Garry Jenkins journey in search of Pelé and the 1970 Brazilians began when he was a 12 year old, living in a small village in West Wales, and dazzled by the images on his television.

The Mexico World Cup was the first to be widely broadcast in colour and multi-racial Brazil, brilliant in gold and blue against the bleached turf, embraced the new palette as if it had been created for them.

World Cup winners define successive epochs in the game and the way it is won. The casual brilliance of the Brazilians was the fullest expression to date of everything that is beautiful about the sport.

Jenkins meets the surviving titans and finds unexpected answers to the questions of how they came to play the way they did and why the world has waited in vain for the Brazilians to show us again the summits that can be reached by 11 men and a football.

Following their progress from ignominious defeat in the 1966 tournament to the legendary dismissal of Italy and the rest of the world four years later, Jenkins vividly recreates the games themselves, but it is the stories from off the pitch that make this a uniquely entertaining portrait.

This thoughtfully crafted work is infinitely richer than the usual, breathless homages to the team. A definitive tribute to the definitive 11. --Alex Hankin

Book Jacket
To football fans everywhere, the 1970 Brazilians were--and remain--"The Beautiful Team". In winning the World Cup of that year in Mexico, they lifted the game to levels of skill, sophistication and style it has never recaptured since.

Gary Jenkins set out in search of that unforgettable eleven in a journey that took him from the chaotic cabinet room of Pelé's Sport Ministry in Brasilia to the home of the reclusive Tostâo in Belo Horizonte and from Carlos Alberto's soccer school in Rio to the Sâo Paulo garage where Félix is still defending his calamitous contributions to the campaign. As the team recall their triumph and describe what made them and their style of football so special, Jenkins shows what their win meant both to Brazil and the wider footballing world.

As colourful as the Brazilian culture itself, The Beautiful Team is a fascinating--and often touching--collection of personal histories and a celebration of the most revered football team the world has ever known.

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