50 Greatest Players in World Cup History: #23 Jairzinho
Playing football for Brazil is a complicated thing. First of all, you have to prove that you're worthy of being in the limelight. Then you gotta reign supreme and prove that you're head and shoulders above the rest of the competition. That's the kind of pedigree you inherit with the storied yellow kit.
How many players can boast about having scored in each and every match of a World Cup? Don't scratch your heads, I'll tell you. Two players. Uruguay’s Alcides Ghiggia and Brazil's Jairzinho. The former scored 4 in 4 and our man, Jairzinho, scored 6 in 6 in the 1970 World Cup held in Mexico.
After a forgettable 1966 World Cup, Brazil were ready to fire on all cylinders in Mexico and boy did they have the architects to execute the plans!
This was, what is widely touted to be the finest Brazil side of all time. A team that could rewrite history if they so desired. A team that could weave poetry on grass if they so wanted. How about I make things a little easier to discern and tell you that Rivelino, Tostao Gerson, Carlos Alberto, Pele and Jairzinho were the ones championing Brazil's World Cup campaign at the time.
It's so easy to get lost in the glitz in that team. With so many stars shining brightly, you'd be excused for getting eclipsed. And that, perhaps, did happen in Jairzinho's case. It's not that the rest outshone him but Jairzinho's comes across as a rather forgotten name who just had one great World Cup to show for. But the reality is far from that.
Jairzinho played in 3 World Cups and his fortunes at each of them varied like subcontinental weather on a summer evening. Sure, there was Pele, there were Rivelino, Tostao and all of them who have all left an indelible mark on the game but to win a game, World Cup or no World Cup, you need goals. And Jairzinho provided them without fail on every single night.
The 1970 World Cup is regarded as the high point in World Cup history and Jairzinho was the standout performer. He finished the tournament with a flourish, putting the game beyond doubt against the Italians who were threatening to upset the Selecao's peace by pulling one back with the game getting nervy at 2-1.
The starry vessel's crew that Jairzinho was a part of has definitely diminished his glow. You'll perhaps get a better idea of things if you heard what Jairzinho's teammate and legendary centre-forward Tosta told ESPN FC about his teammate.
“When people talk about the greatest forwards in history, they never remember him. It seems that he was only a forward that had his moment under the sun just during the 1970 World Cup, but he was much more than that."
“Jairzinho was a bit like Neymar, playing from the side to the centre and striking with precision. He had speed, strength and a lot of skill. When we played him a long ball, he was spectacular. He bumped, gained his space with his body, and still managed to shoot with skill.”
And his oeuvre included the whole shebang.
If he meticulously lobbed the ball home against Romania, he finished off one of the greatest goals in the history of the tournament by leathering one into the roof of the net against England. But nothing quite beats the goal he scored to seal the World Cup in the final against Italy.
Jairzinho charged onto a flick from Pele and drove past the Italian defenders at blistering pace and though he didn't get the kind of finish on it as he would have liked, he did just about enough to poke it past the keeper.
He is often dismissed as being a player who just found great form in one tournament but Jairzinho was much more than that. The hipster romantics will still root for the magic Garrincha weaved on the wings and would have not really been interested in Jairzinho's directness and desire to get the ball and smash in a goal.
But for buoying the greatest football team to the greatest triumph in world football, in perhaps the greatest World Cup of all time, Jairzinho gets a red carpet welcome into our 50 Greatest World Cup Players.