On a glorious bender (original) (raw)

Football in Brazil has its Year Zero. In 1894, Charles Miller, son of an immigrant Scottish rail engineer, disembarked at the port of Santos with two footballs, one in each hand. Eight years later, he wrote in a letter of how enthusiastically Brazilians were taking to the game. "A week ago I was asked to referee in a match of small boys, 20 a side... I thought, of course, the whole thing would be a muddle, but I found I was very much mistaken... even for this match about 1,500 people turned up."

Brazil, at the turn of the century, was undergoing a period of great social change. The country had only abolished slavery in 1888 - the last place in the Americas to do so. Brazil was also the country that imported more slaves than anywhere else - about 3.5m, six times more than the United States.

Football would only become "Brazilian" when blacks were able to play at the top level. At first they were excluded from taking part. It took the Portuguese to open football up to everyone. Vasco da Gama, Rio's Portuguese club, broke the big clubs' hegemony by choosing the best footballers from the burgeoning suburban leagues - regardless of background or colour. In 1923, the first year they were promoted to Rio's first division, Vasco were champions - with a team made up of three blacks, a mulatto and seven working-class whites.

Brazilians play football differently. At least, they used to. It does not matter that they might never again. The Brazilian style is like an international trademark, which was registered during the 1958 and 1962 World Cups and given a universal patent in 1970. Its essence is a game in which prodigious individual skills outshine team tactics, where dribbles and flicks are preferred over physical challenges or long-distance passes. Perhaps because of the emphasis on the dribble, which moves one's whole body, Brazilian football is often described in musical terms - in particular as a samba. At their best, Brazilians are, we like to think, both sportsmen and artists.

Archie McLean, a Scottish league forward who moved to São Paulo in 1912, put it down to irresponsibility: "There were great players there, but they were terribly undisciplined. Their antics would not have been tolerated in Scotland. During a game, a couple of players tried to find out who could kick the ball the highest. I soon put a stop to that sort of thing."

Brazil has 216 Indian tribes, and possibly a dozen more who have not yet been discovered. They make up about 350,000 people and speak around 180 languages. In the same way that different tribes speak to each other using their second tongue, Portuguese, football provides a sporting common language.

In October 2000, I visit the Fulniô, who live about 50 miles from Palmeira dos Índios. Like most Indian groups near Brazil's urban coastal strip, the Fulniô are almost completely assimilated to modern culture. The tribe has 3,000 people and three football teams. A peculiar physical trait of some - maybe a dozen - Fulniô footballers is bent legs. Not the ideal sporting profile. But the defect is used to their advantage. In the mid-1950s, a young footballer with bent legs emerged in Rio. Manuel Francisco dos Santos - known by his nickname, Garrincha - subsequently became the best-known Brazilian footballer after Pelé.

In the mid-1990s, Garrincha's biographer, Ruy Castro, traced Garrincha's ancestry to the Fulniô. More than that, the Fulniô chief, João Francisco dos Santos Filho, shares Garrincha's surname.

When Manuel Francisco dos Santos was born on October 28, 1933, the midwife noticed that his left leg was curved outward and the right leg curved inward. With proper orthopaedic treatment, his legs could have been straightened in no time. But this was Pau Grande, a small town short on medical specialists and shorter on parents' expectations. Manuel - Mané - grew up looking as if a gust of wind had blown his legs sideways, as in a cartoon.

He was a sweet child. As small as a wren, a garrincha, said his big sister Rosa, and the nickname stuck. Later he would be compared to a little bird for the way he flew past defenders. He could move in unpredictable directions. He also possessed an exceptional ability to accelerate. Combining both, he developed an unbeatable dribble, and was soon the best player in town. Aged 14, he started work at the local textile factory, as everyone did in Pau Grande. But Garrincha was an appalling employee. He was sacked for laziness and only reinstated because the president of the factory football club - Esporte Clube Pau Grande - wanted him in the team.

Garrincha was simple, carefree and unambitious. For him, football was not to be taken too seriously. When Brazil lost the World Cup in 1950, he found it silly that people were upset. He'd gone fishing rather than listen to the final on the radio. Reluctantly, he went for trials at the big Rio clubs. At Vasco he was told to go home because he had not brought any boots. At Fluminense he left before the end to catch the last train home. Later, aged 19, Garrincha made it to Botafogo - and only because he was almost dragged there by an ex-Botafogo player who had seen him play.

