by Rob Smyth
Pinheiro stood up slowly and straightened his trousers. ‘Sergio Américo!’ he barked. As he did so he grabbed his prosthetic penis and squeezed. ‘The only Botafogo crisis is here!’
***
Kaiser arranged women for Pinheiro for almost five years. ‘He had a prosthetic penis and a constant erection. And so he warmed to me. I would say to him, “What do you have that makes all these women want to sleep with you?” Complete lie.’
Emil regularly gave Kaiser the keys to his thirty-five-foot yacht in Angra dos Reis. Their friendship meant Kaiser could stay at Botafogo as long as he liked, even if a couple of players resented the favouritism. Kaiser was not so much teacher’s pet as teacher’s prodigal. ‘Who would dispute me being at the club?’ says Kaiser. ‘What would they say? His security didn’t even let anybody come close to him. The players would gossip about my relationship with Emil. I was his darling. What are you going to do about it?’
There wasn’t much Ajaccio could do about it. Kaiser gave them the wrong phone number which meant the only way they could contact him, to check his recovery progress, was by airmail. And airmail had a terrible habit of getting lost in Rio de Janeiro. He did read one letter, written by one of the more straight-laced directors: ‘We had very high expectations of you and you have disappointed us at every turn. You might have been great for those people you hung around with off the field but you have served no purpose at this club. When you leave Ajaccio, you will be like a ripped-out page in our history.’
Kaiser put the letter straight in the bin. He was in no hurry to return to Corsica. It was too quiet, too still. ‘Ajaccio has nothing,’ he says. ‘Corsica is a dead island. If you wanted nightlife you had to go to Paris. Ajaccio has bars and cafés. For anybody coming from Rio de Janeiro, Ajaccio has nothing. That’s why I stayed in Brazil.’
Even if he wanted to go back to Corsica, this was not the moment. It was the busiest time of year in Brazilian football, and Kaiser had work to do.
CHAPTER 17
THE FRIEND OF DIEGO
Kaiser had plenty of parties to organise in 1989, when Botafogo reached the state championship final for the first time in fourteen years. As the victories mounted up, so did the number of superstitions. At a club built on history and mythology, such quirky beliefs were a comfort. Most of them came from Valdir Espinosa, the coach. Martha Esteves, a Flamengo fan who had to cover Botafogo for Placar magazine, occasionally asked Espinosa for a cigarette during games. He noticed that, every time she did so, Botafogo won, so for the rest of the season she was forced to chain-smoke within an inch of her arteries. Espinosa also wore the same clothes to every game – black trousers and a white t-shirt. ‘I think he had a few pairs,’ says Esteves. ‘I hope he did.’
Botafogo went unbeaten throughout both stages of the league system, with the winners of each qualifying for the final. A dramatic comeback from 3-1 to 3-3 against Flamengo ultimately meant they qualified for the final against … Flamengo.
It was an intimidating Flamengo side. Their starting XI included Zico and Renato Gaúcho, as well as four players who would start the World Cup final five years later – Bebeto, Zinho, Aldair and Jorginho – and another, Leonardo, who would have done so had he not been suspended.
The first leg, in the Maracanã, was a 0-0 draw. Botafogo had problems ahead of the second leg: Josimar was enduring a gruesome cocaine comedown, while the forward Maurício, Kaiser’s old friend from the club America, had a fever and a grotesque, infected boil on his leg. He could barely walk. Any useful medication would have violated doping tests, so the medical staff ruled him out of the second leg.
Espinosa, who had decided Maurício was another of his lucky charms, ignored medical advice and included him in the team. Maurício spent the first half chasing back after Leonardo. ‘I couldn’t hack it so at half-time I asked the coach to take me off,’ says Maurício. ‘He said, “Listen. I’m not taking you off. You’re special and you are going to score the winning goal.”’
After fifty-seven minutes he did just that, volleying Mazolinha’s left-wing cross into the net. The referee missed a sly push on Leonardo, which put him off balance and gave Maurício the space to score.
