In this exclusive extract from a new book on the legendary Brazil midfielder, team-mates reveal how he lost weight and even gave up his infamous smoking habit before captaining the side at the 1982 World Cup finals in Spain

Sócrates arrived at Brazil’s World Cup training camp promising to play goalkeeper if it would help them win. He was still on a high after his brilliant early season with Corinthians and he was prepared to do anything for his country. Playing goalkeeper was unlikely, as was giving up on beer and cigarettes. But this was, he thought, his best, and perhaps his one and only, shot at glory, and he decided it was worth kicking the habits of a lifetime.

One of the main reasons Sócrates had chosen football over medicine was to play in sport’s most glamorous tournament, and he took a conscious decision to make every sacrifice necessary. Although his dad had nagged him for years to give up smoking, it wasn’t until the middle of 1980 that he even considered cutting back. Until then, he was smoking up to two packs of Minister a day, but he had managed to cut down to around half a pack by the middle of 1980 and he felt much better for it. He put on weight, found training less of a struggle and he was enjoying his football more.

His bad habits were a constant irritation to Telê Santana, who himself gave up smoking in 1965 and turned evangelical about the harm it does to players. Two years before the World Cup came around, Telê openly told his captain that tobacco was what stood in the way of true greatness.

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“If Sócrates looked after himself like Zico, who doesn’t smoke, he would be the best player in Brazil,” Telê said. “For now, Sócrates makes up for his physical deficiencies with youth and an undeniable class. But time marches on and the way he smokes I don’t know if he’ll manage to keep that up by the time the World Cup comes around.”

Telê singled out Sócrates but he was far from being the only footballer of the time to enjoy a puff – much less a drink. One in five of all Brazilian players admitted to smoking – the true number was undoubtedly much higher – and Júnior, Luizinho, Serginho and Batista were just a few of those in the World Cup squad who also enjoyed a cigarette.

Almost all the players enjoyed a beer and Toninho Cerezo used to take a quick nip of cachaça after a shower because he thought it helped him avoid catching a cold.

Sócrates took what was for him the traumatic decision to give up cigarettes at the start of 1982 after a long conversation with trainer Gilberto Tim. A staunch nationalist like Sócrates, Tim was the great motivator in the Brazil camp, and he told the captain that if he stopped smoking and cut back on the bevvy then he could take the world by storm.

Sócrates loved Tim’s intensity and conviction and he was eager to make his mark. After returning from his summer holidays eight kilos overweight, Tim, with the help of Corinthians trainer Hélio Maffia, put him on a strict fitness regime designed to turn that fat into muscle. He quickly shed two kilos to stabilise his weight at 84 kilos, which was more appropriate for someone who stood six-foot-four. After five months of hard work in the gym and on the training ground, his chest, biceps, thighs and hamstrings all got bigger, while his waist stayed the same size.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Socrates described his Brazil side’s style as ‘similar to that of Holland in 1974 except we have more skilful players and we don’t miss as many chances’. Photograph: Colorsport/Rex/Shutterstock

The changes transformed him into a stronger and quicker footballer. When team doctors measured the players’ physical performance before the tournament began, Sócrates did especially well given his history. He could jump higher than any of them from a running start and no one covered 30 metres quicker than he did. Only Edinho had a stronger shot with his right foot.

Telê announced his squad in three stages during April, with Sócrates joining up on 20 April after Corinthians had been knocked out of the Gold Cup. The last group of players from finalists Flamengo and Grêmio arrived at Cruzeiro’s training centre in Belo Horizonte six days later, and Falcão and Dirceu were set to join them when their club commitments with Roma and Atlético Madrid were completed in May.

Concerned about the effects of the Spanish heat, Tim had prepared an ultra-rigorous training regime for the whole squad, with sprints, laps of the pitch and stretching exercises. It was nothing less than torture for Sócrates, who dragged himself to the side of the field to throw up several times. But his dedication to the cause inspired those around him. His team-mates could see their captain was putting the group’s interests ahead of his own and they feigned disbelief.

“What’s this? Magrão at the front of the group doing laps of the pitch!” Zico shouted, to the sound of laughter from behind. “What’s going on?”

“He always talked about how hard it was to look after himself and stay in shape but that wasn’t the case at that World Cup,” Zico recalled years later. “From the moment we started our preparations he gave up everything and was one of the fittest guys we had at the tournament. He trained and he set a real strong example for that generation. At that World Cup he was focused on being in top form and that was what happened. He proved that there was an athlete inside him. And that was an abiding memory that stayed with everyone who was there with him.”

The squad was a fairly settled one, the main question being who would fill the central striking role. Reinaldo had been favourite, but Telê questioned his off-the-field behaviour and an injury sealed his fate early in the year. The battle to replace him was between Serginho and Careca, the 21-year-old Guarani marksman. Careca started the final two friendlies before the squad headed to Europe and would have been first choice up front, but he tore a thigh muscle in training and was ruled out on the eve of the tournament. That left Serginho to get the nod, with Vasco da Gama’s Roberto Dinamite coming in as his understudy.

The other dilemma came in midfield, where Telê was unsure whether to play a 4-4-2 with Falcão, Cerezo, Sócrates and Zico together in the middle of the park, or whether to withdraw one of them and opt for more width up front by playing Grêmio winger Paulo Isidoro alongside Serginho and Éder.

