Francisco dos Santos “Garrincha”

By Alejandro Ceballos.
Manuel Francisco Dos Santos was a brazilian football player who was born on 28
october 1933. Known in the world of soccer by the nickname Garrincha, he became,
along with O Rei Pelé, one of the most beloved players of the Brazilian fans.

He started playing soccer on the team of the modest fabric company where he had
worked since he was a child. He then went on to Petrópolis, from which he followed in
unstoppable ascent to Vasco de Gama, Fluminense and San Cristóbal. The next stage
was the most victorious when he signed for the club of his loves, Botafogo from Rio de
Janeiro.

Since the end of 1956 he became an irreplaceable player, as well as being a fixture of
the national team ever since. His apotheosis came at the 1962 World Cup in Chile,
where he won the second World Cup title of the five that the Brazilian team has won,
the leader among the champions.

Garrincha would manage to appear in the Brazilian team in the World Cup in England
in 1966, where he could not add the expected third title. The defeat in the first
qualifying round and the subsequent injury to a meniscus, from which he never
recovered, turned him into a reclusive and undisciplined being and led him to drink.

From there to his accelerated decline there was only a short stretch: in a very short time
he went through several minor teams (Portuguesa, Atlético Juniors de Barranquilla...),
until he ended up in 1970 at Flamengo in Rio de Janeiro, where he practically gave up.
finished his football career. He was married three times and had a total of thirteen
children. One of his wives was the famous Brazilian singer Elsa Solares, with whom he
had a daughter. Mané Garrincha lived the last years of his life in the town of Bangú, in a
favela area. His last wife was Wardeleia. He died in 1983, a victim of alcoholism.
One of the most impressive things was his quality despite the fact that Garrincha was
zambo, his feet turned eighty degrees inwards, his right leg six centimeters shorter than
his left, and a crooked spine. Issues that were aggravated by severe poliomyelitis.
He was one of the best player of the world and he won incredible titles like a world cup
in 1958 and 1962 or 12 libertadores cup,one of the most important american title.He
died in Rio de Janeiro on august of 1983to "pulmonary congestion, pancreatitis and
pericarditis, all within the clinical picture of chronic alcoholism"
,leaving samples of quality that to this day not been able to match.He lived a crazy
live,he became alcoholic,he had 35 red cards and he spent 10 years in prisión for force
robbery,but the craziest fact of his live is that at the age of 14 she lost her virginity to a
goat because she said she needed it and didn't want to turn to a prostitute.

Alejandro Ceballos 3ºC