The goal against Flamengo didn’t just change Maurício’s life; it has defined it. Three decades later he still dines out on it, and often introduces himself by the name Maurício 89. ‘Botafogo was the greatest part of my life story,’ he says. ‘The goal gave me an amazing professional future. After that I went to play in Spain for Celta Vigo. Then I was called up to play in the World Cup qualifiers and I became Brazilian champion with Sport Club Internacional. Going back to the past gets me emotional and raises my self-esteem. Gosh, it’s so exciting. A boy raised in the favela who managed to overcome the obstacles in his life through sport. My mum was a dinner lady and my dad was a taxi driver. I’m a servant and God had a purpose for me with that goal. That day he chose me to bring joy to millions of Botafogo fans.’
And to one in particular. After twenty-one years, Botafogo were champions of Rio again. At the final whistle, as chaotic celebrations went on all around the pitch, Emil Pinheiro gave a television interview that went straight into folklore. ‘Now I can die happy,’ he said. ‘Botafogo are champions.’
Kaiser had been instructed to prepare a country house should Botafogo win or lose. He is keen to stress his role in the team’s triumph. ‘They were relaxed all season,’ he says. ‘We saw that on the pitch.’
When Esteves went into the dressing room after the game to interview the players, she was thrown fully clothed into the showers. ‘I was trying to interview them but everybody was hugging me and Espinosa said, “You’re our rabbit’s foot!” There are still many people who think that I support Botafogo. I have to keep saying, “I don’t support Botafogo! I’m Flamengo till I die.” There was some magic that year. The stars were aligned for Botafogo.’
The infectious joy of Botafogo’s victory made it easier for Esteves to swallow a Flamengo defeat. And at least she could stop chain-smoking those bloody cigarettes.
***
Botafogo were not the only ones wanting to end a drought. A month later Brazil hosted the Copa América, a tournament they had not won for forty years. They ended the wait with a stirring victory in which Bebeto emerged as an international star. He was the leading goalscorer with six in the tournament, including a famous flying volley against Argentina.
Everyone at Flamengo had been raving about him for years. ‘Bebeto was a teenager when he started to train with us,’ says Zico. ‘The day before a match we would usually play a practice game. I would always play in defence and from my sixth sense I knew what players would do before they had done it. The first time the ball went to him, I tried to guess what he would do and he turned me. I realised then he was special, that he thought ahead. From that moment I started to nag the management: “We need to look after this kid. Flamengo has found a gem.”’
Zico became a mentor to Bebeto. Their relationship was so close that, when Bebeto won the World Cup in 1994, he gave Zico – the greatest Brazilian never to win the World Cup – one of his match shirts. ‘It’s mounted up in my trophy room,’ says Zico. ‘It’s one of the greatest memories of my career.’
Bebeto played in three World Cups and is fondly remembered for a famous celebration during the 1994 tournament: a few days after the birth of his son, he scored in the quarter-finals against the Netherlands and rocked an imaginary baby with his team-mates.
Although he was slightly overshadowed by Careca, Romário and Ronaldo in the 1990s, he remained a key player even in a 24-carat generation of forwards. Bebeto was also a revelation in Spain with Deportivo de La Coruña, even if his time in Spain is best remembered for something he didn’t do. On the last day of the 1993–4 season, Deportivo needed to beat Valencia to win the first title in their history. It was 0-0 when they were awarded a penalty in the last minute. The regular taker, Donato, had been substituted, and everyone looked to the star player Bebeto. He bottled it. Inste
ad the responsibility went to the sweeper Miroslav Ðjukic´, whose tame penalty was easily saved. Romário’s Barcelona became champions instead, and it was another six years before Deportivo won their first title. By then, Bebeto was winding down his career with the Japanese club Kashima Antlers.
At the end of the 1989 Copa América, Kaiser was instructed to organise a party for players from Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. The guest list included the most famous footballer in the world. ‘A lot of people ask me, “Do you know Maradona?”,’ says Kaiser. ‘I say, “No, I know Diego Armando”. I know the other side of Maradona. The best players are less arrogant than the mediocre ones. I played among a generation of star players. Somebody said to me the other day, “Messi’s left foot is the best of all time”. If you think that, you’ve never seen Maradona play. Messi has played for Barcelona with Neymar, Suarez, Iniesta and all the rest. Maradona played on his own. He was left-footed but he used his hands, head, chest and penis.’
