46 years on it remains the most potent of footballing images. A carnival blur of gold, green and blue, it was a moment in which time seemed to stop, a moment which appeared to defy all known laws of the game. Brazil’s fourth and final strike in the 1970 World Cup final in Mexico City, perfect in its construction, ruthless in its delivery, was a goal which encapsulated an era, a finish that defined a team. This was Brazilian football at its most gloriously poetic, the jogo bonito given vibrant expression.
The final flurry in a masterclass of a performance on the biggest of all stages, it came from the right boot of Carlos Alberto. At the end of a glorious, cavalier passing move, he had been set up by a ball from Pele that appeared to the millions watching around the world on television to be aimless and misdirected. But the moment the number ten rolled the ball out to the right flank, the moment we saw Alberto haring in from the edge of the screen to meet the pass with perfect timing and belt the ball it hard and low into the corner of the Italian goal, everyone watching knew they were observing history in the making.
Yet Alberto later admitted that at the time it all seemed rather routine. That was what the Brazil side of 1970 did: they played football on another orbit altogether. It was only later that he realised it was something special. And how special. That the goal was not scored by the dazzling creative lights of Pele, Jairzinho, Rivelino or Tostao but by the right back, a position reckoned normally to be the most prosaic member of a football team, provided further testament to the all-round splendour of that Brazil.
And for Alberto, who has died of a heart attack aged 72, it was a goal that lived with him for the rest of his life. The perfect, life-enhancing victory in 1970 gifted him a unique position in Brazilian society. As captain of the team - or as he was invariably known in reference to the esteem with which he was held “The Captain” - he gained a sometimes unwanted position as a symbolic bulwark against national decline; it was against him and his goal that so many subsequent Brazil sides were judged. Regular disappointment only enhanced his reputation: he was named in the world team of the 20th Century in 1998 and the Fifa 100 for the greatest living players in 2004.
Carlos Alberto with the World Cup trophy CREDIT: REX FEATURES
As leader of that glorious, technicolor Brazil team, Alberto’s word was reckoned the law. Across his 53 caps, he ruled the dressing room through the strength of his personality, his gravelly voice forever holding sway. After he retired as a player, finishing his career in the lucrative environs of the North American Soccer League playing for New York Cosmos alongside Pele and Franz Beckenbauer, he became a coach. But despite leading Flamengo to the Brazilian championship in 1983, his career in the dug out never paralleled his success as a player. His last managerial post was in Azerbaijan in 2005.
Carlos Alberto has died of a heart attack CREDIT: EPA
Latterly he had carved a role as a popular, no-nonsense television pundit, roundly critical of those in yellow who failed to live up to the glorious template he and his colleagues had set in 1970.
“I remember when beating these was a matter of obligation, not celebration,” was his studio summary of Brazil’s last outing, a scrappy win against Ecuador earlier this month.
Rare was the broadcast in which no comparison was made to what he had done in the Azteca Stadium. Maybe no man should ever be judged by one goal alone. But if he is to be, it is best it is a goal as vibrant, vivid and majestic as Carlos Alberto’s.
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