Garrincha played 50 international matches for
Brazil between 1955 and 1966, and was a starter for the national team in the 1958, 1962 and
1966 World Cups. Brazil lost only one match with him on the pitch, against
Hungary at the
1966 World Cup. This was the last time Garrincha played in National team.
Pelé did not play the game against Hungary, and thus Brazil never lost when Garrincha and Pelé were in the same lineup. His first
cap was against
Chile in Rio de Janeiro in 1955. He played two matches at the
Copa América of 1957 and four in the 1959 edition, Brazil finished runners up in both editions.
1958 World Cup in the
1958 FIFA World Cup Final. On 29 May, ten days before the
1958 World Cup finals started, Garrincha scored one of his most famous goals, against
Fiorentina in Italy. He beat four defenders and the goalkeeper, before stopping on the goal line. Rather than kicking the ball into the open goal, he then dribbled past the returning
Enzo Robotti to score. Despite his stunning performance his coaches were upset at what they considered an irresponsible move and this likely led to Garrincha not being picked for Brazil's first two matches of the 1958 tournament. However, he did start their third match against the
USSR; this match marked the debut of both Garrincha and Pelé (although Garrincha was seven years older than Pele, both being born in October, respectively in 1933 and in 1940). The Soviets were one of the favourites for the tournament, and the Brazilians had been nervous about playing them. Brazil won the match 2–0. {{Quote box|width=30%|align=right|quote="Garrincha was more of a danger than Pelé I believe at the time, a phenomenon, capable of sheer magic." Following the Brazilians' narrow 1–0 quarter-final win against
Wales on 19 June 1958,
Mel Hopkins (the
fullback who faced him that game) described Garrincha as "a phenomenon, capable of sheer magic. It was difficult to know which way he was going to go because of his legs and because he was as comfortable on his left foot as his right, so he could cut inside or go down the line and he had a ferocious shot too."
1958–1962 Garrincha put on weight after the World Cup, partly because of his drinking, so he was dropped from the national team for a friendly match in Rio against England on 13 May 1959. Later that month, he went on tour with Botafogo in Sweden and got a local girl pregnant. When he returned to Brazil, he drove home to Pau Grande and ran over his father, Amaro. He drove off without stopping, with an
angry mob chasing him, and when they caught up with him they found him "drunk, almost catatonic, and with no grasp of what he had done." In August, his wife, Nair, gave birth to their fifth child, and his mistress Iraci announced her first pregnancy. His father died of
liver cancer on 10 October having been dependent on alcohol for years.
1962 World Cup Garrincha was the most outstanding player of the
1962 FIFA World Cup. When Pelé suffered an injury after the second match and was sidelined for the rest of the tournament, Garrincha played a leading role in Brazil's triumph, excelling particularly against
England and
Chile, scoring 4 goals in those two matches. After one win and one draw, Brazil faced
Spain, without Pelé. The South Americans were losing 0–1 in the second half.
Amarildo, Pelé's substitute for the remainder of the tournament, scored the equalizer. Five minutes before the end, Garrincha took the ball on the right flank, dribbled past a defender and paused. Then he dribbled past the same man and another defender, and sent a cross to Amarildo, who scored again to win the match. In the quarter-finals against England, Garrincha opened the score with a header off a corner kick. England equalized before half time. In the second half,
Vavá scored Brazil's second goal off a rebound of a shot by Garrincha; minutes later, Garrincha received a ball outside the penalty area, paused, and sent a curved shot – known as the
"banana shot" – into the bottom of the net. Brazil won 3–1 and advanced to the semi-finals. The British football press said he "was
Stanley Matthews,
Tom Finney and a snake charmer all rolled into one". During the quarter final, a stray dog ran onto the pitch and evaded all of the players' efforts to catch it until
England striker
Jimmy Greaves got down on all fours to beckon the animal. Though successful in catching the dog, it managed to urinate all over Greaves' England shirt. Greaves claimed that Garrincha thought the incident was so amusing that he took the dog home as a pet. Ruy Castro's book expands upon this, by clarifying that the dog was captured by an official, and raffled off to the Brazilian squad, a raffle which Garrincha won. The dog was named "Bi" (from "bi-campeões" - "two times champions"). He scored two more goals in the semi-final against the hosts, Chile, as Brazil went on to win 4–2. His first goal was a 20-yard left-foot shot; the second one, a header. A subsequent headline in the Chilean newspaper
El Mercurio read: "What planet is Garrincha from?" Garrincha was sent off in that match after 83 minutes for retaliating after being continually fouled. However, he was not suspended for the following match. Brazil faced
Czechoslovakia in the final. Garrincha played despite suffering from a severe fever, which did not prevent Brazil from winning 3–1 and him from getting voted player of the tournament.
1966 World Cup Though well short of match fitness and still struggling with a knee injury, which would plague him for the rest of his career, Garrincha still played in the first match of the tournament, a 2–0 win against
Bulgaria, Garrincha scored one of the goals of this game with a free kick taken with the outside of his foot (the second goal of this game was scored by Pelé - this was the only time when Garrincha and Pelé both scored goals in the same game). Then Brazil lost 1–3 to Hungary at
Goodison Park, in Garrincha's last ever international match, which was the only time Garrincha lost a match with the Brazil national team; he did not play in the last match of the first round against
Portugal. Brazil were eliminated in the first round.
Retirement from professional football and farewell {{Quote box|width=30%|align=right|quote="Garrincha was an incredible player, one of the best there has ever been. He could do things with the ball that no other player could." In 1973, although he was still signed by
Olaria, Garrincha decided to leave professional football. Apart from his age (he was already 40), "there was another reason for wanting to retire: he had become a grandfather for the first time – his daughter Edenir had just given birth to Alexandra – and being a professional football player and a grandfather felt weird." Alexandra with her three children still live in Garrincha's house in Pau Grande. On 19 December 1973, a farewell match for Garrincha between a
FIFA World team and Brazil was celebrated at the
Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, in front of 131,000 spectators. The FIFA team was composed mainly of
Argentine and
Uruguayan players, while Brazil fielded
Pelé,
Carlos Alberto, and several other members of the
1970 World Cup winning squad. Garrincha started the match, and while in the first half, at a point when Brazil had the ball in attack, the referee stopped the match so Garrincha could leave the pitch and receive the crowd's respects. Garrincha then did a lap around the pitch before disappearing through the stadium's tunnel. == Final years and death ==