On the second day of his trial, Garrincha was put on the right wing against Nilton Santos, Botafogo's left back who was also a member of the national side. Garrincha dribbled him as if it was a Pau Grande kickabout, and in one move passed the ball between his legs - something no one had ever done. "I think it's a good idea to contract this guy," muttered the defender. "Better him with us than against us."

In his first full game for Botafogo, two months later, Garrincha scored three goals. He was always positioned on the outside right and his style was always the same, yet the predictability did not make him less effective. He would tirelessly dummy one way and then the other, darting off in one direction and then coming to an abrupt halt, only to dart off again in another. He could dribble out of the tightest situation, like a footballing Houdini.

Garrincha seemed to play for the fun of it. He relished fooling defenders with his skilful moves, taunting them like a champion toreador taunts a bull. On one occasion he deliberately forgot the ball and carried on running. His opponent, the Argentinian defender Vairo, followed the player without realising the ball was left behind.

Garrincha was the player, said the playwright Nelson Rodrigues, who taught the fans to laugh. His on-pitch clowning is perhaps best illustrated by the occasion when, faced with an open goal, he preferred to carry on dribbling. Garrincha passed three players and then beat the goalkeeper. Instead of scoring, he waited for a defender to run back. Garrincha swerved and the defender had to grasp the post so as not to fall over. He then walked into the goal with the ball. He flicked it up, put it under his arm and sauntered back to the centre spot. The match was a friendly between Brazil and Fiorentina of Italy, Brazil's last fixture before the 1958 World Cup finals in Sweden. When Garrincha scored, the stadium was silent apart from the shouts of his team-mates. In anger. They were terrified that such irresponsibility in a competitive game would cost them dear.

By 1958, Brazil were feeling the pressure of their unfulfilled potential. The country had still not won a World Cup. Both 1950 and 1954 had been lost by emotional frailty at the crucial moment - first against courageous Uruguayans and then against violent Hungarians. In 1958, the coaching staff introduced a psychologist to make sure the team was mentally prepared. Tests gave pseudo-scientific backing to Garrincha's playfulness. His aggression level was zero and he had below-average intelligence (he was judged to be "obviously infantile", lacking the sense of responsibility needed for team spirit. But he had an excuse. He was only 17.)

Brazil left nothing to chance. The squad was based in a resort near Gothenburg. Knowing his countrymen's tendencies, the team doctor insisted that the hotel's 28 female staff be replaced with men. His fear of distractions even led him to ask the local nudist colony, visible from the window, to insist on clothes.

Garrincha did not play in the first two games, a 3-0 win over Austria and a goalless draw with England. Neither did Pelé. The third match was against the USSR. It was the era of the Sputnik satellite. Cold-war propaganda fuelled a fear of the Soviets' "scientific" approach. Vicente Feola, the coach, shook up the team sheet and dispatched his secret weapons. From the kick-off, Garrincha fired himself like a missile into the Soviet defence. After 40 seconds of dribble after mesmerising dribble, he shot at the post. Before 60 seconds, Pelé also hit the woodwork, from a Garrincha pass. The onslaught of the opening three minutes, ending with a goal by Vavá, showed an audaciousness and skill not seen before in international football. They are considered by many as Brazilian football's greatest three minutes of all time.

The game, which ended 2-0, marked the beginning of Brazilian football's golden partnership. With Pelé and Garrincha playing together, the national team never lost a match.

Newspapers reported that Pelé and Garrincha were only picked because there was a player rebellion. The story is so evocative that, even though it was denied by the players afterwards, it is firmly established in football lore. The myth conveys the idea that in a Brazilian team the coach is redundant - that the "beautiful game" emerged from the players themselves, in spite of the coach's wishes, as if it was a divine phenomenon.

