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  • Published: 30 November 2011
  • ISBN: 9781448128051
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 432
Categories:

Garrincha

The Triumph and Tragedy of Brazil's Forgotten Footballing Hero



Ruy Castro's wonderful biography charts the extraordinary rise and fall of a flawed sporting legend, and a tragically human hero.

The World Cup Finals, Sweden 1958. Brazil vs the fearsome USSR.

In the opening three minutes - 'the greatest three minutes in the history of football' - one man wrote himself into the record books alongside the game's greatest players, men like Pelé, Di Stefano, Puskas and Maradona. Brazil went on to win the cup, and in Garrincha, a star was born.

Garrincha was the unlikeliest of footballers - with a right leg that turned inwards and a left that turned out, he looked as if he could barely walk, but with a ball at his feet he had the poise of an angel. He played for the love of the game, uninterested in money, and ignoring tactical advice. And he was as wild off the pitch as he was mesmerising on it - mischievous, audacious and dripping with sex appeal.

It was his affair and subsequent marriage to the singer Elza Soares that caught the imagination of a nation - their mouth-watering combination of soccer and samba made them the toast of 1960s Rio. But by the age of forty-nine, Garrincha was dead, destroyed by the excesses that made him so compelling.
‘Funny and moving, zealously researched and lovingly told’ Daily Telegraph

  • Published: 30 November 2011
  • ISBN: 9781448128051
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 432
Categories:

About the author

Ruy Castro

Ruy Castro is the author of several biographies and collections of quotations. His most recent works include Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music that Seduced the World and Rio de Janeiro: Carnival under Fire. He is currently working on a biography of Carmen Miranda. He lives in Rio de Janeiro.

Praise for Garrincha

[A] powerfully atmospheric and beautifully rendered life of one of Brazil's greatest ever players... A sad and fantastic book

Harry Pearson, When Saturday Comes

[Castro's] research is exhaustive and exemplary

Sunday Times

A compelling page-turner, warts and all

Scotland on Sunday

Castro's biography is funny and moving, zealously researched and lovingly told. This excellent new translation by Andrew Downie means English readers can properly appreciate one of the most incredible lives in the history of sport

Alex Bellos, Daily Telegraph

Passionate, fascinating and surprisingly moving... a worthy tribute... According to Gazza, Gascoigne has limited interest in books. He should be persuaded to make an exception for Garrincha. He would learn more about himself than by reading his own autobiography

Guardian