Mexico: Technicolor Glory

The first World Cup broadcast in colour was the right vehicle for the most colourful team ever assembled. Brazil's 1970 squad — Pelé, Tostão, Rivelino, Jairzinho, Gérson, Clodoaldo, Carlos Alberto — arrived in Mexico already bearing the reputation of something extraordinary, and then exceeded it. The colour television sets that had recently arrived in living rooms across Europe and South America rendered their yellow shirts in a vividness that matched the football itself: saturated, luminous, unlike anything the medium had shown before.

The group stage provided a match that transcended its result. England and Brazil met in Guadalajara, and the famous Gordon Banks save — Pelé's downward header from the right, saved by Banks diving to his right and scooping the ball over the crossbar from beneath his own body — happened in the first half. Pelé described it as the greatest save he had ever seen. Banks described it as the save that defined his career. It remains, in a tournament full of superlatives, the single most discussed moment of play. England lost the match 1-0 and would later lose to West Germany in the quarter-finals.

Italy in the final were not a poor side — they had defeated West Germany 4-3 in the Azteca in a semi-final of such sustained drama that it became known simply as the "Match of the Century," a result that arrived before Maradona's goal claimed the same title. Italy's catenaccio system had been effective throughout the tournament. Against Brazil, it dissolved in the second half, and the final became a demonstration. Pelé's header opened the scoring. Gérson's thirty-yard drive made it 3-1 after Boninsegna's equaliser. Jairzinho's goal made him the only player to score in every match of a World Cup. Carlos Alberto's fourth completed the examination.

Brazil kept the Jules Rimet Trophy permanently. After their third victory, the statue passed from FIFA's hands to Rio de Janeiro, where it was subsequently stolen and melted down, presumably into something far less beautiful. The trophy's fate was somehow appropriate for a tournament so vivid, so unlikely, so completely beyond rational expectation: it could not survive contact with the ordinary world.

MATCH FOOTAGE

1970

Brazil 4–1 Italy

1970

Brazil 3–1 Uruguay

1970

Brazil 1–0 England

1970

West Germany 3–2 England (AET)