Football has lost one of it's favourite son's this week after the death of former Brazilian Full back Carlos Alberto. Alberto had a great influence on moving the sport from a hard hitting game, towards a more beautiful and artistic game where skill and imagination prevailed. His legacy is mainly about how he changed the image of full backs, from defensive minded to a more attacking and creative player for the team.
Team Game
Football is a team game. If you look at every goal in history to sum the sport up, look no further than the fourth Brazilian goal in the 1970 World Cup final.
Alberto finished off a lovely move from the Brazilians, this goal changed football forever and the sport was know considered 'The beautiful game.' This goal had everything, the determination to win the ball back as a team, then for nearly every outfield player in the South American team to be involved in the build up to the goal is something special.
Alberto was the captain of that great side that included the likes of Pelle and Socrates. These players were head and shoulders above anyone in that tournament. However that goal has to be Alberto's finest hour to be captain of the greatest side in the world at the present time and to win the World cup in a great way against some great opponents.
Then to top it off finish off one of the greatest goals of all time, the pride he must've of felt must have been unbelievable.
Other key aspects
However there are other key aspects to the Alberto World cup final goal, the imagination that Pelle had to pick out Alberto's run from behind was something special and to be admired.
What separates the good and great players, is who can read the game quicker than the other player to get that advantage. The end move to this goal proved that, Pelle read that Alberto was going to make that darting run from right back, to blast home the fourth goal and to see the World Cup. This was something new to Football, which you rarely saw back in 1970, this kind of forward thinking has produced some of the best teams the world has ever seen.
Alberto's legacy would be the image he created for Full back's to be more attack minded. He started a trend that still is very much in the modern game today, with full backs like Daniel Alves and Kyle Walker. Alberto showed that you can play the game beautiful from the defence and its not always about stopping your opponent.
