Michael Batson

Joy in football it has been said does not come from winning, but from being entertained, and from witnessing something special for at the heart of football’s great power of seduction is that there are certain sensations that are eternal. People often say that results are paramount and that ten years down the line, the only thing which will be remembered is the score, but that’s not true. What remains in people’s memories is the search for greatness and the feelings that engenders. The Brazil team of the 1970 World Cup marked a “before” and “after” in world football. For the last time in a major competition there was space, and Brazil had the team perfectly equipped to make the best use of it. Mexico marked the dawn of a new exciting era as, for the first time in history, the World Cup was beamed live around the world in glorious living colour.

One reporter wrote of Brazil’s victory in the final; ‘Those last minutes combined a distillation of their football, its beauty and elan and undiluted joy.’ Part of the magic watching Brazil then was that football was still so much more of mystery in 1970. Before then the cameras were not everywhere. Players largely played their entire career in their own country. To see them play you had to physically get on a plane or a ship, or you watched newsreels of delayed film, but not live. There were no downloads, no videos and until 1970, no satellite coverage. Tactics and style were largely unknown. Analysts didn’t spend hours reviewing games and watching players or collating databanks of statistics to reveal a team’s weaknesses. The only familiarity with teams from other continents came from touring, like England did before Mexico when in 1969 they played Brazil in Rio, and almost won. Watching football was an almost uniquely physical connection to a stadium, a place and club. It wasn’t remote or detached, and there was a definite sense of being and of belonging.

Much of the mystery and of the magic was of course the players themselves. I had a poster of the great Brazilians of 1970 on my wall taken before the World Cup final in a match they said was for football’s soul. The players as lined up were from right to left: Félix, Jairzinho, Pelé, and Roberto Rivellino. Then there was Clodoaldo Tavares Saldana who was just 20 years old in Mexico and the youngest of the Santos Futebol Clube quintet in the Brazil squad of 22. His nickname amongst the players was Corro, his name at Santos. His principal role in the team was as a defensive midfielder, a screen for the back four and to provide cover for the playmaker, Gérson. He was a midfield fetcher and a carrier. His work rate was prodigious. In the Mexico midday heat at the World Cup, he would lose 4-5kgs chasing down the opposition taking a day to recover during which he was unable to eat solids and downed only soup and watermelon. He started every match. He was substituted just once, in the third group game against Romania, being replaced by the winger Jonas Eduardo Américo (nicknamed Edu), in the 74th minute. He scored one goal, finding the back of the net not being his specialty. His goal against Uruguay fired Brazil’s revival and eventual victory in the semi-final, expunging the country’s ghosts of their loss to their smaller southern neighbour in the 1950 World Cup final, a loss so painful the national team had spent two years afterwards in self-imposed isolation and never again wore white shirts.

In the final his role was to shadow Italy’s most potent playmaker, Alessandro “Sandro” Mazzola. His performance in the final was chiefly remembered for two key moments, one in each half and which both took place on almost the exact same part of the pitch. The first was an act of folly, a horrendous mistake which led to Italy’s equaliser, when his mistimed piece of flashiness presented Roberto Boninsegna with a run-on goal for a 20m shot after Brito and Félix collided with each other in desperation, and in an instant Italy was level. The second was his redemption, an act of dazzling brilliance where he ducked and dived past four Italians to start the move for Brazil’s fourth goal and the only goal scored in a final comprised of nine passes.

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You could say that football gave him a better future than he would have had without making it in the game. While that can be said about many players, that football lifted them out of poverty, it was especially true of Clodoaldo. He was born the youngest of 10 children in Sergipe north of Bahia, Brazil’s smallest state, and part of the great Brazilian divide between its two major population centres - the wealthy southeast and the impoverished northeast, which trails behind in every social and economic indicator. Orphaned at age six, he moved to the coastal city of Santos with his older siblings but when they returned to the northeast, he stayed on by himself living in a morro (also “favela”, a hillside slum) and working in a coffee warehouse. He played first for Barreiro, and later in the youth set-up at Santos at the famous Vila Belmiro ground during the club’s golden era (1956-74 when Os Santásticos were the best in the world. Santos took on kids as young as 10 or 11, when they would become members of the mirim (or little) squad. Between the ages of 12 and 14 they would graduate to the infantile team, then the juvenil (juvenile) between the ages of 15 and 17. The club treated their investments like young princes. As well as providing players with a monthly allowance, boys could expect to have all their medical, dental, and nutritional needs looked after.

