40 years after his death, Garrincha will have a prominent place in a future museum in Botafogo; know details

Four decades after his death — completed this Friday — Garrincha should finally gain a space commensurate with his size in football. The Botafogo Museum, under development and scheduled to open in December, will have the eternal shirt number 7 as a kind of host. Not just because it will be at the entrance, through a statue. But also for being the only athlete to have a section all to himself.

The great Botafogo players will be revered in a thematic wing called the University of Football. Garrincha will be part of it and will even have an exclusive one: Alegria do Povo.

“I’ve always believed that memory isn’t what reminds us. It’s what we don’t want to forget. And we don’t want to forget Garrincha, for all its symbolism. He was more than a football player. He is a very rich character. It transits between a quasi-Greek tragedy and comedy,” says architect Ricardo Macieira, coordinator and curator of the Botafogo Museum, which will occupy the headquarters of General Severiano.

Developed by Mude, which did the same work for River Plate, Boca Juniors, Benfica and Juventus, the alvinegro museum will offer immersion and interactivity. Therefore, there will be a strong technological component. In Garrincha’s wing, a semicircular panel will display images and testimonials. More than tracing a timeline, the idea is to treat him in a playful way, incorporating not only his career, but also the high cultural production about him.

— Everything available in text, sound and image about Garrincha will be reproduced — advances the curator.

But it is in dribbling that the greatest moment of interactivity will take place. The visitors will be challenged to dribble like the number 7, and a technology will evaluate the performance.

— I can tell you that it will be very difficult to obtain — reveals Macieira. — We are treating Garrincha’s dribble, the ginga, as an art object in the purest essence of aesthetic manifestation.

Even before the opening of the museum, Garrincha’s dribbling will be treated as art. Using NFT technology, which guarantees authenticity and uniqueness to the digital work, Botafogo will sell bids in which the right winger bent opponents.

The amount is not yet closed, as it involves negotiations. But they will be dribbles considered iconic. Against Flamengo, Vasco and Fluminense, rivals of Botafogo; and the Brazilian national team.

This is one of the ways found to complete the financing of the museum. Much of the necessary funding will come from the Tim telephone company via the Culture Incentive Law. According to Durcesio Mello, president of the association, the entire complementary fundraising strategy has been defined.

In addition to the NFTs, there will be a crowdfunding campaign. Donors will be entitled to put their name on one of the 1,942 stars suspended inside the museum. The number is a reference to the year of the merger of the two clubs that gave rise to Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas. In another action, seven bowls displayed at the entrance to the museum will be sponsored.

— They will be those of the Cariocas in 1962, 1968 and 1989, the Brazilians in 1968 and 1995, the Conmebol Cup and Teresa Herrera. I sponsored one of them myself,” says Durcesio.

It is at the entrance, by the way, that the first reference to the number 7 shirt will be: a Garrincha with 2.2 meter wings designed by the Argentine artist Daniel Brandimarte. Instead of the traditional bronze statue, the idea is that a carnival artist (not yet defined) takes on the mission of drawing the sketch from the paper. As the work will only start after Carnival, the inauguration is scheduled for the middle of the year, before the museum itself.

— Carnival is also the joy of the people — compares Ricardo Macieira.