Before the era of television, the reputation of the greatest footballers was based on tales of amazing feats they had performed. Nobody quite knew whether those stories were completely true, slightly exaggerated or utter fantasy, but that didn’t matter. That the story had come into existence and was subsequently believed and spread around, was already sufficient proof of the player’s greatness.
Here are five such anecdotes, about brilliant feats never caught on camera. Are they true? Nobody knows. But the important thing is: they exist.
1. Meazza’s move that started with a Bicycle Kick
The greatest Italian footballer from the pre-war era was Inter’s Giuseppe Meazza. He began his career as a striker, but then moved back to midfield, using his excellent technical abilities to create chances for others. The Italian intellectual Luigi Veronelli once told this story about Meazza:
I also saw Pelé playing. He did not achieve Meazza’s elegant style of playing. One day, at the Arena, I witnessed Meazza doing something astonishing: he stopped the ball with a bicycle kick, elevating himself two meters from the ground. Then he landed with the ball glued at his foot, dribbled over an astonished defender, and then went on scoring a goal with one of his hallmark shots, sardonic and accurate to the millimeter.
2. Fat Puskas & the crossbar challenge
Of all the great Hungarians from the Golden Team that dominated world football in the early 1950’s, Puskas was the shortest, the fattest – and the greatest. George Best recalls this story:
I was with (Bobby) Charlton, (Denis) Law and Puskás, we were coaching in a football academy in Australia. The youngsters we were coaching did not respect Puskás, making fun of his weight and age…We decided to let the guys challenge a coach to hit the crossbar 10 times in a row, obviously they picked the old fat one. Law asked the kids how many they thought the old fat coach would get out of ten. Most said less than five. I said ten.
The old fat coach stepped up and hit nine in a row. For the tenth shot he scooped the ball in the air, bounced it off both shoulders and his head, then flicked it over with his heel and cannoned the ball off the crossbar on the volley. They all stood in silence then one kid asked who he was, I replied: To you, his name is Mr. Puskás.
3. Garrincha lends a hand
1958, Brazil vs The Soviet-Union. The game that reportedly saw the three greatest minutes in football history. In those 87 other minutes. Garrincha did plenty more. In his biography of the blessed and cursed right winger, author Ruy Castro writes the following:
Garrincha continued to run rings around them. Then the Soviets resorted to trying to bring him down, largely unsuccessfully. In one memorable incident, after leaving a defender on the ground, Garrincha puts his foot on the ball and with his back to the player offered his hand to help him up. He lifted the player up and started running again as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
4. Cruyff versus Romario and Stoichkov
Individually, they already bordered on the uncoachable. Together, Romario and Stoichkov represented an absolute nightmare to every football coach wishing to impose his authority on the team. Johan Cruyff, coaching the pair at FC Barcelona, often had to resort to visible demonstrations of his ability to remind them who had been the superior player. The following story does the rounds.
When playing at Barcelona, Romario was arguing with Stoichkov who was the best footballer and thus the boss of the team. Cruyff intervened and stated he was in charge and therefore he was the boss. Romario and Stoichkov mocked him for being an old man who had nothing to say. Cruyff set up a test to see who was the better player: shoot ten balls from the edge of the box at the crossbar. The one with the most hits won.
The whole team gathered around and Stoichkov began. He hit the bar only twice. Next was Romario, who hit the bar three times and declared himself the best. Then Cruyff stepped up and hit the bar no less than six times. He told the pair to shut up and take orders. Romario and Stoichkov responded by saying it was just luck and that they had had a bad day – after which Cruyff suddenly turned around, hit another ball with his LEFT foot and struck the bar yet again, leaving the complete team in awe. Years later, Cruyff said the last shot was the only lucky shot he took.
5. Domingos da Guia emerging from the dust
Still remembered as the best defender Brazil ever had, Domingos da Guia remains a symbol of majestic defending and sovereignty at the back. His nickname – “The Divine Master” – speaks volumes about the admiration people had for one of the first black superstars in soccer. In his book on Brazilian football history, the Dutch author August Willems writes the following about Domingos:
Domingos’ football was a lesson in football. Only the greatest could do what Domingos could do. To this day, a tale is told about an incident in a 1931 game between Brazil and Uruguay, the reigning world champions.
The Uruguayan striker Dorado, famous for his lightning rushes, dashes towards Domingos, glides past him ánd past the goalie, and tumbles into the goal net amidst a cloud of dust and sand. The Uruguayan players shout ‘Goal!’, hug each other, and want to grab the ball from the net….But the ball isn’t in the goal. As the dust settles, the figure of Domingos emerges, standing cold and calmly, with his foot on the ball, on the edge of the penalty area. Three, four Uruguayans rush toward him, but Domingos moves quickly and evades them all, before giving a sublime pass to a teammate. To this day, when a defender calmly dribbles his way out of the area, he’s said to have performed a domingada – a feat which the crowds love, and coaches hate.
