Brazil 1970

Samindra Kunti

Description

Brazil 1970 is the fascinating and dramatic inside story of the greatest football team of all time. Predicted to be drab and dull, the 1970 World Cup became the greatest show on Earth, with the mesmerising Brazilians at the heart of a dramatic and delirious three weeks. After their demise at the 1966 World Cup, the South Americans were no longer the masters of the game. The defenestration rattled Brazil, and left them in purgatory before they swept through the qualifiers with coach Joao Saldanha. Even so, the team left their home country discredited against the backdrop of a military dictatorship and the proliferation of science in the game. At the World Cup finals, Mario Zagallo and his cast of balletic players - including lodestar Pele, the cerebral Gerson and the ingenious Tostao - ensured Brazil would forever be synonymous with the global game and a byword for style and craft. Their triumph was also the end of Brazil's golden era. The technocrats had invaded the terrain and Brazil would never again reach those heights.

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 17 octobre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781801503631
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2022
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Samindra Kunti, 2022
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Print ISBN 9781801503600
eBook ISBN 9781801503631
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Contents
Foreword
Introduction
Prologue
I. The Money Tour
II. The Circus
III. The Elimination
IV. The Technocrats
V. The Dreamer
No. 6 - Marco Ant nio
VI. The Salesman
VII. The Realist
No. 2 - Brito
VIII. The Real Final
IX. A World Cup Classic?
X. Old Demons
XI. The Perfect Win
XII. Celebration
No. 9 - Tost o
No. 7 - Jairzinho
XIII. The Farewell
No. 18 - Caju
XIV. The Decline
Epilogue: The Greatest Team of All Time
Appendix: Road to the Azteca
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Photos
Foreword
I FEEL privileged because, in 1970, I managed to help Brazil win the Jules Rimet Trophy. The team that won the World Cup three times would take her home for good. Brazil won and I had a helping hand.
I want to praise the coaching staff of M rio Lobo Zagallo, Admildo Chirol, [Raul] Carlesso and [Kleber] Camerino. They were important people in the strategy we put together to play in this World Cup. And thanks to my team-mates, who were of an outstanding technical level.
We prepared for every aspect of the competition, especially for playing at altitude. There was a specific oxygen preparation that contributed to our success and reaching the final at the Azteca Stadium. We already had a high level of harmony in the squad ahead of the competition after a beautiful three-month preparation. Those training camps provided us with everything: great fitness and tactical understanding. And most importantly, forming the team and the collective, integrating each individual.
We went to Guanajuato, a city at very high altitude, and that improved our natural fitness and increased our red blood cells. By doing this, we also grew our stamina. I remember that in the tournament in the first half of the matches our opponents matched us physically, but in the second half Brazil completely overwhelmed them.
Without a doubt, Mexico 1970 was my peak. You don t know how hard it was for me to take on the responsibility of replacing my idol - just imagine, replacing Garrincha. But I m sure everyone in Brazil and across the world recognises that, after Garrincha, the greatest right-winger ever to emerge in world football was Jairzinho.
Before the opening match against Czechoslovakia, we got together. It was just us, the players. The backroom staff didn t participate. That s when we decided that it was Brazil that had to win, and not Jairzinho, not Pel , not Rivellino, not Tost o, not G rson, and not F lix. We d win together because we wanted to achieve two very important things: firstly, to win the title and, with it, to claim the Jules Rimet Trophy forever.
From the first match on, we received the support of the Mexican fans. That gave us a peace of mind. They lined the sidewalks. When we started to go into the stadium, they stopped in front of our bus and the escorts that we had, wishing us all good luck. That was unforgettable, especially for me, that act of motivation, this act of encouragement from the Mexicans.
The match against England came with great expectations and a lot of coverage from the press. In the days leading up to the match, it was written that that the world was going to witness the real final. And it was, in fact, a game of great quality - emotionally, physically, tactically and creatively. For me, two players were at the heart of the big spectacle: Banks for England and F lix for Brazil. I ve never seen two goalkeepers save as much as Banks and F lix did.
It was my goal that won us the World Cup. I m sure most of my team-mates, or even all, said that was the decisive one. Pel was surrounded by three or four English defenders and the ball came straight to him. He pretended to shoot but controlled the ball. I was outside him, about five metres away. He passed it and I closed in on Banks. I pretended to shoot first, Banks went down and I hit the ball diagonally, and it flew in fantastically.
