📍Pau Grande, Magé, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1933 – 1953“I was born Manuel Francisco dos Santos in October 1933 in Pau Grande, a small mill village in the green hills of Magé, north of Rio de Janeiro, built around the cotton textile factory of the Companhia América Fabril. My family were poor; my father worked at the mill and drank too much. I was born with crooked legs, my spine was twisted, my right leg bent inwards and my left one curved outwards and was shorter, and the doctors said I would never play sport. My sister Rosa named me Garrincha after a small brown bird of the forests, because I was small and free. I spent my boyhood running wild around Pau Grande, swimming in the river, hunting birds in the woods and playing football on the dusty field by the factory. My crooked legs did not stop me: they gave me a strange, swerving dribble that no defender could read. At fourteen I went to work at the factory, but I spent more time sleeping among the machines than working; they kept me on because I played for the factory's football team. I never cared much for money, training or fame; I played for the joy of it, and I married young and stayed in Pau Grande. Vasco and Fluminense turned me away, but in 1953 Botafogo gave me a trial, and I dribbled around the great Nilton Santos, who told the club to sign me. I won two World Cups with Brazil, in 1958 and 1962, and they called me the Joy of the People. Pau Grande still remembers me, and the national stadium in Brasília bears my name.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today