Brazil 1970 Journey
How We Did It
To millions of fans around the world, they were, quite simply, the greatest group of players ever assembled. And when Gloria’s Paul Joseph set out to track down every member of Brazil's 1970 World Cup team, it was to become the 40,000-mile adventure of a lifetime
Gloria secured the rights to produce a giant-sized, limited-edition version of Pelé's official autobiography. Each volume would be hand-signed by the man himself and contain autobiographical text, plus rarely seen images and newly commissioned journalism by eminent football writers.
Brazil 1970 Timing
The book would be marketed as a "sports collectible" for lovers of the game, to whom Pelé still represents football's single most transcendent figure. With this in mind – and knowing that the 1970 tournament and the final in particular, were seminal landmarks in Pelé's career – we decided to dedicate one chapter to the games leading up to the final.
Then we hit on a brainwave: what if we were to track down the surviving members of that Brazil team, get them to sign prints of an iconic image from 1970, then include the prints in a special edition of our book. Trawling through the online photo archives, we soon found the ideal shot: the Brazil and Italy teams lining up on the pitch before the final, taken at ground level, at a 45-degree angle. The Brazilians are in the foreground, with every player looking straight ahead, apart from Pelé, who is glancing at the camera. It was simply perfect.
We swiftly reproduced 150 of these prints. We would include the images in a package containing a "Carnival" edition of our book, limited to 150 units. The standard "Samba" edition, limited to 2,350 units, would retail at £2,000. All that was left was to get the signatures.
How we Did It
We set in search of the autographs of 11 of the most famous men in sport, all of whom lived on the other side of the world. Pelé's signature proved, by some distance, the easiest to obtain. With signature number one in the bag, the hunt was on for the remaining nine players and their coach, Mario Zagallo, a man regarded as the grandfather of Brazilian football (Everaldo had died in a car crash in 1974).
Team Captain Carlos Alberto's pad boasted a security barrier and 24-hour warden at the entrance. It took 20 minutes of small talk in his opulent living room before I summoned the courage to ask if he would mind awfully washing his hands before signing the prints.
How We Did It
Next stop was the urban chaos of Sao Paulo to meet Felix, Brazil's goalkeeper of 1970. If someone were to draw a prototype of a World Cup-winner, it's unlikely he would be used as a template: short, stocky and with a posture so hunched it would send a chiropractor's heart into palpitations, I could scarcely believe that he served as the last line of defence in the greatest team in history.
Next stop: Santos. For any true Pelé devotee, this town, where he spent his entire 18-year Brazilian career, should represent an experience of religious significance. My own trip to the picturesque seaside resort, one hour's drive from Sao Paulo, had a more prosaic importance: I was due to meet Clodoaldo, the elegant defender, at his beachside home.
Brazil 1970 Timing
Back in the taxi, we were soon pulling up outside Clodoaldo's home, where he was milling around in his front garden. He is a striking looking man with movie-star qualities – an ageing Antonio Banderas sprung to mind – and is as graceful today as he was on the pitch.
In Sao Paulo the following day, I received news of Rivelino, owner of perhaps the most famous moustache in football. He wanted to meet me before signing, to hear about the project and understand exactly what he was getting involved in. He suggested I come to his bar later that evening for a chat.
Sitting in the corner of the boozer in Sao Paulo's Boa Vista district, Rivelino cut a godfather-like figure. A steady stream of patrons approached his table, to whisper something in his ear, or sometimes just to shake his hand or kiss the top of his head. He was stand-offish at first and wanted to know why we needed him for a book on Pelé. I explained our wish to create a special collector's item to commemorate that wonderful team, and he began to warm up. He said he'd be happy to sign at a later date, but would first speak to some of his former team-mates to ensure everything was in order.
As our taxi rolled through the sidestreets of Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro's more sedate neighbour across the Guanabara Bay, I reflected on my trip so far. Despite all the problems I had anticipated, everything had mostly gone to plan. But all that was about to change, thanks to Gérson de Oliveira Nunes, the former midfielder who now runs Projeto Gérson, a charity providing school facilities for 600 underprivileged children, founded after the death of his daughter some years ago.
