There is a symbiotic relationship between football in Brazil and art: the musicality of the names, the fluid movements, the color combinations of the uniforms, the chants and the drums in the stands – all this contributes to the phenomenon of names Soccer art. This relationship has probably never been more intimate than in the 1950s and 1960s, when bossa nova exploded, the great heroes of Música Popular Brasileira flourished, and Brazil Selection in their canary yellow jerseys conquered a world that was still black and white.
With Pelé, but also with Manuel Francisco dos Santos, known as Mané Garrincha, who single-handedly won the 1962 World Cup in Chile. So impressive that quite a few Brazilians still say to this day that Mané with a knock-knee and a bow-leg was better than Pelé. This has been reminded of in the last few days. Because Garrincha’s career was inextricably linked to Elza Soares, who in 1999 was called “the voice of the millennium” by the BBC, which is not exactly prone to exaggeration – and from whom not only the Brazilian feature writers said goodbye, but also the most accomplished football writers in the country and only quite the Brazilian clubs.
One could almost have thought that it wasn’t a truly monumental singer who died, but a martyr of football. When she was laid out in the theater in Rio de Janeiro, the wreaths of CR Flamengo, to whom her heart also belonged, and of course Botafogo, the Mané club, were among the largest wreaths.
That was also because Soares had been Mané’s muse, especially in the days of Chile’s World Cup title. Soares was already a big show; basically she was that, ever since she was a minor when she was laughed at because she wore her mother’s much too large, poor clothes on a radio show and then silenced the audience’s laughter. “Which planet are you from?” asked the show host, dumbfounded, and she replied, “The same as you, planet Hunger.”
She was married when she was twelve, pregnant by the age of 13, and two of her five children starved to death
A few years ago she called one of her last records exactly that: “Planeta Fome”, and Brazil had long since found out what that meant for her – and in a similar way for Garrincha. Two of the five children she gave birth to when she was widowed at 21 starved to death. She lost her first child when she was 15. Her father had married her when she was twelve and she was pregnant for the first time when she was 13.
She later found her true love: Mané Garrincha. It was by no means the only relationship between a famous singer and a footballer, and it wasn’t the last either. But hardly any was more fascinating, tragic and beautiful than this one, and perhaps no liaison united such great masters of their respective fields as Elza, the queen of samba, and Mané. She was in Chile during the 1962 World Cup, at a show headlined by the great Louis Armstrong. He called her “my daughter”. She understood: “My doctor”. What she understood without any problem was a promise Mané made to her in Valparaíso and which he was then supposed to keep: “These Cup I’ll get it for you.”
Worshiped on larger-than-life murals in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo or, like here, in Belo Horizonte: Elza Soares.
(Photo: Douglas Magno/AFP)
They found each other in the months leading up to that World Cup. The fact that the Brazilian association had the staff of the brothel called Night & Day, which is still thriving in the middle of Santiago’s city center, examined by the team doctors and then placed them in quarantine to prevent infection among the later victorious squad members, did not cause a scandal. But this: that Mané left his wife – and Elza in turn left her partner Milton Banana, also a famous name in Brazilian music. She had to endure brutal hostilities, in the newspapers, which treated her as a destroyer of marriages, and privately.
World Champion Nílton Santos, known for his wisdom on the pitch the encyclopedia was called, the encyclopedia, implored his friend Garrincha to return to his wife: “Do not trade them for these…”. Elza Soares heard the insult Nílton Santos had uttered; he was never allowed to enter Garrincha’s house again, although he was his mentor and friend.
The insult was also based on the legend that Elza had only approached Garrincha because (and after) she had been rebuffed by Pelé. Those weren’t the only allegations that weren’t true. After Garrincha’s alcohol problems became obvious, she was held responsible for the fact that he ruined his career and ultimately his life through alcohol – despite the fact that Mané, who also came from the poorest of backgrounds, had to be considered an alcoholic even as a teenager.
Later, their marriage became hell: “You will regret raising your hand against me,” she sang
The marriage they made turned into hell over the years. That he, as Garrincha biographer Ruy Castro once put it, from the away games with Botafogo and the Selection brought exotic bacteria into the home, she still endured. She paid for knee surgery which allowed Garrincha to prolong his career beyond the age of 31 – the club no longer had confidence in Mané. She didn’t forgive him for beating her. “You’ll regret raising your hand against me,” she sang in a song called “Maria da Vila Matilde,” though Mané wasn’t the only partner to hit her.
Garrincha died in 1983, once again impoverished and ruined in every way. He did not live to see the death of the only son he fathered with Elza: Garrinchinha, little Garrincha, died in a car accident at the age of nine. After his death she tried to kill herself, fell into obscurity as an artist, recorded records that didn’t sell or were only recently released – with a delay of decades – such as the wonderful duets with guitarist João de Aquino. Brazil’s Nina Simone experienced an incredible renaissance, celebrating late successes. And she sang, to the end of her days, with a voice tanned by life. At the beginning of February she was supposed to give a concert, but that never happened.
Elza Soares, who had so much to do with Brazilian football despite never kicking a ball and who should say herself that Garrincha was the love of her life, died on January 20. Exactly 29 years to the day after Mané’s death, and there was no one in Brazil who would see it as a coincidence.
