 Gérson withBrazil in 1970 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Gérson de Oliveira Nunes | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date of birth | (1941-01-11)11 January 1941 (age 85) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Niterói,Brazil | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.70 m (5 ft 7 in)[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Position | Midfielder | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Youth career | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1958 | Canto do Rio | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Senior career* | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 1959–1963 | Flamengo[2] | 58 | (33) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 1963–1969 | Botafogo[3] | 99 | (35) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 1969–1972 | São Paulo[4][5] | 33 | (5) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 1972–1974 | Fluminense[5] | 21 | (1) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Total | 211 | (74) | |||||||||||||||||||||
| International career | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1959–1960 | Brazil Olympic | 12 | (9) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 1961–1972 | Brazil | 70 | (14) | ||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Gérson de Oliveira Nunes (Portuguese pronunciation:[ˈʒɛʁsõdʒoliˈvejɾɐˈnunis]; born 11 January 1941), generally known asGérson, is a Brazilian former association footballer who played as amidfielder. He won numerous national trophies with the club sides ofFlamengo,Botafogo,São Paulo andFluminense. He is widely known as "the brain" behind theBrazil Football Team that won the1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico.[6][self-published source]
Gérson was born and spent his childhood in the city ofNiterói, just to the eastern side ofGuanabara Bay fromRio de Janeiro, then the capital of the former Rio de Janeiro State. In school, he was nicknamedpapagaio (parrot), a nickname he kept throughout his life and which many of his fellow footballers used when addressing him.
Both his father and uncle were professional footballers in Rio. His father was a close friend of the legendaryZizinho, widely held as the best Brazilian footballer beforePelé, a superstar withFlamengo and a forward in the 1950 national team, along withVasco da Gama'sAdemir Menezes andFlamengo'sJair da Rosa Pinto. So when Gérson announced he intended to become a footballer himself, he found little opposition at home.[7]
As a boy, his heroes had been the aforementionedmidfieldersZizinho andJair andVasco da Gama'sDanilo Alvim. However, in his first club,Flamengo, he was eventually cast in the same mold as the most influential midfield player of that era,Didi. The young Gérson combined technique and an extremely potent left-foot shot with intelligence and an uncanny ability to control the game from the midfield. One of his greatest assets was his ability to switch defence into attack with one long, laser-like pass from deep inside his own half. Soon, he was being talked of as a successor to Didi.
Within a year of making his professional debut forFlamengo in 1959, he was called to the Brazilian 'amateur' team in thePan-American Games inChicago.[8] A year later he was a lynchpin of the side at the Rome Olympics where he scored four goals,[9] but Brazil did not make it beyond the group phase.[10] By 1961, he was the playmaker inFlamengo. He had also been recruited into the full national squad to defend the World Cup in Chile by the new national coachAymore Moreira.[7] Yet his dreams of combining with the bandy-legged 'Little Bird'Garrincha, along withPelé andDidi in Chile were dashed when he suffered a serious knee injury. Forced to undergo surgery, he couldn't get himself back into Moreira's squad. It would be one of many injuries to blight his career.
In 1963, he chose not to sign another contract withFlamengo after being assigned the impossible task of man-markingGarrincha in the 1962Rio de Janeiro Championship final, whichBotafogo won 3–0. He packed his bags and moved toBotafogo, which by then had the most celebrated squad in Rio and arguably in Brazil, alongsidePelé'sSantos, featuring superstarsGarrincha,Didi,Nilton Santos,Zagallo andQuarentinha. In Botafogo he became one of the most celebrated Brazilian players of his generation, winning theTorneio Rio-São Paulo in 1964 and 1965, theRio de Janeiro Championship in 1967 and 1968 and with theBrazilian Cup in 1968 in two finals againstFortaleza the first national honour in the history of Botafogo.
Later on, he also played forSão Paulo andFluminense, his favourite team.
Gérson is considered one of the best passers in World Cup history. Although he didn't play well in 1966, he was the mastermind behind the whole Brazilian national team in the 1970 tournament. He is regarded as the best passer and midfielder in that edition of that World Cup, in that Brazilian squad, and the second best player in the 4–1 victory againstItaly in the final, after Pelé himself. Overall, he played 70 times for Brazil, scoring 14 goals for his country, including one in that1970 World Cup final.[11][12]
Outside the soccer pitch, Gérson's name became nationally infamous after he starred in aVila Rica cigarettes' advertising campaign for television in 1976, which had him read the tagline "I like to take advantage of everything, right? You too take advantage!". The line became instantly associated with the traditional Brazilian disregard for laws and social rules as well asbribery andcorruption maneuvers, informally named "jeitinho brasileiro" ("the Brazilian way") or "Lei de Gérson" ("Gérson's Law"), and the expression is largely used to these days.[13] He later publicly regretted having starred in the ad, claiming his association with such acts did not reflect his true personality.
Although Gérson played as aholding midfielder,Jonathan Wilson noted in a 2013 article forThe Guardian that he was an early example of a morecreative interpreter of this role, who focussed more on ball retention and passing rather than solely looking to win back possession.[14] A tactically intelligent, efficient, and technically gifted midfieldplaymaker, he was considered the "brain" behind the Brazilian squad that won the 1970 World Cup.[6] He was known for his ability to retain possession and dictate the tempo of his team's play in midfield with his precise passing, and was also capable of switching from defence to attack by playing sudden, accurate long balls to meet his teammates' runs; he is regarded as one of the best passers in the history of the sport, and as one of Brazil's greatest ever players. He also possessed an excellent positional sense, and a powerful shot with his left foot, which earned him the nicknameCanhotinha de Ouro ("Golden left foot," in Portuguese).[11][12][15][16][17][18][19][20]
Gérson displayed anger towardsPelé's list of the 125 greatest living footballers. He was adamant with the ruling and thought that he and a few of his teammates deserved a spot on the list. He symbolically ripped up a piece of paper, a clear representation of Pelé's list, on a local broadcasting station, saying that "I respect his opinion, but I don't agree. Apart fromZidane,Platini, andFontaine, I'm behind 11 Frenchmen? It's a joke to hear this."[21]
Flamengo
Botafogo
São Paulo
Fluminense
Brazil
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Brazil squads | |||||||||||||
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