How We Did It
The following morning, good vibes took a hit with news that Mario Zagallo, the head coach in 1970, was so depressed about Brazil's World Cup exit that he wanted some time alone. He would sign, we were told, just not yet.
Hercules Brito Ruas, by contrast, had no intention of holding us to ransom. The former defender, known as "Brito", had been calling our man on a daily basis, asking when he could sign. It seemed he needed the cash. With Zagallo stalling and Rivelino playing hard-ball, I headed to the Rio outskirts to meet Brito. A day later, Wilson da Silva Piazza, another defender from 1970, also signed.
How we Did It
With seven down, and four signatures still to get, and Zagallo remaining incommunicado, my boss decided I should come home for a rethink. Back in England, with no apparent alternative, we resolved to offer a higher fee to the dissenting players, Rivelino and Jairzinho, scorer of Brazil's winner against England in 1970. Meanwhile, Zagallo had emerged from his pit of despair and agreed to sign, for a comparatively nominal fee. (We reasoned that as coach he was not integral to the project; plus, he was already a wealthy man.)
Brazil 1970 Timing
With seven down, and four signatures still to get, and Zagallo remaining incommunicado, my boss decided I should come home for a rethink. Back in England, with no apparent alternative, we resolved to offer a higher fee to the dissenting players, Rivelino and Jairzinho, scorer of Brazil's winner against England in 1970. Meanwhile, Zagallo had emerged from his pit of despair and agreed to sign, for a comparatively nominal fee. (We reasoned that as coach he was not integral to the project; plus, he was already a wealthy man.)
His post-playing life has spanned two careers: one as a physician and the other, more recent one, as a noted and highly cerebral national football columnist in Brazil. He is singularly detached from the world of commerce and is extremely private, living in the low-key city of Belo Horizonte. After a friendly call, he refused to talk further on the issue and the answer looked again like an emphatic "no".
His resistance was clear. After years of facing an onslaught of 1970-team mania, he had no interest in being another cog in the sporting memorabilia world. We knew Tostao was logical, so we followed another tack: mathematics. What if we were to pro rata the profits attributable from the prints, work out the value of the Tostao share that we will generate and allocate in advance all of that share to charity?
We made yet another approach to the man in Belo Horizonte; we were now limited to sending formal letters, written first in English and translated into Portuguese (he'd made clear to Werneck: "no calls, no emails, no one appearing at my door again"). We waited two weeks: no response.
Finally, one Monday, we got one, by email from an "E Andrade" email address.
More About our Journey
"OK, I will sign your photos. With the following terms: if you make contribution of all my fees (and the profits from my name) to five Brazilian charities, with a pre-agreed day and hour for me to sign, but after you have paid the money to them. Then come to my town. I can meet your emissary only to take the photos and not to talk to him, the pictures will be signed and returned to you. Tostao."
The charities turned out to be: Gérson's Instituto Canhotinha de Ouro, APAE de Sao Paulo (the Association of the Parents and Friends of the Handicapped), Fundacao Gol de Letra (created by the ex-Brazilian players Rai and Leonardo), Hospital Mario Pena in Tostao's home town (which treats cancer sufferers too poor to afford regular treatment) and Fundacao Cafu, created, of course, by Brazilian star Cafu, in São Paulo.
"A series of incandescent performances that bestowed upon them the title, still unchallenged, of the best international
team ever seen."
— Richard Williams, The Guardian, 2022
Brazil 1970 Timing
And so, once again I made the 16-hour journey back across the Atlantic to Sao Paulo, then straight on to an internal flight to Belo Horizonte. In a taxi, I told the driver my destination, but he looked perplexed. It seemed that Tostao's choice of abode was not a familiar one. He invited me in and, before anything else, I handed over the charitable receipts. The retinal injury that curtailed his career had left him partially cross-eyed; a middle-aged paunch and fuzzy grey hair gave him the appearance of a loveable uncle. He sat down to sign the prints, and I reflected on the enormity (as well as the eccentricity) of his gesture.
By effectively turning down a blank cheque for his own pocket, he had displayed the rarest example of human kindness. And there, at the very end of my journey, I reflected that this single gesture provided the most fitting reminder of the spirit of 1970.
Edited version of a feature-length article that first appeared in The Independent newspaper in the UK on 10 April 2008.