His role model at Santos was double World Cup winner Zito, nicknamed Gerente (“manager” in Portuguese) by the media, who for a generation (he played 727 games for Santos over 15 years many of them as captain) had been the sheet anchor of both the Santos and Brazil sides. Under Zito’s tutelage he eased his way into the Santos first team at 17. Level-headed and dedicated, and quick to learn, he looked to emulate his idol in his tireless tackling and simple yet destructive distribution. At Guanajuato, Brazil’s luxury, guarded training base in Mexico, he found Gérson a guiding spirit. He had always been a fan. ‘They talk about great players … but I think he was the most precise of all.’ He thought Pelé, who he saw up close and personal at club level and for the national team; was always ahead of everybody “in reasoning, speed and physical condition.” Timing they say is everything and he got to play with who he called the five best players in the world in Brazil’s front three and his two midfield teammates so “everything was possible.”

His moment came in the semi-final against Uruguay, who with the best defence in Latin America and the continent’s best goalkeeper in Ladislao Mazurkiewicz (half Polish, half Spanish) had by far the better of the early exchanges with four attempts on goal to Brazil’s one. Then disaster, a defensive mix-up allowed Luis Cubillas (known as El Negro) the winger from Nacional to score when bounding away from Everaldo attempted a purely speculative shot almost mishit and Uruguay were in the lead. This epitomised the vulnerable side of Brazil’s football perhaps since they last won the World Cup. Gaining possession in defence, they were apt to dwell on the ball with the result they could occasionally be harried into error, leaving them in sudden and real trouble with the team caught going forward. Towards to end of the first half Gérson realised he wasn’t going to shake off the shackles of his man-marker Cubillas’ club teammate Julio Montero Castillo, and began encouraging Clodoaldo to venture forward in his place. Then, in the last minute of injury time in the first half, Clodoaldo exchanged passes with Tostão on the edge of Uruguay’s penalty area, and his immaculate right-foot volley left Mazurkiewicz powerless for once. In the second-half Brazil was reborn scoring twice more burying the ghosts of 1950 and they were into the World Cup final for the fourth time. Clodoaldo spent 13 years with Santos before spells in the US and in Amazonas. He retired from international play due to injury and following hanging up his boots returned to his football family with Santos in promotional roles.

Challenging the power of Santos and the big clubs from São Paulo and from Rio de Janeiro were upstarts Cruzeiro and their rivals from Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais Athlético Mineiro, and from Porto Alegre in Rio Grande do Sul, Gremio and Internacional. Cruzeiro won the Brazilian championship for the first time in 1966 significantly defeating the star-studded Santos team in the play-off series. With their star on the rise Cruzeiro had three players included in the 1970 Brazil team; José de Anchiera Fontana a defender, Wilson da Silva Piazza a midfielder converted to a central defender for the tournament and perhaps most the significant of them all, Eduardo Gonçalvez de Andrade (known by his childhood nickname Tostão). Cross town rivals Athlético Mineiro had one player in the squad, the forward Dario José dos Santos, a player rumoured to have been a favourite of Brazil’s brutal military dictator and ardent football fan General Emílio Garrastazu Médici who, when not driving the country on in nationalist fervour and hunting down political opponents of all persuasion, could be found on the terraces of the mighty Maracanã watching among others, Flamengo.

