Taken exclusively from the Brazil issue of These Football Times magazine, this article is featured as part of our World Cup coverage. Consider supporting our free online and wholly independent journalism by ordering a copy of the magazine – you’ll end up with a timeless special and help keep our content accessible for everyone.

Barcelona, 5 July 1982, 19:15 CET. In the bowels of the Estadi de Sarrià, men are sobbing uncontrollably while some are just vacantly staring, too numb to comprehend what has just happened. In the stands above, men, women and children are sobbing uncontrollably too, their stares just as vacant, too numb to comprehend what has just happened. All around the world people are helpless to hold back

their anguish, many struggling to focus, too numb to comprehend what has just happened. The only sanctuary from this melancholic pandemic is the Mediterranean country of Italy.

The reason for this global outpouring of grief? Brazil had just been knocked out of the 1982 World Cup at the hands of the Azzurri. But this was no ordinary Brazil team; this was a side that captured the hearts and minds of football fans all across the world. They were the greatest side of their generation, a team that forms an unholy trinity with the Mighty Magyars of 1954 and Johan Cruyff ’s Total Football side of 1974 as the three best sides never to win the World Cup.

The Brazilians lined up for the 1982 finals to a soundtrack of samba drums and rhythmic dancing cascading down from the stands of the Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán. Enthusiasts, pundits, writers and tactical experts have pondered over manager Telê Santana’s formation and selections during the tournament, the most common conception being a 4-2-2-2 formation relying on the full-backs to provide width and two holding midfielders providing cover for two attacking midfielders who supported the front two.

At times the almost chaotic and cavalier commitment to attacking football was presented as a 2-7-1 formation, with two centre-halves staying back, while the full-backs provided width to a midfield five, leaving just a lone striker at the top of the formation.

So with essentially a fluid 4-5-1 formation assembled, the tournament favourites could begin their campaign to reclaim their world title. The only immediate problem was that Toninho Cerezo still had one game left of a three-game ban, having been sent off in a qualifier against Bolivia. Santana decided to bring in Roberto Falcão to replace Cerezo and start with Dirceu alongside Paulo Serginho.

Falcão – the ‘Eighth King of Rome’ as he had been coronated by Roma fans – didn’t join Santana’s squad until May after the Serie A season had finished. A deep-lying playmaker, he had been named Brazilian footballer of the year in 1978 and 1979. Falcão’s transfer to the Old Continent severely limited his appearances for Brazil. Indeed the midfielder didn’t play for the Seleção between 1979 and 1982.

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He was one of the last players to join the 1982 World Cup squad and only played in the final two warm-up games prior to the opening fixture against the Soviet Union. However, Santana saw Falcão’s organisational ability, leadership and considerable European experience as a more than suitable replacement for Cerezo for the opening game.

Cerezo was also an alleged holding midfielder, though the Brazilian interpretation of that role would appear to differ greatly from exponents of the European game. He was essentially a deep-lying playmaker with a wonderful range of passing. Santana had already managed Cerezo during the midfielder’s 11-year stay at Atlético Mineiro and was fully aware of his technical capabilities as well as his physical attributes. Cerezo was often described as having two pairs of lungs, such was his athletic ability to cover the entire pitch.

If Falcão and Cerezo were supposedly the defensive elements in the Brazilian midfield, the attacking components contained a predominantly left-sided winger who could strike the ball so hard he was nicknamed O Canhão (The Cannon), the best player in the world at the time – the ultimate fantasista in a team of fantasistas – and a captain who was also a qualified doctor, a political thinker and a symbol of Brazilian democracy.

Éder was the only player in that midfield who offered any natural width. He was a player with exceptional physicality, incredible strength and power, but was neither quick nor displayed any real desire to work hard for his team. What he did have was incredible skill and technique in his left foot. Éder was a player who could bend the ball with the inside and outside of his foot, with one Brazilian commentator claiming he could “make a football turn 90 degrees with one strike of his left foot.”