He appeared to be going for the latter option in the final warm-up games in May, with Paulo Isidoro starting all three and the quartet only managing 20 minutes of the final game, a 7-0 drubbing of the Republic of Ireland that could have been twice that.

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But it didn’t really matter who started. Brazil were brimming with confidence and were certain they were going to be world champions. Since early 1980, when Telê’s reign as manager began, Brazil had played 33 games, three of them against state or youth selects, and lost just twice, to the Soviet Union and Uruguay, both times by a single goal. They scored in every game bar one, at an average of 2.5 goals per game. The football they played was quick and one-touch, with all of the players comfortable on the ball and most of them eager to get forward.

It was scintillating stuff, reminiscent both of Brazil in 1970 and Holland in 1974, although Telê arrogantly rejected any comparison with the Dutch masters, saying: “The way we play is similar to that of Holland in 1974 except we have more skilful players and we don’t miss as many chances.”

No one had yet come up with a name for their style or their system, but Sócrates, with his customary dry wit, eventually took it upon himself to give it a moniker. He described their football as “organised chaos” and quintessentially Brazilian in that it was unscripted, creative and unpredictable.

“Everyone has the freedom to play how they wish as long as they perform certain basic functions. As amazing as that might seem, it works. It comes … from improvisation, but also from the knowledge that was acquired in two years of working together,” he said. “I play on the wing, I am a centre-forward, a sweeper, holding midfielder … it depends on how the game is going. Even if we don’t win the title, we’ll have altered the traditional schemes of 4-2-4 and 4-3-3 and whatever else they have invented.”

When Sócrates led Brazil on to the turf at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán stadium in Seville, it marked the end of one personal odyssey and the beginning of another. He was finally fulfilling his long-held dream of appearing in the World Cup finals. When he looked to the stands and saw thousands of Brazilians singing along to the first strains of the national anthem, he felt prouder than at any time in his life.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sócrates equalises for Brazil against the USSR with a stunning shot from distance. Photograph: Bob Thomas/Getty Images

The opening match was against the USSR and the conditions in Seville clearly favoured the South Americans. A party atmosphere pervaded the city, with the Brazil fans turning the terraces yellow and the late afternoon sun playing its part, bathing the ground in a golden sheen. The temperature was still in the 80s and the Brazilians lined up with their usual nonchalance as the samba drums hammered out a musical accompaniment. In their short blue shorts and iconic yellow jerseys, they even made sweating look elegant.

The Soviets, however, were unperturbed. Not only had they qualified for the tournament unbeaten, they were also one of only two teams to defeat Brazil since Telê had taken over. They attacked from the off, creating three good chances in the first quarter of an hour and having a clear penalty shout ignored by the Spanish referee. The Soviets were easily the better team and they got the goal they deserved after 34 minutes when Waldir Peres allowed a 30-yard strike from Andrei Bal to squirm through his hands.

Sócrates started the match on the left side of midfield, playing deeper than at club level, and he struggled to make much of an impact, at one point in the first half even being nutmegged. He spent much of the half-time break calmly reassuring the players that the game was not lost, and they were given a boost when Telê introduced Paulo Isidoro to replace the ineffective Dirceu. The move brought some width back to the side and the second half was a different story, as the tricky little winger made his presence felt and Sócrates and Falcão started to dominate the midfield. Sócrates pushed forward more and more as the Soviets tired, and when Brazil finally got some reward for their efforts it was thanks to their captain.

With 75 minutes gone, the Soviets struggled to clear a throw-in and Sócrates picked up a weak clearance around 35 yards out. He glanced up, before skipping past one tackle and shimmying to the right to avoid another. He was about 25 yards from goal and didn’t even need to look up. He knew exactly where he was and he let fly with a glorious right-foot shot that sailed over the outstretched hands of Rinat Dasayev into the top left-hand corner of the net. Thirteen minutes later they got a winner and again it came from a screamer from outside the box. Éder had sent half a dozen long-range shots high and wide, but this time he made no mistake. Paulo Isidoro passed the ball along the 18-yard line, Falcão cleverly let it run through his legs and Éder flicked it up and volleyed home.

Brazil were off to the perfect start, but they were lucky and they knew it. The Russians wilted in the heat and were denied a clear penalty in the second half when Luizinho threw up an arm to handle a cross into the box. But a win was a win and, going by his unpublished memoir, it was one of the most important days in Sócrates’ entire career. He devoted more time to the game than any other, with the emotion, the pride and the release of the goal making the occasion unique.

“We had to deal with the anxiety of being behind for most of the game,” Sócrates recalled. “We tried everything to get near the Russian goal. A sure defence and a magnificent goalkeeper looked like they would stop us from making our dream come true. And then the ball fell to me. There was a wall of red shirts ready to spill their own blood to stop me. I feinted to shoot and jinked to the right. A space opened up. I feinted again and an even bigger space appeared. I put everything I had into my shot. And the scream came: Goooallll. No, not a goal. An endless orgasm. It was unforgettable.”

This is an extract from Doctor Socrates by Andrew Downie, published by Simon & Schuster. Hardback, £20.00. Buy it on the Guardian bookshop for £17 here