Tostão was the perfect “False 9” football tactical-speak for a deep lying centre forward being simultaneously a midfielder’s dream and a defender’s nightmare. A goal scorer who was a link player and vice versa with the dual abilities to stand still in good positions and to make his movement exceptional. He deftly linked Brazil’s other two goalscoring two in Mexico, Pelé and Jairzinho, and it was said the subtleties of his play never began to be understood by opponents. Due to his versatility and wide range of skills especially his dribbling ability, shooting and positional play, he was capable of playing in several attacking and midfield positions including as an attacking midfielder, as a second striker, as a left winger, as an out-and-out striker, or even as an offensive-minded central midfielder, known as the mezzala role in Italian football jargon but more accurately, Tostão was an advanced attacking midfielder or ponta da lança in Portuguese a role he also shared with Rivellino, which made it even harder for any opposition to marshal their defences. Tostão spent most of his time in Mexico playing with his back to the opposing goal and like Rivellino and Gérson, he operated almost entirely off of his left foot.

Rumour has it as a six-year-old he once scored 47 goals in a single match at primary school where he also acquired his nickname (Tostão means “little coin”) perhaps because as a player, he could turn on one. He started at age 14 with América Mineiro (the Green and Blacks) before signing with Cruzeiro at 16 and going on to score 249 goals in 378 appearances. He played 54 games for Brazil scoring 32 times, a goal every other game plus two hattricks——one in just 24 minutes— in the 1969 qualifying matches and 10 of Brazil’s 23 goals for the home and away matches in Group Two against Colombia, Paraguay, and Venezuela. But then tragedy. In a freak accident the very next month when playing a club match against Corinthians he was struck in the face by a ball from Corinthians’ fullback Ditão with such force he could not see afterwards. Later in hospital he was diagnosed as having suffered a detached retina, the sort of injury a boxer might have. He underwent eye surgery to repair the damage and waited on the outcome – would he play again or not?

He returned to the squad but lacked match fitness. Zagallo at first thought of him as Pelé’s reserve but as they moved from Saldanha’s 4-4-2 to a more flexible 4-3-3 Tostão’s importance to the side became clear. Like Rivellino, Jairzinho, and Piazza, Tostão was asked to adapt his natural game to fit into the plan. Zagallo asked he suppress his predatory instincts (he scored over 500 goals as a professional) and act as a sophisticated target man instead, sort of the first ‘false nine’ neither a midfielder nor an attacker but like Iniesta much later, a bit of both acting interchangeably. He spent much of the Mexico campaign with his back to goal. despite all the traumas of the preceding months and concerns about his fitness (he refused to head a ball in training) Tostão fulfilled all his potential in Mexico. He was perhaps the most consistent of all the team.

Of all the matches he thought the game against England was the most difficult, the confrontation between past and present champions. “England was perfect tactically. It became a chess match”. The first half was a tight duel, finely balanced. Brazil was without their playmaker, Gérson so included Paulo Cézar, often Brazil’s forgotten man from Mexico. After half-time Brazil had their period of ascendancy and scored from their oft-used tactic where Tostão and Pelé would drag left creating the space on the right where this time the full back caught out was Terry Cooper. Tostão drifted to the left, out on the edge of the penalty area, Pelé moving into the middle. As the defence came to cover, Tostão chipped the ball square into the middle, Pelé moved left controlling the ball in his stride. With velvet touch and peerless timing, Pelé slid the ball on to his right, in the now empty space into which Jairzinho was speeding. Jairzinho, who always belted the ball as hard as he can, shot close to Banks from the edge of the six-yard area. Mullery vainly attempting to cover behind the England ‘keeper Gordon Banks was left to pick the ball out of the net as Brazil did their dance of triumph. Soon after, Tostão nutmegged the immaculate Bobby Moore after seeing Zagallo warming up his replacement Roberto (Lopes de Miranda of Botafogo whose nickname was "Vendaval" meaning: Gale), so thought he would have to pull out something special just to remain on the pitch. Despite helping set-up Jairzinho’s goal, the winner, he was still substituted.

