GARRINCHA LET OFF THE HOOK

When you are in deepest France with rugby seemingly man's only sport, there is not a lot of inspiration for my almost daily snippet, from the local clubs. There is a brilliant spotted flycatcher performing is flights of fancy outside the window but I have to resort to "on this day in football history" stuff to give me something to get excited about. So I have found another good blogspot called "otdifh" which is worth a look. But don't desert me you dozen or so loyal followers.

So on this day in 1962 Chile hosted the World Cup Final despite being a very poor nation and not having the infrastructure to house large crowds for what should have been a spectacular tournament. The semi-final between Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia attracted a crowd of 5,000 only; on reflection this might be considered a decent number bearing in mind the limited fame of these two teams but come on this was the WC S-F!!!

In the final, the Brazilians were holders and were without the injured Pele (see 1966 too) and should have been without Garrincha who was sent off in the semi final against the hosts for kneeing Rojas in the bum, after having been abused all match by this over attentive defender. Brazil won their match 4-2 and the little bird was a major architect of the win, but what would they do with out his influence? 

Diplomatic circles quickly whirled, the linesman involved disappeared to Montevideo and the Peruvian referee was persuaded, by the Embassy, to change his mind over the incident and the ban was revoked. Even in those days FIFA was a bit dodgy and Garrincha played.

Brazil went a goal down to the Czechs, but after three goals in reply, Garrincha taunted his opponents by standing with his foot floating over the ball, daring the hapless Czechs to take the ball off him. Respect?

What also came out of all this was TV exposure and the great if somewhat hypnotic chant of "Braaaazil, cha, cha, cha" which resonated over the airwaves and quickly was adapted by British football crowds the following season, including 2-4-6-8 and various skipping songs from our school playgrounds.