A look back to one of Brazil’s best

Now I’ve only just recently started to learn about this man, and I cannot believe it took me this long to find out about his fascinating story and career of the little bird.

Garrincha, full name Manuel Francisco dos Santos was born in Brazil in 1933 and is regarded as one of the greatest footballers to ever be produced in Brazil and seems to be more of a people person in contrast to Pele. Garrincha is also known as the “joy of the people”. He was born into poverty with an alcoholic father who unfortunately died in 1959. A weird fact about the nippy little winger was that his left foot faced inwards and his right leg faced outwardly and was six centimetres shorter than his left. As you can guess, there was a general consensus that he will never become a great footballer by both medical professionals and football scouts alike. He would have to travel by train for two hours and after his train journey had finished, he would still have a three mile walk to go…I’m not that committed to football as it is, let alone if I had all my peers saying there’s no point because of my physique, what a man.

He signed for Botafogo in 1953 and when he nut-megged Nilton Santos in his first training session, he was chucked into the first team an scored three goals against Bonsucesso. With over 500 games for Botafogo and 232 goals in a career that spanned over twelve years, he is is revered there and was infamous for his ability to hold onto the ball and was described as a wizard on the ball. Unfortunately, his style of play dictated that he was more about his own pride and flair, whereas during the 1954 World Cup squad was centred around team work, so missed out. 

In the World Cups he did play In between 1958-1966, he won fifty international caps and Brazil won forty nine of the fifty games he played in, that game Pele did not play and lost to Hungary. Pele and Garrincha were never apart of a losing side when they both played for Brazil. Amazing, huh?

I could describe in more detail of his career but that would take away the fun, but the man has scored four times directly from corners, scored one of the most talked about goals where he dribbled round four defenders and the goalkeeper before stopping on the goal line, dribbling the ball back out to take on the defender AGAIN before slotting it in. Unfortunately, he did have his troubles off the pitch, with a seemingly inherited trait of alcoholism from his father, it ultimately led to a carelessness in his life and crashed his car with his mother-in-law as the passenger which saw her killed.

He unfortunately died in hospital after contracting liver cirrhosis, apparently that didn’t stop his drinking even on his death bed and carried on until the end. He had his troubles but my god, he did express himself on the football pitch, I beg you to look up some videos of him and read more about his life, you won’t regret it.