Brazil knocked out Wales and France on the way to meet Sweden in the final. Brazil won 5-2, their first two goals identical moves created by Garrincha - he slalomed up the right wing, and Vavá converted the crosses. The World Cup consecrated the man with bent legs. "He is considered a retard," wrote Nelson Rodrigues, "but Garrincha proved in the World Cup that we are the retarded ones - because we think, we rationalise. Next to him, next to the prodigious instantaneity of his reflexes, we are luggards, bovines, hippopotamuses." The poet Paulo Mendes Campos compared him to an artistic genius: "Like a poet touched by an angel, like a composer following a melody that fell from the sky, like a dancer hooked to a rhythm, Garrincha plays football by pure inspiration and magic; unsuffering, unreserved and unplanned."

Brazil took almost the same team to the 1962 World Cup, in Chile, as it had done to Sweden. Pelé, still only 21, had by then established himself as the most complete forward in the world. In 1961 he scored 111 goals in 75 appearances. But he limped off in the second World Cup game and missed the rest of the competition. Most of the other Brazilians were veterans, in the twilight of their playing careers. Except Garrincha. Perhaps only Maradona, in 1986, has so single-handedly - no pun intended - won a country the World Cup.

But 1962 was also the beginning of the end. Garrincha's bent legs had been his strength. They were now his weakness. The way his tibia met his femur meant that each time he swivelled his body the cartilage was crushed, a problem even without the violence inflicted by a sporting life. He was first told he needed an operation in 1959 but decided against it. His faith healer in Pau Grande had told him that if he went through with it he would never play again.

While there was a romance in being a free spirit on the pitch, Garrincha's friends started to worry about his naivety off it. They suggested he employ a financial adviser. Two bank reps went to his home in Pau Grande and were shocked to discover money rotting in cupboards, behind furniture and in fruit bowls. His house was a slum. Botafogo had taken advantage of Garrincha's ingenuousness. They gave him blank contracts to sign, which they filled in with salaries as low as they could get away with. Garrincha was the club's main selling-point, yet he did not earn as much as his team-mates. When he complained, the fans turned against him, accusing him of being mercenary.

There was another complication: women. Garrincha had married aged 18. His wife, Nair, was a factory girl whose pregnancy forced the wedding. She excelled in one activity: producing daughters. Nair bore him eight in little more than a decade. While he commuted to Rio, she stayed in Pau Grande.

Footballers womanise. In this respect, Garrincha was world-class. As well as his children with Nair, he had two with a Pau Grande girlfriend he maintained in Rio and another in Sweden with a local girl when Botafogo were on tour. He also had an affair with an actress who was the vice-president's ex-lover. And then he met Elza Soares.

In Elza, Garrincha found a kindred spirit. She was a well-known samba singer, who, like himself, came from a humble background. They were Brazil's emblematic couple. In their image, Brazil was the country of improvisation and musicality, of triumph through adversity. They were the country's top talents in the country's favourite things - football and samba.

By 1963 Garrincha's knee was in such a bad way that he was hardly able to play two games in a row. Splintered cartilage caused it to swell with liquid, so that it needed to be perforated and drained regularly. He eventually had the operation, in 1964, but was never the same player again.

Garrincha liked cars. He drove them badly. He had once run over his father and had also had an accident with Elza that knocked some of her teeth out. Then he drove up to Pau Grande with Elza's mother to see his children. On the way back, he hit a lorry at 50mph. The car flipped. Elza's mother died. The accident triggered a depression. He tried to gas himself - one of the first of several suicide attempts. His football career was over and he had killed the mother of the woman he loved. It did not help that he'd been a heavy drinker since his teens. Through his career he astounded colleagues by his capacity and desire for booze. When he hung up his boots, the drinking increased.

With neither income nor savings, Garrincha asked the Brazilian Sports Confederation for a loan to buy a house. He was refused. On the same day, he disappeared and was found drunk and crying in front of a church in Rio's city centre.

Elza thought that a change of scene might pull him out of it. They moved to Rome. Elza found work as a singer but Garrincha had nothing to do except drink. Eventually he was made "coffee ambassador" for the Brazilian Coffee Institute. It was not hard work. All he needed to do was turn up at European trade fairs and shake hands by the Brazilian stall. He failed spectacularly. On their return to Brazil, Elza had an idea to stop Garrincha drinking: they would have a child. Manuel Garrincha dos Santos Junior - Garrinchinha, Little Garrincha - was born on July 9, 1976. But with a baby in the house, it got worse. Garrincha started beating Elza up. She moved out, fearing that he would turn his violence on to the child. After 15 years together, their relationship ended.

