How Brazil won the 1962 World Cup: With Garrincha coming to the fore after Pele injury

New York Times

13-07-2025

This is the seventh in a series by The Athletic looking back at the winners of each men's World Cup. The previous six articles have looked at Uruguay in 1930, Italy in 1934 and Italy again in 1938, before Uruguay won it for a second time in 1950. West Germany followed in 1954, before Brazil won their first World Cup in 1958. Four years later, Brazil won it again.
World Cup 1962, hosted in Chile, is up there with World Cup 1938 as the least fabled editions of the tournament.
There's a common link between them: they're the only two World Cups where the defending champion has triumphed. And this one came as little surprise — it was almost impossible to find a tournament preview that didn't imply that Brazil were strong favourites.
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They retained their title with a familiar group of players. Five of their six goalscorers at this World Cup — Garrincha, Vava, Pele, Zito and Mario Zagallo — had also won World Cup 1958. Amarildo, the striker who came into the side midway through the tournament and scored three times, is the exception.
Brazil did everything possible to ensure their preparation for the tournament mirrored that of 1958. Paulo Machado de Carvalho, head of Brazil's commission for the tournament, even arranged for the same pilot to fly their plane. And when he learned that the airline used for the 1958 flight to Europe had gone bankrupt, he insisted on getting their logo and sticking it on the new plane.
Overall, the tournament wasn't a classic. The goals-per-game rate dropped to 2.78, the lowest yet, and an incredibly poor figure in comparison to 5.38 from World Cup 1954. Football had changed over the previous eight years, becoming more systemised and cautious.
World Cup 1962 is also infamous for its thuggery. The Battle of Santiago, an appallingly violent clash where hosts Chile defeated Italy 2-0, went down in history. But reports from the time suggest this was merely an exaggerated version of most matches at the tournament, rather than an outlier.
World Soccer magazine took to ranking the worst matches, breaking them down into categories of 'scandalous', 'violent', 'very rough' and 'rough', with columnist Roger MacDonald writing, 'I am utterly sick of the World Cup… of the renewed burst of thuggery and brutality.'
But Brazil, save for a spell in their semi-final against Chile where they were largely the victims, weren't really involved in all this, and largely played attractive football.
When the winning coach from 1958, Vicente Feola, stepped down a year before this tournament due to ill health, he was replaced Aymore Moreira — brother of Zeze, who had led the side at World Cup 1954.
But, just as Brazil's unusually large technical staff had raised eyebrows in 1958, this situation also seemed complex. Feola was retained in some kind of overseeing role, while long-serving Santos manager Lula was recruited on a part-time basis as a consultant. It therefore seemed there was a three-way power struggle in the months leading up to the tournament: Feola wanted the 1958 side to remain largely intact, Lula lobbied for the introduction of more Santos players, while Moreira apparently wanted to bring in newcomers. But in the end, Moreira realised there was little reason to meddle with the 1958 side.
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Moreira, a former goalkeeper with the national team, received little attention during the tournament, at least from foreign media. There was no reason to concentrate on his decisions; he kept a settled XI, making only one injury-enforced change across the six matches.
There were reports that players grew frustrated with the emphasis upon physical drills rather than ball work. But the identity of the Brazil manager was less important than the fact they were still ahead of the curve in terms of employing specific coaches to work on fitness and psychology. They were seemingly the best-prepared team at the competition, as well as having the best players.
Pele was now regarded as the world's best player. He opened his tournament with a superb goal against Mexico, beating four opponents before providing a fine finish — it's a brilliant goal, yet probably not in his five most famous World Cup goals.
However, Pele was struggling with an injury, and kept the extent of it a secret from his coach, fearing he'd be dropped. In the second game, a goalless draw with Czechoslovakia, Pele pulled up with a groin strain after attempting a long-range shot. His game was over. In fact, his tournament was over. The Czech players sportingly went easy on Pele for the rest of the game (although had they known they'd face Brazil again in the final, perhaps they would have done to Pele what West Germany did to Ferenc Puskas eight years earlier).
There were rumours Pele would be fit to return for the final, but he'd suffered a recurrence of his injury in training, and was asked to pretend he was in contention — wearing the team tracksuit on his way to the ground — as a bluff.
Pele's absence meant Garrincha had even more responsibility, and he responded with arguably the greatest ever individual World Cup campaign. In 1958 he was a brilliant dribbler who relied on dropping his shoulder and going down the outside. He showed he still had that in his locker (even when opponents doubled up against him) with his assist for Amarildo to open the scoring in Brazil's final group game, a 2-1 win over Spain.
But the Garrincha of 1962 was a completely different player. He was now an all-rounder.
Garrincha had become adept at shooting with both feet and was a powerful presence in the air — very rare for a winger at this stage — as he demonstrated in the knockout stage. In the 3-1 quarter-final win over England, he scored a bullet near-post header from an outswinging Zagallo corner, then curled home a beautiful goal from outside the box with his right foot.
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In the 4-2 semi-final win over Chile, he scored a carbon copy of his previous headed goal, again from a Zagallo corner, then smashed home into the top corner with his supposedly weaker left foot.
