Travelogue
The Great Brazilians Part 3 – Brito, Gérson, and Carlos Alberto - 30 April 2022
Back in the day before live television and videos, before satellites and the internet, before downloads and smartphones, growing up a sports fan was different. You read about it, you watched it live at the match if able, or some saw it on film at the movies or delayed on television at first in black and white, or you read about it and you dreamed. Photographs had a whole different meaning as they were then the constant visual medium, the ever present that allowed you to wonder and your imagination to wander. They could be magic and often were, and they were powerful images some of which remained with me my whole life. When I was young, I had a poster on my wall of the Brazilian football team taken at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City before they won the 1970 World Cup Final. This was a team that every Brazilian side since has tried and failed to equal. Even their teams of the 1980s with Zico and the great Sócrates–the best Brazilian teams never to have won a World Cup–and their team from 1994 which did succeed in becoming world champions, were inferior. Back then I had not been to another country and had never seen professional players play live in a match. Later in life I went to Brazil and saw a match played in the world’s largest football stadium by two of the country’s biggest teams, but it all made me wonder who were the players in the tournament and how did they all get there to that match at the Azteca? Gérson de Oliveira Nunes was Brazil’s chief
The Great Brazilians Part 2 - Tostão, Clodoaldo, Everaldo, and Wilson Piazza - 26 March 2022
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
The Great Brazilians Part 1 - Félix, Jairzinho, Pelé and Rivellino - 19 February 2022
They say that falling in love is better than being in love as it can bring the wonder and excitement of discovery for the first time. When I was at school, I had a poster of the Brazilian football team on my wall taken in the Azteca Stadium before the 1970 World Cup final. The poster was produced by Adidas proud that most of the players chose to
Football and the Teams at Mexico 1970 - 4 December 2021
The 1970 World Cup in Mexico is widely thought of as the tournament against which all others are measured – a celebration of free-wheeling football where the winners Brazil triumphed with a team of sublime artists over the more disciplined, physically tactical Europeans who were represented in the Final by Italy with their pincer defensive
Mexico World Cup 1970 - 6 November 2021
Someone once said watching football is about bold, primary-colour emotions: the pursuit of joy and the endurance of pain. The ninth FIFA World Cup held in Mexico (31 May 1970 – 21 Jun 1970) had all these factors and is widely thought of as a seminal sporting event for lots of reasons; a World cup against which all others are measured. In many
Gérson and the 1970 Brazilians - 25 September 2021
Great football teams have many elements in common. They have timing, and the right balance of dedication, organisation, and a commitment to a common cause. Great teams like great players can marry inspiration with industry—they work hard. They also usually have an ability to make the difficult seem easy, like no effort at all because they always
Fla-Flu at the Maracanã - 8 July 2021
I once criss-crossed swathes of South America for four months by road, rail, and on water, with some flights in-between travelling from place-to-place, city-to-city, and country-to-country. The overwhelming impression you get of South America is one of diversity followed by its scale, it’s huge; Argentina is the eight-largest country in the
Brisbane to Cairns - 6 June 2021
When I first went to Australia as a teenager I hitchhiked from Melbourne to Cairns, about 3000kms (roughly 1800 miles) by road. You get a sense of the size of Australia when you realise that as far as north as Cairns (pronounced by the locals as “Cans”) is from Melbourne, there is still another 1100kms before you reach Cape York at the Torres
Ten Songs - 5 May 2021
Music can be a very personal thing. For a lot of people music is associated with specific events or times, with people and places, various phases of relationships – good and bad. Music can cover a whole range of emotions. It can be uplifting or soothing but is rarely both in the same song or piece of music, unless your name is Beethoven
