[RESUMO] Between hits and debatable options, the documentary “Zico, Quintino’s Samurai” tries to go beyond being a film for fans or just recording great moments in matches, investigating little-known aspects of the great player’s life and his enigmatic decision to play for an obscure Japanese team at the end of his career.
The most painful passage in the film “Zico, the Samurai of Quintino”, by João Wainer, is the one in which he reaffirms his regret for accepting the call-up for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. “My heart said I shouldn’t go”, he declares, recognizing his lack of physical conditions.
The greatest idol in Flamengo’s history and one of the greats of Brazilian and international football had been the victim of a criminal tackle by defender Márcio Nunes, from Bangu, on August 29, 1985, at Maracanã, during a Campeonato Carioca game.
He was 32 years old and had come from two successful seasons at Udinese, in Italy, after having participated in the maximum glory of beating Liverpool 3-0, in December 81, in Tokyo, in what was considered and still considered the club world cup.
In that 1986 World Cup, the tragic dimension of the star’s career was fully revealed. He missed a penalty in the match in which Brazil was eliminated by France, which earned him an unfair stigma. At the same time, Diego Maradona, the biggest rival in South America, left the tournament deified, won by Argentina.
The very serious injury to his left knee led Zico to a painful and troubled end to his career, in a trajectory marked by great victories, but not what would have been the greatest. This tragic sign, echoing a little of the life that could have been but was not, of the poet Bandeira, perhaps led the famous Galinho de Quintino to seek a second great existential round.
Suggestively he would pick her up in Japan, the country where he won the unforgettable title in 81. Ten years later, in 1991, at the age of 38, he arrived in Kashima hired by the obscure Sumitomo Metals, a factory team that competed in the second division of the amateur league. The city was small, isolated and polluted by the factory, which was trying to change its image.
The main issue of the documentary is precisely this enigmatic decision that surprised everyone, starting with Sandra, his wife. The film recounts the saga that led the team, later called Kashima Antlers, to become, under Zico’s leadership, a powerhouse in Japanese professional football, elevated to a status unthinkable decades ago.
It is not, therefore, a production focused on the star’s great moves, a kind of collage of incredible dribbles and goals, which many fans, especially Flamengo fans, may certainly expect. Not being a fan film, in the strictest sense, was one of Wainer’s premises — who is a Santos fan and when it comes to idols, he also has nothing to complain about.
Yes, a collection of great plays is there, such as Rondinelli’s legendary goal against Vasco, in the 1978 Rio final, from a corner taken by Zico, the ball in Tokyo, plays for Udinese and the national team, not to mention a splendid sequence of masterpieces in free kicks. There are emotional scenes of Flamengo fans, this popular Brazilian religion that began to become more international precisely because of Zico.
The documentary invests in highlighting the life of the boy from Quintino, his education, his family relationships and friendships. There is an attempt to see it from the inside through unknown Super 8 films, photographs and home videos. The adventure in Kashima is reconstructed with testimonies from characters from the time and young fans of the team.
There is also a group of conversations about the career of 10 da Gávea that brings together names such as Júnior, Paulo Cesar Carpegiani, Ronaldo Fenômeno (who says that Zico has always been his idol), as well as Carlos Alberto Parreira, in scenes recorded among the trophies and souvenirs kept by the player.
The native Flamengo fan might not have preferred São Paulo native Mauro Beting as one of the media highlights in the film, even alongside the Rio narrator José Carlos Araujo — perhaps forgetting that Mauro is the author of the biography “Zico 70” and has a deep knowledge of the character. It’s a price to be paid for the idea of making a documentary that doesn’t want to claim itself as carioca and flamengo, with the ambition of unveiling, which it does well, the Japanese side of Galinho de Quintino.
Between hits and debatable options, the film broadens the interest in Zico’s life and leaves its mark on the viewer — at least it did on the author of this comment, who was a Flamengo until he died.
