The song bird

I am reading the biography of Mane Manuel Garrincha (Garrincha in portugese means song bird) written by Ruy Castro.
What a player and what a messy life he lived.

In the very first game of Mane's career when he was selected to represent Botafogo in the local tourneys Mane nutmegged Nilton Santos a couple of times.
Well, Nilton Santos is one of the best ever Left Back the game has ever seen and nutmegging a defender is probably the most embarrasing experience for him in the pitch.

Its a wonderful book but at times the author exaggerates Mane's achievements. Like the author claims that Garrincha was the best brazillian player in the 1958 WC. Actually it was Didi, the Botafogo team-mate of Mane, who was the best player in that WC. There is also another misconception that it was Pele but Garrincha, Didi, Nilton Santos, and Nilmar were also at least equally gud as Pele in that campaign.

It was amazing to read the kind of preparation that the Brazilian football federation had undertaken. The team to sweden was accompanied by a physchologist (this was needed as in the earlier campaign the players were gripped by fear of loosing when they played the Puskas led hungarian team), dentist (a total of 200 teeths were removed), a spy (to go to the training grounds of opposing teams and get to know abt their tactics), and different specialists in case of health problems. It seems even the hotels were booked abt 6 months in advance after taking into account the warm climate around the WC time and proximity to the training ground. Even the team arrived in sweden very early in order to acclamatize with the new environs.
This scientific approach was actually undertaken by Juan Havalange who was the boss of CBF. Havalange is truly a revolutionary.