Against Peru in the quarterfinal, he set up the first goal for Rivellino who whipped a fearsome shot in off the post. Peru, like other teams in Mexico, never began to understand the subtleties of Tostão and a moment or two later who, feinting to go to the right, fooled one defender and then Peru’s goalkeeper Luis Rubiños with a snap left-foot shot. After half-time Brazil increased their lead when a drive by Pelé was deflected on its way by Tostão. Brazil scored a fourth when Tostão with superb timing, split the defence to give Jairzinho the chance to go around Rubiños; his shot into an empty net But he said he was more satisfied with setting up Clodoaldo and Jairzinho’s goals against Uruguay in a tough Latin American derby with Brazil’s stars man marked and Tostão hounded by Atilia Ancheata or Roberto Matosas

In the final it was agreed he would stay up front and not go back to receive the ball but always to stay with the spare defender so obliging him to always stay with him. That worked perfectly during the opening phase of the match as Roberto Rosato shadowed his every move. As Tostão buzzed around amongst the Italian back three, Rivellino and Gérson discovered the Azteca duly opening up to them but not everything worked as planned including, their shooting boots. “If Rivellino had been on top of his game he would have scored at least two goals from outside the area. I think he put five shots over the bar.” Tostão was involved in nearly everything and it was he who had taken a quick throw-in on the 18-minute for Rivellinto to lob a looping square ball in for Pelé oat the far post, Brazil led only for Italy to equalise 19 minutes later. On half-time he slipped the ball to Pelé who was clear on the far post. There was no doubt, however, that the whistle went a fraction of a second before the ball reached him.

Unusual amongst his teammates he had a middle-class background and later combined medical studies with being a professional footballer. He found the attachment of Brazil’s military government to the team’s victory disconcerting. After the World Cup he became the richest player in Minas Gerais with a lucrative contract before leaving Cruzeiro when he joined Vasco da Gama for then record fee but again damaged his eye. After retiring early at just 27, he went on to work as a doctor lecturing at the prestigious Universidade Federal de Minas Gerias in Belo Horizonte. Shy and unassuming he shunned attention but found that the limelight followed in onto the campus and into the classroom. He avoided football for a time but found his enthusiasm rekindled during the 1990 World Cup when he went to Italy to watch the matches. Later he became a successful television pundit and journalist and tried his hand at writing books about his thoughts on the game. Somewhat of a recluse in private life he still lives Belo Horizonte.

Everaldo Marques da Silva (Grêmio Football Porto Alegrense) was the only player in the squad from the southern-most part of Brazil, near the border with Uruguay in the city of Porto Alegre capital of the Pampas region, home of the gaucho. He was the first player from the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul to win a World Cup, a feat that won a gold star on the Grêmio club flag. Everaldo was a defensive left-back and wore number 16. When Brazil were in possession, it was he along with Wilson Piazza and Brito who were left to cover for the whole team. While Carlos Alberto was the prototype wing-back, Everaldo had great ability as a man-marker, which meant that more of Brazil’s attacks would go down the right side while he maintained a defensive line on the left.

Everaldo joined Grêmio as a teenager and spent his entire career with his hometown team, nicknamed the Immortal Tricolours. After a loan spell to Caxias do Sol with the Youth Sport Club (Juventude Caxias do Sol) he cemented his place in the Grêmio first team going on to play 200 matches before he retired in 1974. Playing for Grêmio, he won the tri-championship of Rio Grande do Sul in 1966, 1967 and 1968. In 1967 he made his international debut for Brazil before earning a place in the World Cup qualifiers in 1969 home and away against Colombia, Paraguay, and Venezuela where he competed for a place with Rildo da Costa Menezes, one of six Santos players selected by then Brazil manager Saldanha for the qualifying matches.

He made the final squad of 22 for Mexico where he was first choice left back against Czechoslovakia in the first match and then against England. In the final group game against Romania he picked up an ankle injury and was replaced on the hour mark by the youthful Marco Antonio Feliciano of Fluminense. He failed a fitness test on his injured ankle so sat out the quarterfinal against Peru but returned for the crucial match against Uruguay where the two South American neighbours fought for a place in the final. In the early stages of the second-half of the final, Everaldo ventured forward in an unusual foray into the opposing half. Sent away with a wonderful pass from Gérson, it was his run that helped create enough doubt in the Italians, that by the time the ball got back to the Brazil’s midfield maestro he had the room to unleash a scorcher, scoring Brazil’s second goal to take the lead and launch them on the road to victory.

