https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPiTbopt7MU
Above, you will find some of the skills of Garrincha, the famous Brazilian winger from the 1960s . From Pau Grande (which means "big log"! in South-east Brazil) Garrincha, despite his physical disabilities, became known as "the Little Bird". He had a deformed spine, his right leg was bent backwards, his left leg six inches shorter than the right and curved inwards. Not a good start.
Born in poverty on 28th October 1933, he later worked in a local factory and at 19 was taken into the Botafogo Club after nutmegging the famous Nilton Santos, during a trial. Garrincha was a boy in a man's body (5' 6") and somehow he managed to play over 600 games and score 250 goals, as well as having many assists. In his short career of nine years, he won two World Cups, the first along with Pele in 1958, who was only 17 at the time. Mel Hopkins, a Welsh full back, who had to mark Garrincha in the 1958 quarter-final tie, which Wales lost 0-1, described the difficulty of trying to mark him, not knowing which way his legs were going! Actually, the Little Bird had many tricks and was very flexible!
The second World Cup win was in 1962, when Pele was not fit to play. Garrincha also won the Golden Ball and Golden Boot in the tournament, as well a his gold medal. The Brazilians' eventual defeat, 1-3 by the Hungarians, in the England 1966 World Cup, was Garrincha's first defeat in a Brazilian shirt and it was his last game. he was capped 50 times. Garrincha and Pele had scored against Bulgaria in their first group tie but they then lost the next two matches to Hungary and Portugal, and were out.
After Botofago, he was signed on with the famed Corinthians Club but after that he was not committed to any club for long.
Married twice, he had 8 daughters but some say he had fathered 14 others with various partners. Quoted as a charismatic character with a unique talent, he was a social icon but actually he was viewed by others as an uncouth idiot and a peasant. There was certainly no support for him. Alcohol got him, he killed his mother in a car crash, while drunk and under the influence of alcohol, he ran over his father in error. Inevitably, cirrhosis killed him in 1983, at 49 years old, but despte his failings he was loved and he had a "state" funeral in a "full to capacity" Maracana Stadium. Unfortunately, his coffin was too big for the dug grave which caused a bit of a hold up; he now lies in a scruffy cemetery on the edge of Rio de Janeiro.
The football stadium in the capital of Brazil, Brasilia, is named after Garrincha.
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