the encyclopedic entry of Garrincha

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Biography

Garrincha was born in Pau Grande, a district of Magé, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, in 1933. His father was an alcoholic, drinking Cachaça heavily, a problem which Garrincha would inherit. He had several birth defects: his spine was deformed, his right leg bent inwards and his left leg six centimeters shorter and curved outwards, none of which impeded his ability to play football at the top level. His nickname is thought to be a direct reference to his physical handicap, as the word garrincha is also commonly used in Brazil to describe a person with a handicap.

Known for his remarkable ball control, imagination, dribbling skills and pin point crossing ability, Garrincha also possessed a ferocious shot with either foot and was a gifted dead ball specialist known for free kicks and corners taken with the outside of his foot. Examples of his shooting ability are his goals in World Cups against England in 1962 and Bulgaria in 1966. He was also able to turn on himself at top speed, which he used to great effect. The numerous attacks and goal opportunities he generated, primarily from individual plays on the right wing, would often end on an accurate pass to a teammate in position to score. This occurred in the first two of Brazil's goals in the 1958 World Cup final in and the second goal against Spain in the 1962 tournament. He was also a good header of the ball despite his small stature

The success he had on the football pitch had great contrast with his personal life. He drank heavily throughout his adult life, and was involved in several serious road accidents, notably a crash into a lorry in April 1969 which killed his mother-in-law. He was married twice, first to Nair Marques in 1952 (they separated in 1965), a factory worker from Pau Grande with whom he had eight daughters, and second to Elza Soares, a samba singer whom he married in an unofficial ceremony in March 1966; they separated in 1977. As Soares had also married before, the Brazilian press were sour on the marriage. He had other significant affairs, including one with showgirl Angelita Martinez, and he is known to have fathered at least 14 children.

Garrincha died aged 49 of cirrhosis of the liver, after a series of financial and marital problems. Seemingly, he was a forgotten hero - his last years had been unhappy and obscure - but his funeral procession, from the Maracanã to Pau Grande, drew thousands of fans, friends and former players to pay their respects. His epitaph reads "Here rests in peace the one who was the Joy of the People – Mané Garrincha." A multi-use stadium in Brasilia, Estádio Mané Garrincha, is named after him.

His career was presented in the 1962 film Garrincha, Alegria do Povo, and in 2003, another movie, called Garrincha - Estrela Solitária ("Lonely Star"), based in Ruy Castro's book, depicted his life on and off the field.

Club career

Garrincha was known amongst footballing scouts but many simply would not believe that there was a unknown footballer "who lived in the woods had bent legs who was totally unmarkable and who could dribble like the devil". Because of this, Garrincha did not arrive in professional football until his late teens. In addition, he simply had no interest in a professional career despite his immense talent. He 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 Nilton Santos, a Brazilian international defender and defensive midfielder with 16 international caps, who then requested himself for Garrincha to be hired. 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 team work, 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 FC 93, but he never signed and returned to Brazil.

Garrincha's professional career as a footballer lasted until 1972, when he played for Olaria, but he played occasional exhibition matches until 1982.

National team

Garrincha played 50 international matches for Brazil between 1955 and 1966, and appeared in the 1958, 1962 and 1966 World Cups. Brazil only lost one match with him on the pitch, against Hungary at the 1966 World Cup. Pelé did not play the game against Hungary, and thus Brazil never lost when Garrincha and he were on the same team.

His first cap was against Chile in Rio de Janeiro in 1955. He played two matches at the Copa America of 1957 and four in the 1959 edition.

1958 World Cup

One month before the tournament started Garrincha scored one of his most famous goals vs fiorentina fc in Italy when he beat 4 defenders and the goal keeper an when faced with an open goal rather than score he waited for another defender to get back an dribbled past him before scoring despite the his stunning performance his coaches were upset at what they considered an irresponsible move and it is likely this 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. 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 kick off; 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 won the match 2-0.

Following the Brazilians' narrow 1-0 quarter-final win against Wales on 19 June 1958, Mel Hopkins (the full back 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 team-mates 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.

1958-1962

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 October 10 having been dependent on alcohol for years.

1962 World Cup

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 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, Vava scored the 2-1 off a rebound on 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.

During the quarter final, a stray dog ran on to 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 Garricha won. The dog was named "Bi".

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 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, but that 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.

1966 World Cup

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 the championships with a free kick taken with the ouside of his foot. 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 was eliminated in the first round.

1973 farewell match

On December 19, 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.

Final years and death

In his later years, Garrincha gradually sank into a downward spiral, beset by financial, family and alcohol problems. He was involved in number of car accidents, including running over his father. In 1969, an accident in which Garrincha was driving led to the death of Elza's mother. His wife left him in 1977 after he struck her during an argument. By the time of his death in 1983, Garrincha, who had been hospitalized eight times in the previous year, was a physical and mental wreck. He died of cirrhosis of the liver on January 19, 1983, in an alcoholic coma in Rio de Janeiro.

Honours

World Cup champion: 1958, 1962
Campeonato Carioca: by Botafogo 1957, 1961, 1962
O'Higgins Cup winner: by Botafogo 1955, 1959, 1961
Oswaldo Cruz Cup: by Botafogo 1958, 1961, 1962
Roca Cup: by Botafogo 1960
Torneio Rio-São Paulo by Botafogo 1962, 1964, 1966

Individual

World Cup top scorer: 1962 (tied)
World Cup Player of the Tournament: 1962
World Soccer Player of the Year: 1962
Brazilian Football Museum Hall of Fame

Bibliography

Ruy Castro (2005). Garrincha - The triumph and tragedy of Brazil's forgotten footballing hero. Yellow Jersey Press, London. ISBN 0-224-06433-9. original in portuguese: Estrela Solitária (Lonely Star ), 1995
Bellos, Alex (2002). Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life. Bloomsbury ]. ISBN 0-7475-6179-6.