I'm not a football fan at all, but the World Cup always gives me the chance to indulge in my nostalgia for Brazil.
I watched them play bonnie Scotland last night.
The magic was still there. The Brazilian flair that I remember so well from my childhood, because when I was 9 I saw perhaps the greatest football team ever re-invent what we then called soccer into what we now call the beautiful game. All down to one team.
Brazil.
It was the Mexico World Cup 1970.
I think my folks got their first colour TV for it. I half-recall neighbours being round to see the spectacle too.
And boy, was it one. I can still picture the vibrancy of Brazil's yellow shirts in the blazing Mexican sunshine. I'd never seen sunlight or colour like it. It was as if someone was throwing neon rainbows over the whole thing.
It wasn't just Brazil in colour. It was their sensational style of play. They were simply brilliant. Fluid, graceful, quick. Nothing like the drab matches my old Dad sat through on the old, albeit, black and white TV. Someone had switched the sun on and set the style dial to max!
I was mesmerized by that team.
But more than this, for me at least, it was the Brazilian players' names that have stayed with me the longest. I'm 65 now and can still recite most of them I reckon.
Here's but a few:
Tostao, Jazhninio, Rivelino, Albert and of course, Pele.
It was as if they had but one name, not two like us boring Brits. And many ended in io like Jazhinio. Exotic was not the word.
There was one that didn't sound like the rest I remember, so I had to look it up last night.
Gerçon.
Of course!
Yep, Brazil, Mexico World Cup 1970. It was a wonderful childhood experience and watching the modern team retrieved a little bit of that Seventies magic for me.
No collectables. Just memories.
Did you see the 1970 Mexico World Cup?
🇧🇷
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