Flowers will next week be laid at the resting place of Manuel Francisco dos Santos in the working class district of Pau Grande in Rio de Janeiro on the anniversary of his birth 76 years ago.
Meanwhile on this side of the Atlantic, Cristiano Ronaldo will be advised, realistically and legitimately or not, to heed the story of a man whose memory still inspires cult-like fervour and millions of regrets.
In Brazil, as always, graveside tears will be shed because if the life of the man better known as Garrincha – “Little Bird” – was one of the greatest glories of football, away from the field it was also a tragedy that has few rivals in the history of the world’s most popular game.
Garrincha was folklore long before he died 26 years ago in an alcoholic coma and the streets of Rio were filled with mourners as his funeral cortege wended from the Maracana Stadium back to his first wild roots. But when the flowers go down on Wednesday and an old banner reading “Obrigado, Garrincha, por voce ter vivido – Thank you Garrincha for having lived” is lifted once again, his tortured denouement will indeed be raised as a caution against the future of the most glittering and contemporary of his successors.
–Agencies