Heleno de Freitas - the cursed prince of football

Heleno de Freitas (centre)

Tragic characters have always intrigued me more than winners, who always seem to have their way no matter what. And there is no dearth of both types of individuals in the world of sports. But since I have always sided with the dark horse, this article is about a footballer who belongs to the former category.

He is none other than Heleno de Freitas, the legendary Brazilian striker who ruled the field during the 40s, but still could never do full justice to his amazing talent with the ball. Some have even gone on to claim that if Heleno had kept his playboy personality and volatile temper on a leash, he would now be spoken about in the same breath as Ronaldo and Pelé. But destiny had other things in mind for this stupendous player, as you will soon find out.

Heleno, who was born in the February of 1920 in São João Nepomuceno in Brazil, hailed from a well-respected family, and a career in law was waiting for him in case he cared to take it up as a profession. But Heleno’s love for the beautiful game stopped him from doing that and he took up football professionally, which turned out to be both heroic and tragic for him.

The world of football wasn’t that glamorous at that time, as there was no internet and hardly any television coverage which would enable the people to follow every single move of their icons. Besides, Heleno started his professional career at a time when the Second World War was imminent, and ended his career in the aftermath of that great battle, when the world was still coming to terms with the devastation that the war had caused.

Needless to say, football was the last thing on people’s minds during that time. But the fact that Heleno could still garner so much interest in the tabloids, through his exceptional footballing skills and playboy lifestyle, shows that there was definitely something mercurial about this man, good or bad.

Heleno began his senior football career in 1939 at the Brazilian club Botafogo, where he stayed on for the next decade and established himself as the leading striker for his country. He scored a mammoth 209 goals from just 235 appearances for Botafogo but curiously, won barely any significant silverware during his time there. He did help Botafogo win the Roca Cup in 1945 and become the Rio Branco Cup champions in 1947, but these achievements don’t at all do any justice to the genius that was Heleno.

After a year with Boca Juniors of Argentina in 1948, where he scored seven goals in 17 appearances, Heleno came back to play for Brazilian club Vasco da Gama, where his scintillating footballing skills helped them win the 1949 edition of the Campeonato Carioca (Rio de Janeiro State League championship). But by then, his errant lifestyle and drug habits had started to get the better of him and he left to ply his trade with Columbian club Atlético Junior in 1950, going on to score nine goals for them in 15 games.

In 1951, Heleno’s attempt at reviving his football career in Brazil ended in abjectly as he played just one game for his new team América, in the legendary Estádio do Maracanã in Rio which had just been unveiled at the World Cup held in Brazil the previous year.

More than just his club career, it is Heleno’s exploits with the Brazilian national team that helped him achieve cult status amongst football lovers. But here too fate seemed to scheme against him, and in spite of being the best striker in Brazil at that time, he played in just 18 games, scoring 19 goals in the process – a strike rate of more than one goal per game which many of the best footballers have failed to achieve.