Vasconcelos, the No 10 before King Pelé | OneFootball

Guilherme Guarche, from the Memory Center

On May 25, 1930, a Sunday, Valter Fernandes Vasconcelos was born in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. He would later become an attacking midfielder known for his accurate shots and quick touches, beginning his football career in Vasco da Gama’s amateur ranks, where he stayed for two years before moving to Portuguesa Santista.

It was 1953 when he was signed by the black-and-white team from Santos for 350,000 cruzeiros. For quite some time, he formed the left side of Santos’s attack alongside José Macia, Pepe, with whom he shared a sincere and genuine friendship.

Vasconcelos played his first match before turning 23 and already made his debut showing his goalscoring DNA, scoring twice in his first appearance, a 6–2 friendly win over Juventus at Vila Belmiro.

On that distant Sunday, March 15, 1953, Santos was lined up by coach Artigas with Manga, Hélvio (later Cássio) and Feijó; Nenê, Formiga (Aristóbulo) and Zito (Ivan); Nicácio (Otavinho), Nelson Adams, Álvaro, Vasconcelos and Tite. It was the beginning of a story that did not have an ending worthy of the football the Santos star showed on the pitch, but which became reckless off it, marked by partying and constant alcohol use.

Even so, Vasconcelos was the top scorer of the 1953 Rio-São Paulo Tournament, with eight goals. He also remained the club’s leading scorer in his first two seasons, wearing the number 10 shirt that would later be immortalized by the boy who was then his backup at Santos, Pelé.

In the 1955 Paulista Championship, which ended a 20-year drought without the longed-for state title, Vasconcelos played in 24 of the 26 matches contested by the black-and-white side and was the team’s second-highest scorer, with 13 goals.

With admirable ball control, he found his place in the black-and-white team. Playing on the left side of midfield, he orchestrated plays and knew how to finish like few others, becoming one of the great idols of the Santos fans.

With the ball at his feet, he was a star. Away from the pitch, a lover of nightlife. A committed bohemian, he never invited a teammate to join him in the revelry in which, even on the eve of big matches, he would jump out windows and, alone, drink, dance, return at dawn, play, and make the fans roar with the effort he showed on the field.

However, it was not his inappropriate behavior that cut short his career, but a serious injury. On December 9, 1956, in the second round of the Paulista Championship, in which Santos lost 3–1 to São Paulo, on a wet pitch, in an unintentional play, the then São Paulo defender Mauro Ramos de Oliveira seriously injured the unfortunate Peixe forward.

Vasconcelos fractured his tibia in the play, and from that date on he never played the same way again. Santos became two-time Paulista champions, but lost their greatest idol.

Fate would have it, however, that with the serious injury to the starter, a boy nicknamed “Gasolina” emerged as his immediate replacement, and he would become even greater than the injured idol.

After a long time away from the pitch, Vasconcelos returned to play, but he was no longer the same. The serious injury affected him emotionally, and, deeply shaken, he was never able to recover his great footballing talent.

His last appearance in the black-and-white shirt came on May 11, 1958, at Cristiano Osório Stadium in Poços de Caldas, in a friendly against the Caldense/Rio Branco Combined Team, which Santos won 4–0, with goals from Álvaro (2), Pagão and Dorval. On that distant Sunday, coach Lula lined up the team with Manga (Laércio), Getúlio and Mourão; Feijó, Ramiro and Dalmo; Dorval, Jair Rosa Pinto (Zezinho), Pagão (Raimundinho), Álvaro (Dubles) and Vasconcelos.

During the period in which he played for the black-and-white team from Santos, from 1953 to 1958, he won the titles of two-time Paulista champion (1955/56), the International Tournament of the São Paulo Football Federation, the 1956 Qualification Tournament and the Invincibles Cup in the same year. For Peixe, Vasconcelos played 175 matches and scored 114 goals; he is the club’s 16th all-time top scorer.

In 1960 he still tried to play for another club in the city, Jabaquara, but was unsuccessful. In 1961 he returned to Vasco da Gama, where he was not used, and also played for Náutico of Recife. The following year he hung up his boots with Apucarana, a team from the north-central region of Paraná.

Because of his far-from-exemplary behavior, few believed it when he took seriously the request of Dondinho, Pelé’s father. Dondinho left his son in the care of the Santos players, and Vasconcelos immediately grabbed the boy by the neck and said: “Leave it to me, Mr. Dondinho.” It is known that he fulfilled his promise to the letter and never allowed the future King of Football to put a drop of alcohol in his mouth.

On one occasion, during goalkeeper Agenor Gomes’s birthday party, the popular Manga, several Santos squad players were celebrating at the birthday boy’s house when Vasconcelos noticed that Pelé had a glass of alcohol in his hand.

He then crossed the room and took the glass from the future best player in the world, scolding him. A gesture worthy of applause in the face of so many mistakes made in his troubled and controversial life.

Pepe said: “He was one of the few players who lived at Urbano Caldeira Stadium at that time. He was always around the sports grounds. He stayed there near the entrance gate, where there was a very large rock. He would sit there before and after training, wearing a huge straw hat and a worn flannel shirt, talking with the fans.”

Vasconcelos, according to those who followed the Santos team, was very important to Santos’s meteoric rise. If he had not broken his leg, it might have taken a little longer for Pelé to emerge.

The endless nights out and the lack of commitment to the hard reality of life took him from this world forever. Vasconcelos, Bagaço, the bohemian and legendary star, died on a Saturday, January 22, 1983, at his home in the São Joaquim neighborhood, in Brusque, Santa Catarina, in the Itajaí Valley, where he was buried at 52 years of age.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.