South American Player of the Year was voted Zico, followed by Maradona and Junior. Two Flamengo players among the best, which is understandable.
Arthur Antunes Coimbra, known as Zico, was the most popular Brazilian football player for a long time and not at all newcomer to international recognition, but so far his career was kind of strange. He was noticed when he was 14-years old and advised to try Flamengo, which was Zico’s wish anyway, for he was Flamengo fan. And there he played since 1967. He debuted in the first national Brazilian championship in 1971, made big impression almost immediately, and was called the White Pele. But in 1972 he almost quit playing football – he called and played for the Olympic team of Brazil in the qualifications, but was not selected in the team going to the finals in Munich, West Germany. Zico was very frustrated and decided to quit football – he did not join Flamengo’s training camp for 10 days. This was perhaps the most telling moment of his early days: a star, adored by fans, praised by Pele, but… not a national team player and, on top of it, Flamengo did nothing memorable in the national championships. Zico eventually debuted for Brazil in 1976, yet, his career was sketchy: by the end of 1981, he made 49 appearances for Brazil, scoring 34 goals – quite impressive at the time, but… 12 matches and 10 goals belonged to 1981. At the 1978 World Cup he was not exactly memorable player and there was another misfortune: against Sweden he scored after a corner kick in the last minute, but the referee called the end of the game when the ball was still in the air and the match ended 1-1. Meantime everybody started talking of Maradona… Zico was voted South American player of the Year in 1977. Maradona easily left him behind – he was voted number one twice: 1979 and 1980. Until 1980 Zico had only 5 Rio de Janeiro State titles. Nothing bigger than that… so he had to wait until 1980 for real success: to win the Brazilian championship at first and everything internationally the next year. Arguably, his best year was 1981, when he was already 28-years old. Compared to Pele… very little and very late. Compared to Maradona… the Argentine had the future at his side. Zico managed to come equal to Maradona in 1981 – twice number one player of South America.
But he was already a big international star, one of the best players of his time, and it was great that he and his club finally started winning. Zico was wonderful this year and soared above Maradona.