Renato Gaúcho, who was back in the Brazil team for the first time since being chucked out of the 1986 World Cup squad, had charged Kaiser with arranging the party. ‘Maradona wanted to meet him!’ he says. ‘Wherever we went, people wanted to talk to Kaiser. Maradona was always extrovert and upbeat. He liked to be around cheerful people – people who were good at talking, especially to women. In other words, Carlos Kaiser.’
After the Copa América final, Kaiser arranged a big night in at a house in Itanhangá in the West Zone. ‘I sorted the house and fifty girls,’ he says proudly. ‘There were a few crazy footballers – Renato, Leandro, Maradona and some Argentines, Hugo de Léon from Uruguay. Trust me, nobody is a bigger party animal than Maradona.’ It’s not always wise to take Kaiser at his word, but we can probably trust him on that one.
***
Brazil were inevitably one of the favourites to win the 1990 World Cup, especially after winning the Copa América. With the tournament taking place in Italy, the coach Sebastião Lazaroni adopted a when-in-Rome approach. He imposed a sweeper system and a European style on a team that was not usually renowned for defensive competence or focus. ‘Our defence will have to play a more serious kind of football,’ said the striker Careca before the tournament. ‘No pussyfooting around. It’s not a carnival.’
The symbol of the team was no longer Zico or Socrates but Dunga, a rugged, unsentimental defensive midfielder who personified the change in Brazil’s football. They were seen as the antonym to the expressive sides of 1982 and 1986, and many in Brazil regarded the approach as an act of cultural vandalism. The truth was a little more complicated – Brazil still had geniuses to spare in attack – but this was still the most significant change in their football history. ‘They went for more athletic players,’ says Martha Esteves. ‘The transition was way too extreme – they didn’t integrate the European strength and power with the Brazilian skill, so we ended up compromising our strengths. The national team was always full of light, technical players, but this was the beginning of the era of the ogre player.’
The ogres still won all three of their group matches, though the scores were not typically Brazilian: 2-1 against Sweden, 1-0 against Costa Rica and Scotland. There was one moment to remember: Careca’s beautiful first goal against Sweden, when he went elegantly around the goalkeeper Thomas Ravelli. It was not so much a goal as a free-form dance routine: so smooth and gracefully athletic that you could hear the samba beats as you watched it.
The holders Argentina blundered through their group in third place, which meant they would face Brazil in the last sixteen. To lose at such an early stage of the World Cup was unacceptable for either side; to do so against their most hated rivals was unthinkable.
Brazil dominated the game almost entirely, missing chances and hitting the woodwork three times. Then, with nine minutes to go, all their nightmares came true. Maradona, who had been anonymous all game, produced a legendary assist with a devastating solo run and through ball to Claudio Caniggia, who went around Taffarel to score. Eight years earlier Maradona had been sent off at the World Cup for kicking Brazil’s Batista in the balls. Now he did it to the whole country. ‘I like Brazilians,’ he said, ‘but in football I want to beat them to the death.’
It was one of the greatest smash-and-grabs in football history. Not for the first time at the World Cup, Brazil were left bristling with a sense of injustice after being eliminated by Argentina. In 1978, a tournament that Argentina hosted and eventually won, they were drawn with Brazil in the second group stage. The winners would go straight into the final. The scheduling meant that Argentina played their last game after Brazil, so they knew exactly what result they needed. Brazil’s 3-1 win over Poland earlier that day meant Argentina needed to beat Peru – who were already out of the tournament – by at least four goals to qualify for the final. They won 6-0, and much was made of the fact that the Peru goalkeeper Ramón Quiroga was born in Argentina. At the time Argentina was controlled by a military junta; it was unthinkable that they should not win the tournament.
Gil, who was part of the Brazil team at that tournament, later worked in Peru as a coach at Alianza Lima. His assistant was César Cueto, the midfielder who had been part of the Peru team against Argentina. One day, Gil arranged a lunch at his house for his coaching staff and told his wife to keep refreshing Cueto’s glass. Gil says that, after the umpteenth glass, Cueto said there had been an agreement between the countries.
