Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/321747
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 1 JUNE 2014 48 DIANA RENEE AND SEBASTIAN FEST "I virtually never downed anyone inside the box," Nilton Santos, one of the stars of that legendary team, recalled in an interview with dpa. "But that day, when Spain were 1-0 up, I committed a foul in the box to stop one of their counter- attacks. I immediately took a step forward and lifted my arms. The referee was far and he signalled a free kick. Had Spain scored their second goal, we would have lost. We started to win the title right there," said Nilton Santos, who died in November 2013 at the age of 88. Perhaps if Alfredo Di Stefano, the greatest player of that era, had been on the pitch, things might have been different. But the Ar- gentine-born striker, who had by then acquired Spanish citizen- ship, was injured, and his great chance to play a World Cup van- ished like the spot-kick that the referee turned into a free-kick. Di Stefano, who is according to every observer one of the five greatest players of all time along with Pele, Diego Maradona, Franz Beckenbauer and Johan Cruyff, draws some consolation from having shared that time with his team-mates. "I was at a World Cup," Real Ma- drid 's honorary president, aged 87, told dpa. "I went there with the players. Twenty-two players make up a national team, right? I did not get to play due to a back injury, but I trained with my team-mates. If I had not scored that goal in Wales, Spain would not have qualified. The World Cup starts earlier, and I was there. If what happened to me had happened to another one of the lads it would have been the same thing. I was an interna- tional, we qualified for the World Cup and that was what happened: a back injury did not allow me to contribute further." The fact is that Spain did not convert that free-kick, and from then on the stage was set for Gar- rincha's show. Garrincha gave Amarildo two brilliant assists that led to Brazil 's two goals in their 2-1 win over Spain, which launched the process by which Chile 1962 was to become "Gar- rincha's World Cup." "Garrincha did everything. He was fantastic, different from eve- ryone else. Usually strikers try to avoid defenders, to get away from them. Garrincha didn't: he found it fun to take them on, to get past them. He always played as if he were in (his native village) Pau Grande," said Nilton Santos, who was the best friend of the leg- endary striker until Garrincha's death in 1983. In that World Cup, Nilton San- tos tried to make the most of that trait in Garrincha's character. "Before every match, I would tell him that a defender from the rival team had said he would manage to stop him. He would get furious: 'Who is that?' he asked me. I told him, 'I don't know who it was. Try to get past them all, just in case'. And he did that." As the oldest member of the vet- eran team that Brazil fielded in Chile, Nilton Santos played a key role as a sort of "counsellor" dur- ing the World Cup, especially af- ter Pele got injured in the second first-round match against Czech- oslovakia and had to be replaced by fellow-striker Amarildo for the remainder of the tournament. Aware of the responsibility that rested on the shoulders of his Botafogo team-mate, Nilton San- tos tried to reassure Amarildo and appointed himself as a "guard " to the temperamental forward, in or- der to avoid violent incidents that would harm the team as a whole. "I told him no one was expect- ing him to do what Pele did and that he only had to play like he did at Botafogo, and I tried to keep a close watch over him." Nilton Santos was already 37 during the 1962 World Cup, and it took great efforts from Brazil of- ficials and technical staff to con- vince him to play the tournament at all. "The press did not support my presence. They thought I was too old, and I did not want to go ei- ther. I thought I had already at- tained everything a footballer might aspire to after the title in the Sweden (1958) World Cup," he admitted. However, Nilton Santos saw the trophy he lifted in Chile as the climax of his career, which was to end two years later, in 1964. "Brazil had great players, like Leonidas and Zizinho, who never won a World Cup. I won every- thing: I played 34 finals in 17 years, and I won them all," he said. The former player was both hap- py and nostalgic about his career, and in 1998 he was included in the World Team of the 20th Century as the best left-back in history. 48 Download the MaltaToday App now Chile 1962: Nilton Santos, Di Stefano and Spain came close to spoiling it for Brazil Brazil got to the Chile 1962 World Cup as the favourites, but they came close to losing their third first-round game, against Spain, in a defeat that could have ended their hopes of lifting the second World Cup trophy in their history. Perhaps if Alfredo Di Stefano, the greatest player of that era, had been on the pitch in the game against Brazil, things might have been different. Photo by picture-alliance / dpa