Evaristo (footballer)

Raised in the north of Rio de Janeiro, Evaristo, like many children, played football simply for fun on the streets, and watched Flamengo play on weekends with his uncle. In 1950, aged 17, Evaristo joined a friend who was attending a trial at Madureira and was asked to come back the following day. Signed as an amateur, he scored 18 goals in 35 games, including one against Fluminense at the Maracanã Stadium.[3]

Evaristo was called up to the Brazilian squad at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. After returning home following elimination to an experienced Germany side, all of the Brazil players received new club offers. Turning down offers from Vasco da Gama and Fluminense, Evaristo joined Flamengo, and won three successive Rio State Championships with the club. He scored 103 goals in 191 games for Flamengo, including four during a 12–2 win over São Cristóvão, the biggest win ever recorded at the Maracanã to date.[3]

Evaristo's five-goal display with Brazil in a 9–0 win over Colombia at the 1957 South American Championship brought him to the attention of FC Barcelona technical secretary Josep Samitier, who had flown to South America in search of a striker.[3] Samitier watched Evaristo playing for Brazil during qualification for the 1958 FIFA World Cup and, impressed, made Evaristo's father a proposal deemed "impossible to turn down", with a basic wage of 700,000 pesetas/£6,000 a year (about £140,000 in 2021).[3] The offer came additionally including a house, a Mercedes-Benz, and a club liaison officer who assisted with Evaristo's marriage to his childhood sweetheart Norma three months later. Each player had an individual fan club arranged by the club, but the players outside of training and official activity were free to enjoy life and relax in the city.[3]

Playing in a Barcelona side alongside László Kubala and Luis Suárez, and managed by Helenio Herrera, Evaristo scored in the first official match played at the Camp Nou in September 1957, and became the first player to score a hat-trick at the ground. In the following season, he scored three goals against European champions Real Madrid en route to Barcelona's first La Liga title in six years.[3] On 23 November 1960, in the second leg of a European Cup tie against Real Madrid at the Camp Nou, during which the English referee ruled out four separate goals for Real Madrid, Evaristo scored a diving header with eight minutes to go, which eliminated Barcelona's rivals from the competition for the first time and ended their hopes of a sixth successive title. Evaristo scored six times during Barcelona's run to their first European Cup final, which they lost 3–2 to Benfica at the Wankdorf Stadium in Bern, now remembered as the "Square-Posts Final" due to the match supposedly being the reason the shape of the goalposts was changed.[3]

During Evaristo's time with Barcelona, the club won two league titles, a cup title, and two Inter-Cities Fairs Cups. Barcelona's statistics department state that in official matches, Evaristo scored 105 goals in 151 games for the side, while the club's official site states in total he scored 181 in 237. Only Rivaldo, who scored 129 goals in 235 games between 1997 and 2002, has more official goals by a Brazilian for Barcelona than Evaristo; Evaristo however still retains the best goals-per-game ratio of any Brazilian to play more than 50 games for Barcelona.[3][4]

Unfortunately, Evaristo's relationship with Barcelona with regards to international representation had been strained from the start. Having played every minute of a two-legged World Cup qualifier against Peru, and with eight goals in fourteen games, when they signed him Barcelona verbally agreed to release Evaristo for the World Cup final tournament in Sweden. However, with Spain having failed to qualify, the Spanish Cup went ahead at the same time as the tournament in Sweden, and Barcelona went back on their promise to release him. Brazil went on to win their first World Cup, with 17-year-old Pelé their headlining player; Evaristo would never wear the famous Brazilian yellow shirt again.[3]

In 1962, wanting to sign another foreign player – yet with rules only allowing one per team under both Spanish and European rules – Barcelona asked Evaristo to naturalise as a Spanish citizen. After bitter wrangling, Evaristo agreed to quit Barcelona that summer.[3] Although he had offers from clubs in both France and Italy, with his family happy in Spain Evaristo agreed to join rivals Real Madrid. In contrast to the transfer of Luís Figo 38 years later, Barcelona's fans directed their anger not at the player, but at the board.[3] Despite a serious knee injury limiting him to just nineteen appearances and six goals for Real Madrid, Evaristo still won two La Liga titles in two seasons with the club.[3]

Evaristo returned as he had planned to Flamengo in 1965, adding another league title before retiring a year later, at the age of 33.[3]