Lost promise of the greatest goal

Brazil gave us a Woodstock moment - a mirage of what football could be

- Jonathan Wilson

Ostão picks up the loose ball and nudges it back to Wilson Piazza just outside his own box. The ball is moved in a slow triangle through Clodoaldo to Pelé and Gérson and back to Clodoaldo. His touch is slightly heavy, enticing an Italian challenge. Clodoaldo skips round him and then two other tackles. He sidesteps Antonio Juliano and rolls the ball to Rivellino on the left. Rivellino sweeps a 40-yard pass down the line to Jairzinho and the rhythm has suddenly changed. Jairzinho runs at Giacinto Facchetti and, as he turns inside, Pierluigi Cera advances to close him down. Jairzinho pokes the ball on to Pelé, perhaps 27 or 28 yards out. Tarcisio Burgnich stands between him and the box, but Pelé pauses, turns to his right and lays a pass into the path of Carlos Alberto, surging forward from full-back. Just inside the box the ball sits up perfectly. Carlos Alberto doesn't have to break stride as he lashes a shot hard across goal, the force of the strike lifting him high off the ground as the ball flies into the bottom corner. With four minutes of the 1970 World Cup final remaining, Brazil lead 4-1.

For many, it's the greatest goal scored by perhaps the greatest team in the greatest World Cup, a glorious synthesis of team play and individual technical excellence. Yes, it came right at the end of the final and Italy were exhausted by then, but it was a goal that encapsulated the joy and virtuosity of that side, that left the world with a shorthand for what the Brazil of 1970 meant. Brazil had come to feel as though they were about more than games or results, more even than winning the World Cup: they were about an expression of football in its most beautiful form, about pushing the boundaries of human capability.