Garrincha married for the third time. His new wife bore him another daughter, his tenth. But his ways did not change. On January 19, 1983, Garrincha spent the morning out drinking. When he arrived home in the afternoon he felt ill and lay down. An ambulance was called from the local clinic. The doctors did not even recognise him. His body was bloated with alcohol, unrecognisable from the nimble athlete of his youth. He checked in and then transferred to a psychiatric hospital in an alcoholic coma. He died at 6am the following morning.

In the 1958 World Cup, Didi was voted best player. He was reckoned to be the strongest character in the team, more experienced and more versatile than the other forwards. Pelé was a phenomenon for being so young, but it was Garrincha who had the most popular appeal. "It was the way Garrincha played. He was the guy who undid defences. He humiliated people. When he had the ball you could not get it off him."

When I first arrived in Brazil, conversations with friends, acquaintances and strangers would inevitably turn to football. The first time I heard mention of Garrincha, I heard someone say that he was the best player Brazil had ever produced. What about Pelé? Even though I am too young to have seen Pelé play, I was brought up to believe that he was incontrovertibly the world's all-time greatest - as if it were one of football's fundamental truths. Suspicious that I was being taken for a ride, I started to ask everyone who they felt was Brazil's best-ever player. The reply, invariably, was Garrincha. Even those born years after he stopped playing preferred him.

The reaction to Garrincha's death went far beyond what was expected. José Sérgio of Rio's federal university says there was a national sense of guilt. "When someone dies you take stock of all the person's life. Garrincha was identified with the public. He never lost his popular roots. He was also exploited by football, so he was the symbol of the majority of Brazilians, who are also exploited."

Pelé and Garrincha are named in the same breath so often that it is as if they are a performing double act, or a brand name of bottled sporting excellence. Together, they sum up an era. Yet Brazilians remember them more for their differences than their similarities. They were unexpectedly opposite characters. They did not even particularly get on. Pelé is known in Brazil as O Rei, The King. In 1963, a biographical film was released called Garrincha, Alegria do Povo - Joy of the People. The nicknames say it all.

Whereas Garrincha indulged in most of the vices available to him, Pelé was a model player. He led an ascetic life, concentrating on training and self-improvement. Pelé learned from others and improved. Garrincha was unteachable. Pelé had an athlete's perfect body. Garrincha looked as if he should not be able to walk straight. When Garrincha was still stuffing his wages into a fruit bowl, Pelé had registered his name as a trademark, employed a manager and invested money in business projects.

Garrincha demonstrated, quite spectacularly, that there is no safety net in Brazilian society - while Pelé, unlike almost all his peers, found a career beyond football. Garrincha only ever thought of the short term. Pelé was - and is - always making plans. Garrincha argued with the establishment. Pelé became the establishment.

Even though Pelé helped Brazil win three World Cups, more than any other player, he was never the team's one outstanding member - unlike Garrincha in 1962. There is a sense that Pelé belongs more to global heritage than he does to Brazil's. In Brazil, perhaps unfairly, he is not a black role model. It is partly because Brazil, despite its racial mixture, does not have a black movement of any visibility. It's also because Pelé's current and ex-wife are white. Garrincha, on the other hand, married black.

It is not that Brazilians dislike Pelé. Far from it. In 1999, his Mercedes was stopped at traffic lights in São Paulo. Two armed men approached the car. On realising who was inside they apologised, hid their guns and went away. Few people - including footballers - command such respect. A year later in Rio, a similar incident occurred to Romário. The robbers took his Mercedes, mobile phone, and Romário was made to walk home.

While Brazilians put Pelé on a pedestal, they do not love him the way they love Garrincha. It is more than the fact that tragic figures are naturally more appealing, since they are more human, although this probably helped. It is because Pelé does not reflect national desires. Pelé, above everything else, symbolises winning. Garrincha symbolises playing for playing's sake. Brazil is not a country of winners. It is a country of a people who like to have fun

This is an edited extract from Futebol, The Brazilian Way Of Life, by Alex Bellos, to be published by Bloomsbury on May 14, price £9.99. To order a copy with free UK p&p, call the Guardian book service on 0870 066 7979. Alex Bellos has co-produced a CD Musica de Futebol with Mr Bongo. Available at www.mrbongo.com.