Gérson (born 11 January 1941) is a former Brazilian football player. He has played for Brazil national team. He is best known for his role as a playmaker at the 1970 FIFA World Cup. There he was the mainstay in midfield and key to the success of strikers Pelé, Jairzinho and Tostão. He is considered one of the best passers in the history of the World Cup. He was also praised for his great sense of organization and strategy. This ensured that he was able to deliver razor-sharp passes, over short and long distances. He was a very intelligent playmaker, known for vision, positional sense, efficiency, his ability to retain posession, powerful shots and his incredible passing ability. and he is regarded as one of Brazil's greatest ever players. He also possessed an excellent positional sense, and a powerful shot with his left foot, which earned him the nickname Canhotinha de Ouro ("Golden left foot," in Portuguese).
Early life
Childhood
Gérson was born on January 11, 1941 in Niterói, a suburb of Rio de Janeiro. There he came from a football family, his father Clovis Nuno and uncle had both been professional football players in Rio. The legendary Zizinho, who formed one of the best lines of attack ever in the 1950s along with Ademir and Jair, was a close friend of his father and a familiar face with the Nunes family. In elementary school he was known as the papagaio (parrot), because of his much talk. The slender and shaggy boy, never lacked a mind of his own, especially on the football field where he left a confident and managerial impression from an early age. When he indicated as a teenager that he wanted to become a professional football player, few obstacles stood in his way. He trained at a young age with Fluminense, Botafogo and Bangu but eventually ended up with Canto do Rio from his native Niterói. After having played a practice match against Flamengo, he was later called by the professional club asking if he wanted to come and play football there.
How to play
Although his childhood idols had been strikers Jair, Zizinho, Ademir and Vasco da Gama midfielder Danilo, his first professional club Flamengo had him take the place of the most influential player in Brazilian midfield at the time: Didi. The young Gerson combined his speed and relentless shooting power with his intelligence to control the game from midfield. One of his most important assets was to switch from defensive to offensive play from his own half, via a long, clean ball, at lightning speed. He had understood early on that the ball was much faster than any player. Soon people were talking about the successor of the famous Didi. However, he himself refused to make that comparison, he was the original Gérson and not the next Didi. He admitted that he had some affinity with the playmaker of the 1950s, but the midfielder had never served as an example for him.
Club career
For the first five years in professional football, he rose continuously through all ranks. Less than a year after his debut with Flamengo in 1958, he already made his appearance in the Brazilian 'amateur team' at the Pan American Games in 1959, where the team finished second behind champions Argentina. A year later, he was the cornerstone on the side of the field when he competed in the soccer tournament at the Summer Olympics in Rome. By now, he had developed into the absolute controller of Flamengo's midfield and began to take over the role of the lapsed Didi within the Brazilian national team. After spending five years with Flamengo, he decided to leave for another top club from Rio de Janeiro, Botafogo. This was home to one of the best players Brazil has ever known, his other childhood idol Garrincha. His big dream of playing with him, and Pelé among others, at the 1962 FIFA World Cup was shattered when he suffered a very serious knee injury. Forced surgery made it impossible for him to take part in the global tournament in Chile which was eventually won for the second time by Brazil. The injury meant that his career would never be as successful as he had been given in advance. At Botafogo, he continued to play for most of his career and also managed to win many awards. He then played another stint with São Paulo before concluding his career in Rio de Janeiro with Fluminense. His heart is still with the latter club, even though he only played here for a fairly short period. He stopped at a relatively young age because his knee started to hurt, but his fear of flying also played a role, if possible he always took the car to travel.