Gérson was born and spent his childhood in the city of Niterói, just to the eastern side of Guanabara Bay from Rio de Janeiro, then the capital of the former Rio de Janeiro State. In school he was nicknamed papagaio (parrot), a nickname he kept throughout his life and which many of his fellow footballers used when addressing him.
Both his father and uncle were professional footballers in Rio. His father was a close friend of the legendary Zizinho, widely held as the best Brazilian footballer before Pelé, a superstar with Flamengo and a forward in the 1950 national team, along with Vasco da Gama's Ademir Menezes and Flamengo's Jair da Rosa Pinto. So when Gérson announced he intended to become a footballer himself, he found little opposition at home.[7]
As a boy his heroes had been the aforementioned midfieldersZizinho and Jair and Vasco da Gama's Danilo Alvim. However, in his first club, Flamengo, he was eventually cast in the same mold as the most influential midfield player of that era, Didi. The young Gérson combined technique and an extremely potent left foot shot with intelligence and an uncanny ability to control the game from the midfield. One of his greatest assets was his ability to switch defence into attack with one long, laser-like pass from deep inside his own half. Soon he was being talked of as a successor to Didi.
Within a year of making his professional debut for Flamengo in 1959, he was called to the Brazilian 'amateur' team in the Pan-American Games in Chicago.[8] A year later he was a lynchpin of the side at the Rome Olympics where he scored four goals,[9] but Brazil did not make it beyond the group phase.[10] By 1961, he was the playmaker in Flamengo. He had also been recruited into the full national squad to defend the World Cup in Chile by the new national coach Aymore Moreira.[7] Yet his dreams of combining with the bandy-legged 'Little Bird' Garrincha, along with Pelé and Didi in Chile were dashed when he suffered a serious knee injury. Forced to undergo surgery, he couldn't get himself back into Moreira's squad. It would be one of many injuries to blight his career.
Gérson is considered one of the best passers in World Cup history. Although he didn't play well in 1966, he was the mastermind behind the whole Brazil national team in the 1970 tournament. He is regarded as the best passer and midfielder in that edition of that World Cup, in that Brazilian squad, and the second best player in the 4–1 victory against Italy in the final, after Pelé himself. Overall, he played 70 times for Brazil, scoring 14 goals for his country, including one in that 1970 World Cup final.[11][12]
Outside the soccer pitch, Gérson's name became nationally infamous after he starred in a Vila Rica cigarettes' advertising campaign for television in 1976, which had him read the tagline "I like to take advantage of everything, right? You too take advantage!". The line became instantly associated with the traditional Brazilian disregard for laws and social rules as well as bribery and corruption maneuvers, informally named "jeitinho brasileiro" ("the Brazilian way") or "Lei de Gérson" ("Gérson's Law"), and the expression is largely used to these days.[13] He later publicly regretted having starred in the ad, claiming his association with such acts did not reflect his true personality.
Style of play
Although Gérson played as a holding midfielder, Jonathan Wilson noted in a 2013 article for The Guardian that he was an early example of a more creative interpreter of this role, who focussed more on ball retention and passing rather than solely looking to win back possession.[14] A tactically intelligent, efficient, and technically gifted midfield playmaker, he was considered the "brain" behind the Brazilian squad that won the 1970 World Cup.[6] He was known for his ability to retain possession and dictate the tempo of his team's play in midfield with his precise passing, and was also capable of switching from defence to attack by playing sudden, accurate long balls to meet his teammates' runs; he is regarded as one of the best passers in the history of the sport, and as one of Brazil's greatest ever players. He also possessed an excellent positional sense, and a powerful shot with his left foot, which earned him the nickname Canhotinha de Ouro ("Golden left foot," in Portuguese).[11][12][15][16][17][18][19][20]
Controversy
Gérson displayed anger towards Pelé's list of the 125 greatest living footballer. He was adamant with the ruling and thought that he and a few of his teammates deserved a spot on the list. He symbolically ripped up a piece of paper, a clear representation of Pelé's list, on a local broadcasting station saying that "I respect his opinion, but I don't agree. Apart from Zidane, Platini, and Fontaine, I'm behind 11 Frenchmen? It's a joke to hear this."[21]