Argentina’s win in 1990 would later be doused in controversy, in what became known as the Holy Water Scandal. During a break in play in the first half, Argentina had given Branco, Brazil’s left-back, a water bottle that was allegedly laced with tranquilisers. ‘Branco said at half-time that he was feeling really dizzy and kind of stunned,’ says Mauro Galvão, who was part of the Brazil team. ‘But that could have been for a number of reasons. It’s very hard to say anything concrete.’
Carlos Bilardo, the Argentina coach, has never bothered to deny the allegation, and in 2004 Maradona almost exploded with laughter as he discussed the incident on a national TV show, Mar de Fondo. ‘I could see Branco drink the water and then [the Brazil midfielder] Valdo and others arrived,’ he said. ‘I was thinking, “Please drink it! Please drink it!”.’
Even if the public knew about the Holy Water Scandal at the time, it’s unlikely it would have spared the team from being denounced. ‘I stopped supporting the national team after that,’ says Martha Esteves. ‘It wasn’t like 1982, when there was a big sadness across the country. In 1990 there was anger at Dunga and Lazaroni. Brazil hates Dunga. He’s not a bad person, it’s just what he represents as a footballer and a manager.’
Although many of the criticisms were valid, it is rarely acknowledged that they dominated all four of their games, particularly the one against Argentina. ‘The criticism was over the top,’ says the defender Ricardo Rocha. ‘I played in 1990 and 1994, when we won the World Cup, and the best performance in both tournaments was that game against Argentina.’
Nuance was not on the public agenda. It was just about okay for Brazil to fail at a World Cup, and it was just about okay for them to play like a European side – but to do both, while also losing to Argentina, was a guarantee of notoriety.
CHAPTER 18
THE MALLRAT
Gonçalves arrived at Rio Sul, his local shopping mall, and saw a commotion in the distance. As a Botafogo player he was used to big crowds, but this was on a different scale. He assumed there was an American pop star in town.
‘Hey,’ he asked a passer-by, ‘what’s the fuss over there?’
‘Renato Gaúcho’s signing some autographs. Have you heard of him? He’s a famous footballer.’
Gonçalves had heard of him, though he hadn’t heard from him in a while. He knew Renato well from their time together at Flamengo and wandered over to say hello. He was unable to jostle through the shrieking crowd but could just about make out the figure of Renato in his Botafogo kit, cheerfully signing autographs. Gonçalves was about to turn away when he saw Renat
o move his left hand behind the ear and insouciantly flick his hair forward. Gonçalves recognised that gesture straight away. It was not Renato signing autographs at all.
***
For somebody who usually had no money, Kaiser spent a lot of time in shopping malls. It was where footballers went when training finished. Kaiser and his friends have especially fond memories of Rio Sul, the first major shopping tower in the South Zone of Rio. They convened in the same set of seats by the creperie Chez Michou, where they would while away the afternoon and wait to be approached.
‘There was a constant flow of women,’ says Kaiser. ‘They knew the table we would sit at – right by the escalator between the second and third floor. There was never a 0-0 draw at Chez Michou. Back then all the guys were single, just to put the wives at ease. We were approached by actresses and athletes, or wannabe actresses who were looking to jumpstart their careers by cosying up to a footballer and appearing in a photo with them. Life is an exchange.’
If he wasn’t with team-mates, Kaiser would walk round chatting people up or inviting them to a VIP section the following weekend. ‘In Rio Sul he was the man,’ says his friend Gutiérrez. ‘He was invincible. He picked up over three hundred women in that place, and they were all hot. His version of the Maracanã was Rio Sul shopping mall.’
Kaiser reinforced his status as a footballer by wearing the training gear of whichever club he was at. He loved designer clothes, but the labels he really craved were Adidas, Umbro, Penalty and Topper – the ones who made the official club kit. If Kaiser looked like a footballer then he felt like a footballer. And if he felt like a footballer then he was one.
‘He was so engaging that even he would start to believe his own lie,’ says Renato Gaúcho. ‘He would plant the idea in people’s heads that he was a footballer because he believed within himself that he was a footballer. He even was a footballer, doing the same things a footballer would, up to a certain point.’