As Rob Fielder notes in his comprehensive game-by-game history of the World Cup, Chile were so frightened by Garrincha that they dropped their captain to bring in Manuel Rodriguez, on the basis that he'd handled Garrincha well in previous meetings. But a left-back can do little about a headed goal from a corner, or a first-time long-range finish.
Garrincha is understandably remembered for his swivelling hips and his dribbling, but to paint him as a pure old-school outside-right undersells him — the difference between the Garrincha of 1958 and 1962 is like the difference between the Cristiano Ronaldo of 2004 and 2008.
It was made clear in the build-up to the tournament that Moreira wasn't a fan of the 4-2-4 that had brought Brazil success in 1958. He wanted something safer, although in practice he didn't change too much. His variation basically involved bringing left-winger Mario Zagallo deeper and narrower to create more of a 4-3-3 system. But even in 1958, Zagallo was regarded as a more functional, workmanlike winger than Garrincha down the right.
The only change Moreira made in the tournament was after Pele's injury. Amarildo replaced him and played more as an inside-left than a second striker, providing some balance now Zagallo had tucked further inside. Amarildo, incidentally, is the only member of this side still alive.
The centre-backs were regarded as 'new' to outsiders, but both Zozimo and Mauro Ramos, who captained the side, had been non-playing members of the 1958 squad. Either side of them, Brazil continued to use — some would say pioneer — the use of overlapping full-backs, with the legendary double act of Djalma Santos and Nilton Santos both still in the starting XI.
Garrincha should have been banned for the final. Towards the end of the semi-final victory over a terribly physical Chile side, after being kicked throughout the game, Garrincha reacted to a minor block-off by Eladio Rojas by giving him a sneaky kick up the backside on his way past. Rojas thought about things for a second, decided he'd been hurt, and then dropped to the floor. Simulation in football is far from a 'modern' issue.
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For this, Garrincha should have been suspended for the final. Yes, technically there was no mandatory one-match suspension in these days, but five other players were sent off at this tournament, and all five were handed a ban. What made this one different?
On the basis of video evidence, Garrincha's kick was foolish but probably not a red card offence. Still, video evidence wasn't considered at this point, so the key factor was the testimony of the Uruguayan linesman who witnessed Garrincha's 'violent conduct' and reported it to the referee.
But linesman Esteban Marino failed to turn up at the disciplinary hearing, and seemingly left the country altogether. Without his testimony, Garrincha couldn't be banned.
FIFA's own account is that 'Chile president Jorge Alessandri led a petition to allow Garrincha to perform in the final, which was ultimately successful', although other stories involve more of a lobbying effort from Brazil's hefty delegation in Chile, with involvement from various South American ambassadors, Brazilian prime minister Tancredo Neves and FIFA President Sir Stanley Rous himself.
The outcome was that Garrincha was available to play, which was probably fair considering how minor his indiscretion had been, although you can also argue that two wrongs don't make a right.
After all this, Garrincha was ill on the day of the final, and not at his best.
In keeping with the general anonymity of this tournament, this final seems somewhat forgotten. Coming after a run of genuinely legendary finals (the Maracanazo in 1950, the Miracle of Bern in 1954, the highest-scoring final in 1958), no-one ever really mentions this one.
That's something of a shame, as it featured good attacking play from both sides — and, as had become somewhat familiar in World Cup finals, a come-from-behind victory. Czechoslovakia's opener was a lovely goal, featuring a neat through ball from right-winger Tomas Pospichal to legendary midfielder Josef Masopust to run onto and finish. It's a goal that feels very modern for an era when getting the ball wide and crossing was the most common method of attack.
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But Amarildo, as ever making inroads down the left, equalised with a swerving shot that caught out Czech goalkeeper Viliam Schrojf at his near post. It wasn't dissimilar to the Uruguayan winner in the 1950 final. The old adage that 'a goalkeeper shouldn't be beaten at his near post' probably made more sense at this point, as they did seem to position themselves too far towards their far post.
Brazil went 2-1 ahead with the third nice goal of the game. Zito brought through the midfield, slipped in Amarildo down the left, and continued his run into the box. Amarildo took his time, then floated a far-post cross for Zito to head home.
Victory was sealed by a terrible error from Schrojf, who otherwise enjoyed a fine tournament. He completely misjudged an up-and-under that dropped towards the edge of his six-yard box, spilling the ball to Vava for a tap-in.
In all honesty, there probably isn't one, despite Brazil's tournament being packed with great moments. Most notably, there's Pele's dribble against Mexico, and two fantastic Garrincha long-range beauties. Their first two goals in the final were very attractive too.
This lack of an obvious moment is a combination of two things: a reflection of the fact Brazil never needed to snatch a crucial late goal, and the fact their three goals in the final came from a source other than Garrincha or Pele, their two superstars.
This Brazil was considered less spectacular than the side from four years beforehand, but it's difficult to make a case that anyone else was on their level. Runners-up Czechoslovakia were surprise finalists, and third-placed Chile were reliant on home advantage. The Soviet Union were promising but fell short at the quarter-final stage.
And, besides, Brazil completed the job without being able to count upon the world's best player at any point in the knockout stage. They were now the World Cup's dominant nation, having been considered its great underachievers just five years beforehand. The most notable underachievers were now the inventors of the sport, England — four World Cups in, they were still yet to make it past the quarter-finals. But they would host the next edition…