Evaristo

Evaristo made his footballing début with Madureira in 1950 and was with them until 1953, when he joined Flamengo. During that time he was also a reserve with the Brazilian national team at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, although he did not see any playing time. He earned only 14 caps with the national team between 1955 and 1957, but this was sufficient to attract the attention of Spain’s FC Barcelona, who he joined in 1957. The team, however, refused to release him for the 1958 World Cup, for which he had played in the qualifiers, and thus he missed out on Brazil’s victory at that tournament.

Nonetheless, Evaristo remained with Barcelona through 1962, winning the league title in 1959 and 1960 and the Copa del Generalísimo in the former year. He was then afforded an opportunity to switch to rivals Real Madrid, which he took, but his play time was limited due to a knee injury. Real Madrid won league titles all three years that he was with the club, at which point he returned to Flamengo for a final season, retiring in 1966.

Evaristo went on to have an extensive managerial career, rarely staying with the same club for more than a year consecutively. Internationally, his first managerial stint was with Qatar, where he stayed from 1980 through 1986. During that time, the nation was runner-up in the Gulf Cup in 1984 and appeared at that year’s Los Angeles Olympics, where it was eliminated in the preliminary round. After a brief period as Brazil’s manager in 1985, he took over the Iraq squad for the 1986 World Cup, where they placed 23rd. He returned to Qatar in 1992 to lead them at the Barcelona Olympics, where they finished eighth. He did not retire from managing football until 2007.