Garrincha: An Ideal To Aspire To or As Flawed As the Game of Today?

Football will always have players who thrill audiences and bring joy to millions: This is the essence of the beautiful game and it is a large part of what packs out stadiums around the world and has people glued to their televisions from Montevideo to Moscow.

Fellow Bleacher Report contributor Keith Griffin asks if we are becoming disillusioned with the beautiful game and many hands will be raised in agreement.

On the pitch, we see spite and petulance from the players who are meant to be our heroes.

In the boardrooms and FA offices, chairmen, administrators, and sponsors compete for resources and apparently bleed the game dry, while the ever-growing football media lay the blame squarely at the door of the all mighty dollars, euros, and pounds that we are told are poisoning the sport.

Keith presents us with the incomparable Garrincha as a shining beacon from the past, a figure of such legendary talent that he was bestowed with the moniker "joy of the people," no mean feet in a nation of the footballing quality of Brazil.

Like so many of the great players we read about, I wish I had witnessed Garrincha’s genius first hand, which would have been thrilling indeed if the brief glimpse of his talent afforded to us by grainy YouTube footage is anything to go by. 

But if we use Garrincha as a model that the likes of the glamour-obsessed Ronaldo or the petulant Rooney could learn from, we might have a problem.

Keith mentioned that Ronaldinho and Adriano have struggled for consistency as they were tempted by the glitz and glamour that invariably seems to appeal to young men from impoverished backgrounds, particularly Brazilians.

Romario, Ronaldo, Robinho—they have all been affected, too, although the happily married, God-fearing, and middle class Kaka has thus far kept himself out of trouble.

As well as being one of the first great Brazilians to be noticed globally for his talent, Garrincha was also embroiled in great personal difficulties off the pitch.

Garrincha chain smoked and drank heavily throughout his adult life, making his performances on the pitch all the more remarkable.

He had two failed marriages and several affairs, fathering as many as 14 children. He was also involved in several car accidents, including a collision that killed his mother-in-law. After major financial problems following his retirement, he died of cirrhosis of the liver in an alcohol-induced coma.

If Garrincha had played in this generation, our strict training routines and nutritional guidelines might have given him a better chance of avoiding the pitfalls of the celebrity lifestyle that befell him and others who followed.

But we only have to look at the travails of Maradona, Gascoigne, and the aforementioned Brazilian miscreants to realize even modern professionals can easily go astray.

Garrincha, who liked a drink and a cheeky smoke, clearly wasn’t the most responsible bloke. As a domestic footballer in 1950s Brazil, this cost him his solvency and his health. It tragically killed his mother-in-law and ultimately sent him to his own early grave.

In the age of global stardom and unlimited wealth, who knows where Garrincha’s excesses would have lead him?

With an exponentially higher profile and modern medical and psychological help, he may have been saved before it was too late, but until then it would have been a wild ride as he jetted around the world, landing on the front page of every tabloid and gossip blog around.

Unfortunately, given half a chance, Garrincha could well have become the epitome of the modern malaise effecting the game that Keith has identified: petulance, spitefulness, corruption, and greed. Surely it has not always been so?

It's hard to reconcile the timeless images of what is viewed as an increasingly bygone era with the apparently soulless behemoth we now consume.

Think of Bobby Moore and Pele embracing after a hard-fought contest in the 1970 World Cup; black and white footage of the great Real Madrid teams, Puskas, and Di Steafano triumphing, 7-3, at Hampden Park; George Best securing Manchester United’s first European Cup against Benfica.

Wait. Are these men and moments so different from the grotesque spectacle we now bemoan? That Real Madrid team was hand-picked to be the best, its president cajoling and coercing the game’s great players to defect to their cause.

Bobby Moore may not have played in that epic battle in the Mexico 1970 sunshine if he hadn’t been released by Colombian police to join the squad after accusations of theft from the team hotel’s jewelry store.

George Best fared little better than Garrincha. After his retirement, Best’s life followed a destructive downward spiral of abusive behaviour and severe alcoholism, ending in his premature death at age 59, only ten years older than the Brazilian with whom he shared flawed brilliance.

Has football really changed that much? Has it become a monster?

Or have we changed football?

The players are still the same working class boys from the rough end of town. They are still making it big with a ball at their feet and a fatter paycheck than they could ever have dreamed of.

Boys will be boys and Ronaldinho, Romario, and their ilk could do their wayward predecessors proud, while if you delve a little further into the background of our heroes of the halcyon era, you will find stories worthy of any modern tabloid or gossip mag.

Perhaps we have done the damage, perhaps we have created the monster.

We wanted more—more games, more highlights, more replays, more camera angles, more reports, more analysis, and more rumours; interactive match choice and 24-hour news.

The public’s appetite for football has become insatiable in the digital age. While only the greatest of indiscretions and errors were remarked upon in days gone by, now every training ground bust up and every wisp of transfer gossip is seized upon and blown out of proportion.

We wanted more football and we got it, but we now have to live with the consequences of our Faustian Pact. Players behave no worse or better than they used to. Referees make the same mistakes and the chairman, agents, and assorted hangers-on will always be in it for themselves.

If we want to see, read, and talk about football more and more, we have to take the rough with the smooth, the good with the bad. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.

They may have been geniuses with the ball at their feet and mavericks off the pitch, but even Garrincha and Best couldn’t find a way to do that.