1. Brazil ended winning the match and its first World Cup trophy, with Garrincha being one of the best players of the tournament; he was voted to the "Best XI" for the competition.

Garrincha never bothered about the 'details' of the game. As his teammates were celebrating the World Cup win, he was initially bemused, having been under the impression that the competition was more league-like and that Brazil would play all the other teams twice.

Garrincha put on weight after the World Cup, partly because of his drinking, so he was dropped from the national team for a friendly match in Rio against England on 13 May 1959. Later that month, he went on tour with Botafogo in Sweden and got a local girl pregnant. When he returned to Brazil, he drove home to Pau Grande and ran over his father, Amaro. He drove off without stopping, with an angry mob chasing him, and when they caught up with him they found him "drunk, almost catatonic, and with no grasp of what he had done." In August, his wife, Nair, gave birth to their fifth child, and his mistress Iraci announced her first pregnancy. His father died of liver cancer on 10 October having been dependent on alcohol for years.

Garrincha was the most outstanding player of the 1962 FIFA World Cup. When Pelé suffered an injury after the second match and was sidelined for the rest of the tournament, Garrincha played a leading role in Brazil's triumph, excelling particularly against England and Chile, scoring 4 goals in those two matches.

After one win and one draw, Brazil faced Spain, without Pelé. The South Americans were losing 0–1 in the second half. Amarildo, Pelé's substitute for the remainder of the tournament, scored the equalizer. Five minutes before the end, Garrincha took the ball on the right flank, dribbled past a defender and paused. Then he dribbled past the same man and another defender, and sent a cross to Amarildo, who scored again to win the match.

In the quarter-finals against England, Garrincha opened the score with a header off a corner kick. England equalized before half time. In the second half, Vavá scored Brazil's second goal off a rebound of a shot by Garrincha; minutes later, Garrincha received a ball outside the penalty area, paused, and sent a curved shot – known as the "banana shot" – into the bottom of the net. Brazil won 3–1 and advanced to the semi-finals. The British football press said he "was Stanley Matthews, Tom Finney and a snake charmer all rolled into one."

During the quarter final, a stray dog ran onto the pitch and evaded all of the players' efforts to catch it until England striker Jimmy Greaves got down on all fours to beckon the animal. Though successful in catching the dog, it managed to urinate all over Greaves' England shirt. Greaves claimed that Garrincha thought the incident was so amusing that he took the dog home as a pet. Ruy Castro's book expands upon this, by clarifying that the dog was captured by an official, and raffled off to the Brazilian squad, a raffle which Garrincha won. The dog was named "Bi" (from "bi-campeões" - "two times champions").

He scored two more goals in the semi-final against the hosts, Chile, as Brazil went on to win 4–2. His first goal was a 20-yard left-foot shot; the second one, a header. A subsequent headline in the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio read: "What planet is Garrincha from?" Garrincha was sent off in that match after 83 minutes for retaliating after being continually fouled. However, he was not suspended for the following match.

Brazil faced Czechoslovakia in the final. Garrincha played despite suffering from a severe fever, which did not prevent Brazil from winning 3–1 and him from getting voted player of the tournament. It was the second consecutive World Cup won by Garrincha and Brazil.

Though well short of match fitness and still struggling with a knee injury, which would plague him for the rest of his career, Garrincha still played in the first match of the tournament, a 2–0 win against Bulgaria, Garrincha scored one of the goals of this game with a free kick taken with the outside of his foot (the second goal of this game was scored by Pele - this was the only time when Garrincha and Pele both scored goals in the same game). Then Brazil lost 1–3 to Hungary at Goodison Park, in Garrincha's last ever international match, which was the only time Garrincha lost a match with the Brazil national team; he did not play in the last match of the first round against Portugal. Brazil were eliminated in the first round.

In 1973, although he was still signed by Olaria, Garrincha decided to leave professional football. Apart from his age (he was almost 40), "there was another reason for wanting to retire: he had become a grandfather for the first time – his daughter Edenir had just given birth to Alexandra – and being a professional football player and a grandfather felt weird." Alexandra with her three children still live in Garrincha's house in Pau Grande.

On 19 December 1973, a farewell match for Garrincha between a FIFA World team and Brazil was celebrated at the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, in front of 131,000 spectators. The FIFA team was composed mainly of Argentine and Uruguayan players, while Brazil fielded Pelé, Carlos Alberto, and several other members of the 1970 World Cup winning squad. Garrincha started the match, and while in the first half, at a point when Brazil had the ball in attack, the referee stopped the match so Garrincha could leave the pitch and receive the crowd's respects. Garrincha then did a lap around the pitch before disappearing through the stadium's tunnel.

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