You have no idea what it s like to score a goal, especially in a World Cup. To this day, I m still the only player who has scored in every match in a World Cup. When we scored the third against Italy, practically all of us thought the same thing: There s no chance they ll get a draw or even beat us. The third goal was crucial for our calmness and increased the unease of the opponents.
It s hard to describe what it means to be a world champion. It was sensational, exciting and thrilling. Brazilians were experiencing a time of military dictatorship. For our matches Brazil stopped. People stopped working, stopped studying, stopped everything to watch us play, and it was the biggest pandemonium in the lives of Brazilians to this day, seeing the 1970 team show the world why it was the best.
Of course, every day when I wake up I remember my accomplishment and my team-mates from 1970, and when I go to sleep I thank God for having been one of the greatest players in the world. The team of 1970 was one of the best ever. I would again like to say what a happy guy I am, because I had the opportunity to make Brazil, once again, be recognised in world football.
The tricampeonato was unforgettable.
Jair Ventura Filho Jairzinho , Rio de Janeiro,
March 2022
Introduction
I BELONG to the generation that in the late 1990s fell for Nike s brilliant sales pitch: Brazil have a dream team again! They are ready to win the 1998 World Cup! Spearheaded by the buck-toothed Ronaldo, a select of Brazilian stars dribbled their way through Rio de Janeiro s airport to the infectious tunes of Jorge Ben s Mas Que Nada . It s an advert that most remember. Its end possibly less so Ronaldo fails to score, just as he did in the 1998 World Cup Final. Once in France, the Sele o didn t quite deliver on the sportswear giant s promise. They showed glimpses of brilliance against the Netherlands in the last four but, in general, Brazil were disappointing, at least in the eyes of a ten-year-old.
Nike had oversold the dream team but the myth endured: the Brazilians supposedly played divine football. Over the next two decades, there was little evidence of their mythical status as I travelled to watch and cover Brazil from Miami to Kazan the graveyard of the great, where Brazil fell flat against Belgium, my home country. Sometimes it was hard to believe in the beautiful game.
I watched Carlos Alberto Torres s wonder strike against Italy for the first time on video when I was a kid. That goal wasn t a sales pitch. It was poetry. Simply magical. I was transfixed.
In 2008 I met Carlos Alberto for the first time. We shared breakfast at Schiphol Airport s Ibis and drove to a small village in the Dutch polder, Emmeloord, where he was the ambassador for Braszat, a start-up club from Brasilia that was touring the Netherlands. On the touchline of the village green, Carlos Alberto cut an impressive, authoritative figure. Everyone still called him captain . It was easy to understand why he was one of the few players who could reprimand and even scold Pel or G rson. You sensed he could snap at any moment.
I learned Portuguese, graduated from law school and J-School, and set out for Brazil. It wasn t always easy to chase players with a global status. It was as maddening as it was rewarding, an exercise in patience as most things in Brazil, and journalism, often are. Some players were always travelling, others were just not very connected. All of them had their own character traits: outspoken, bullish, intelligent, diplomatic, jovial, introverted, resentful, frustrated, generous, greedy. Almost all of them were nostalgic though, respectful of each other and critical of the modern game.
From the pristine beaches of Caraguatatuba, where I met F lix s daughter, to Batatais, the peaceful home of Jos Baldocchi, I criss-crossed Brazil, often on overnight buses after a dreary meal at a Graal roadside restaurant. In Rio, I staked out many hours at various radio stations to chat to G rson, who, once you found him, became a chatterbox. On Copacabana beach, I played futevolei , a mix of football and beach volleyball, with Jairzinho. We shared beers, which softened him up.
My arts of persuasion were tested in different ways. Always out fishing, Brito rarely picked up the phone and, when he did, often after umpteen attempts a day, he sometimes pretended to be his own son. I never had the guts to tell him his voice was one of a kind. In Belo Horizonte, Tost o was very reluctant to talk at all at first.
The team s star remained unreachable. From the Morumbi stadium to Barnes Noble in New York, I pursued Pel . I tried to persuade the doorman at his downtown S o Paulo flat. I befriended his brother-in-law and pleaded with Brazil s sports minister. I got his phone number when Pepe shared his address book. Nothing ever quite worked out.
All those journeys and interviews were crucial to enrich my understanding of Brazil and to ultimately tell the story of the 1970 team. This book doesn t attempt to describe every kick