From the series of good ideas that don't amount to much and woe of us who believed in the potential of such alternate reality story. This obscure short film fantasizes about
a possible historical meeting between two controversial soccer players: ladies man and troublemaker Heleno de Freitas (Jayme Periard) and two-time World Cup champion
Garrincha (Carlos Rodrigues), famously remembered for his unusual dribbling on adversaries due to his crooked legs. As background for such encounter is the infamous
1950 World Cup tournament when host nation Brazil got 2nd place after losing to Uruguay at the finals. Here, both players who are not part of the team, they're just
observers who see everything that's going around in that game and they talk about it with others, later on discussing with themselves what they like about the sport,
if it is to be a superior player or if they enjoy the fame, the women and the success.
It can't be exactly proven if those two legends never met - since when Garrincha was starting his professional career in 1953, Heleno played his last game after
a series of personal and professional crisis - so there's no anachronism about it and if we think deeper it'd be the encounter of a professional with a 17-year-old
who was a fan of the game back in 1950, year of the Cup. And considering the tumultous life stories of both players, both dying at young ages and with both having
biopics made about them (the amazing "Heleno" with Rodrigo Santoro in the leading role, and the average "Garrincha, Estrela Solitária" with André Gonçalves), the makers
of this short had plenty of material to work with even if it's just a wild dream about the encounter of those giant forces.
There's plenty of room for the development of
good ideas yet nothing memorable comes from what it's shown. The dialogues are uninteresting just as much as the sequence of events, except when the final game is
presented when there's a great deal of excitment even though we already know about the ending and not just because of the reality, but because both players in this
parallel reality aren't there to make a difference (and that's why the short film "Barbosa" (1988) is a spectacular film that also deals with the same World Cup but
instead of the players, a man travels back in time to save the title goalkeeper from that tragic goal). Had this movie about a similar situation where the players
join the game, show their skills and win the Cup rather than just discussing about what they could do than we'd have something extraordinary.
As for the facts of life, while Garrincha would never have the chance to join the 1950 team since he wasn't established as a player, Heleno could be there if it
wasn't for his rebellious behavior in most of the teams he played, which at the included a brief passage on Vasco and he had a quarrel with the coach who later became the
Brazilian coach during the Cup. We obviously "blame" the player because if there is one thing that doesn't get washed away easily is feelings hurt or proud hurt, specially
in the world of sports and in the end the coach didn't want a troublemaker to deal with. So, in my alternate reality, the coach swallows hard and calls the man for his
team because he truly believes in the man's talent to win the world. And as for Garrincha, he went to play in three consecutive World Cups and winning two of them (1958-1962), becoming one of the most important names in Brazilian
soccer history. But after the 1966 event, his career was already in shambles and it was a huge personal decline, just like Heleno.
When it comes to make conjectures and analysis about the past, some of us always try to imagine what would be so-and-so never happened or if things could go be
different had the perfect minds joined forces at a certain time, it's a part of our psyche, specially those who use it to the fullest (writers specially). Open minds
tend to such theories, it's quite fun to imagine things and scenarios, and that's why the power of fiction carries such a heavy burden in making things interesting. And
it's a pity that the story presented here didn't match a possible reality. Besides those, the poor copy available has terrible audio, terrible cinematography and there
are some small chops at the opening and the conclusion. Yet it's not a nightmare of a movie, it's just weak and empty at the end of the day. 4/10.
