90 years ago, Garrincha, the ace with the crooked legs, was born – 10/28/2023 – The World Is a Ball

Possibly the second best player in the history of Brazilian football (behind King Pelé), Mané Garrincha, if he were alive, would turn 90 this Saturday (28).

The day before, I was able to watch a documentary placed on “My List” a long time ago and which ended up being perpetuated in the queue: “Garrincha: Alegria do Povo”, from 1962, directed by Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, available on Globoplay and YouTube.

In the approximately one hour of the film, which is narrated by Heron Domingues (the announcer of the famous, at the time, news program Repórter Esso), I expected to see the trajectory of the right winger reported in detail, from his birth to his glory days with his second title. world (Sweden-1958 and Chile-1962).

Overall, I was disappointed.

About the character with bowed legs, nothing from his childhood in Pau Grande, district of Magé (RJ), nothing from his beginnings in football, nothing from his day to day life.

The black and white film focuses on images – videos mixed with photos – of moments from Botafogo games and training, with a few dribbles from Garrincha, and a simple retrospective of the attacker’s participation in the 1958 and 1958 World Cups. 62.

I just didn’t know about what was shown, and it was valid to have obtained this knowledge, since from the mouth of Garrincha himself, that he disliked the movement beyond what was desired in his homeland (he considered it “tiring”), even though he understood that this was natural due to to the fame he had gained.

And also that he disliked training. At the age of 29, Garrincha, according to the narrator, was already experiencing weight problems – despite the images showing him in perfect shape –, which made him “the favorite target” of physical trainers.

A playful moment, a scene from a training session shows that the exercise of “jumping over carrion” was common practice, an old-fashioned game. Does any child today know what this fun is?

Another rare worthwhile moment in the film is seeing Garrincha, off at home, with his daughters (he had seven in his first marriage), all at ease dancing rock from the 1950s, with twist steps.

As the film was made before the years of decadence in the camps and the discovery of the star’s alcoholism outside of them, lived with the singer Elza Soares (who became his companion from 1963 onwards), nothing was seen of a relevant phase, despite painful and melancholic, of his career.

Garrincha had problems with alcohol for a long time, but the work does not mention anything about it, either due to lack of knowledge or the choice not to do so.

With a glass in his hand, with his friends, in a bar after a night out in Pau Grande, Garrincha appears drinking only soda, the most famous of them.

Furthermore, “Garrincha: Alegria do Povo”, brings little football and a lot of fan movement, outside and inside the Maracanã, the working class of Rio de Janeiro seeking distraction in the game in the midst of the rush and toil of everyday life.

There is more seriousness in their faces than happiness, clashing with the film’s title.

And that doesn’t change much with Garrincha, who displays a few smiles, not wide ones, throughout the 58 minutes of Luiz Carlos Barreto and Armando Nogueira’s production.

The joy, portrayed in a very short period (about two minutes), appears in the stands and general areas of a Maraca initially presented in the rain, when fans of the lone star team celebrate a title – the film does not mention which one.

Manoel Francisco dos Santos, born on October 28, 1933, gained the nickname Garrincha as a child, given by one of his sisters, due to his love of hunting birds, one of them the Troglodytes musculusknown as garrincha (or corruíra, carruíra, cutipuruí, cambaxirra, carriça and garriça).

He enchanted with his swagger and dribbling during the 13 years he played for Botafogo (1953 to 1965) and during his peak in the Brazilian national team (1958 to 1962). With him and Pelé together, Brazil never lost (36 wins and 4 draws).

Mané Garrincha, nicknamed “The Angel with Crooked Legs” (title of a poem by Vinicius de Moraes), died at the age of 49, on January 20, 1983, as a result of liver cirrhosis.

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