The outlandish Brazilian player was on the verge of being kicked out of the World Cup due to the diagnosis of the Brazilian national team psychiatrist.
There are many stories left behind by the bizarre career of Manuel Francisco dos Santos – both athletic and personal – nicknamed Garrincha, perhaps the best winger in football history, Which psychologist was about to go without a World Cup for the first time.
His brothers began to call Garrincha that way. Eduardo Galeano tells it better than anyone else in “Football in Sun and Shadow” (Siglo XXI, 1995). “Garrincha is the name of an ugly and useless little bird. When he started playing football, the doctors made the cross for him: they discovered that this abnormal athlete would never become an athlete, this poor remnant of hunger and polio, lame and ass, with a childish brain, The spine is made of an ‘S’ and both legs are crooked on the same side & rdquor ;.
But, despite his physical shortcomings (one leg was six centimeters longer than the other), Garrincha was an excellent dribbler. Small, dexterous and fast (people call him Farah), He appeared in Botafogo and was signed by Vicente Viola In the invitation to play the 1958 World Cup in Sweden.
The first opponent that Garrincha had to overcome was within the campaign itself: Brazil included a psychologist named Joao Carvalhaes, so that its players would not suffer from the pressure of a country that had been craving the trophy since the ‘Maracanazo’ tragedy. .
The fact is that Carvalhaes wrote a devastating report against Garrincha. He said that instead of a brain, he had “bottles” and advised against him being included in the team because of his very low intellectual level, typical of a ten-year-old.
From outlaw to hero
Botafogo teammates Nilton Santos and Didi interceded with the coach. “Doctor, Garrincha knows how to play football.”
Garrincha would end up being one of the best players in Brazil at the World Cup in Sweden, and the best in the tournament four years later, in Chile ’62.
Before, however, he also left two anecdotes to remember: the first occurred during the tournament, when he arrived in Brazil very proud after having bought a modern radio for a hundred dollars – a reasonable amount at the time.
When he showed it to his teammates, the team’s Brazilian masseur, Mario Americo, asked him to operate it. “You see? This radio only broadcasts in Swedish. It won’t do you any good in Brazil.”
garrincha, Naive as she missed itAll stations are verified to be broadcasting in Swedish. He ended up selling the radio to the masseuse for half of what it cost.
The second anecdote happened a few minutes into the final: Brazil beat Sweden 2-5 and their team mates were celebrating.
Garrincha did not understand anything. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
They told him they just won the World Cup. He replied, “Ah, but isn’t there a second round?”
For him, they said, all his observers were called Joao, because that was the name of the first competitor who marked him in an official match.
Garrincha died on January 20, 1983, at the age of 49, devastated by alcohol. He was buried in Pau Grande, the city where he was born, 50 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro.
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