After the final he was so overcome that he had to be carried away to the dressing-room, amid such scenes on the pitch that it took over 20 minutes for order to be restored so that the final ceremony could take place. After the World Cup, Everaldo was a celebrity feted much more so as the only southern player. There was cash, a land grant, and in his case a car, a Dodge Dart. He entered politics for ARENA (the National Renewal Alliance), the conservative party of the military dictatorship, and was a certainty for a seat in the state legislature when, returning from a trip upstate, he and his family were killed when the car he was driving collided with a truck. There was a huge national outpouring of grief for the first of the World Cup team to die at age just 30 years.

Wilson da Silva Piazza was an all-rounder, something of a poet off the field, a midfielder converted to play as a quarto zagueiro (a centre-back with more freedom to charge forward) for the World Cup, it being much easier to convert a midfielder to a defender than the other way around. He was a defender somewhat in the Dutch mould, picked to convert defence into attack, so not really a defender at all. A teammate of Tostão at Cruzeiro Esporte Clube in Belo Horizonte, an hour away from São Paulo and from Rio by plane, the capital of Minas Gerais, a mountainous inland state bigger than Paraguay and regarded with pride by its inhabitants (Mineiros), and a city its residents call the jewel of Brazil. He initially worked in a bank, balancing the books but his real passion was football. Piazza began his football career in Renascença, in neighbouring Paraná, before a playing for the blue-shirted Cruzeiro (nicknamed the Celestial, originally the team of Italian immigrants) in a career spanning 16 years and over 500 games scoring 40 goals together with over 50 caps for Brazil.

Piazza was originally picked by João Saldanha in the qualifying games in his club position in midfield alongside Gérson but was chosen to play his defensive role at the World Cup at the meeting of the Three Cobras in Rio, where they determined changes needed to be made and he replaced Joel Camargo of Santos. He made up the players’ committee along with Gérson, Brito, Pelé, and Carlos Alberto, who devised game plans and tactics along with Zagallo, the manager. Zagallo convinced Piazza that he and Clodoaldo were the sheet anchors he needed to allow Gérson and Rivellino to play. In the group match against Romania, he replaced Rivellino in midfield, his teammate at Cruzeiro Fontana, taking his place at the heart of the defence.

One of his key tasks took place off the field before the World Cup had started. Along with others in the senior players’ committee plus the goalkeeper Félix, he negotiated the players’ pay for the World Cup with João Havelange, then the president of the Brazilian Sports Confederation (CBD) who were heavily underwriting the World Cup campaign and through them, the military junta. Also involved in the negotiations was Havelange’s chief of staff, the head of Brazil’s delegation Antonio do Paso (sometimes Passo or even Passos) another military man and one of many involved in Brazil’s World Cup campaign.

The final pay negotiations between the player’s representatives and the CBD took place in Rio shortly before the final squad left for their base at Guanajuato in Mexico, in May 1970. At first the players had wanted a package that would earn them between USD1500-2000 for each game leading to the final and then another USD3000-4000 if they made it all the way to the Azteca. By comparison, according to the World Bank, per capita income in Brazil at that time was USD445 per annum. The package would have brought each player USD12000-14000 (USD84,500-98,500 in today’s money). Havelange and do Paso offered smaller payments for each game leading up to the final, and a large, lump sum if, and only if, they won. In the end the players unanimously agreed to accept the CBD’s proposal. For the first games they earned USD900 per match (USD6300 today). If the final was lost, they kept $4500 from the five matches to get there. If they won, they got USD10,000 (USD70,300). So, the final was all or nothing.

After the World Cup he and Tostão were rewarded by the Minas Gerais state legislature and by their club. They returned to a ticker-tape parade through Belo Horizonte and were each given a section of land. He played in the 1974 World Cup in West Germany. After football, he was busy owning and running several successful businesses. He spent 20 years in a senior role with the Minas Gerias football association and later, with AGAP or Associaçāo de Garantia ao Atleta Profissional de Minas Gerias on the Rua Uberaba, an organisation he created himself as an independent outfit designed to look after players and their families when they retire, like a benevolent fund.

The Great Brazilians to be continued …