Further sad news for the world of football. The former Brazil captain Sócrates has died at the age of fifty seven. He had been in a critical condition with an intestinal infection since being admitted to hospital on Friday in São Paulo. He, his wife and a friend were all reportedly taken ill after eating stroganoff last week, but his body was too frail to cope, having recently recovered from illness and he suffered septic shock which claimed his life in the early hours of Sunday morning. Sócrates, who was widely regarded as one of the greatest goalscoring midfielders ever to play the game, was moved onto life support on Saturday. He played in two World Cups, winning sixty caps for his country between 1979 and 1986 - many as captain - and scored twenty two goals. At six foot four he was known for his physical strength combined with a silky elegance on the ball for such a big man, as well as two-footed vision, a powerful shot and more tricks than Derren Brown. There have, frankly, been few better box-to-box playmakers in the history of the game. Easily recognisable for his beard and headband, he became the 'symbol of cool for a whole generation of football supporters,' according to the journalist Jonathan Jurejko. He looked more like a rock star than a footballer, with a towering awkward frame, straggly hair - and, of course, the instantly recognisable beard. 
The 1980s image of Sócrates is still plastered across retro T-shirts today, just like his hero Che Guevara, and his affect on a generation of football fans who fell in love with the Samba Boys of '82 is almost as revolutionary. His style of play was unmistakable; elegant and effortless almost to the point of nonchalance, and with a penchant for the back-heel that prompted Pelé to once remark that Sócrates played better going backwards than most footballers were going forward. Sócrates played for Botafogo and Corinthians in Brazil before an unhappy one-season spell in Italy at Fiorentina. He then saw out his career with Flamengo and Santos before retiring in 1989 at the age of thirty five. The first child of a self-educated intellectual father, a lover of the classics who named three of his sons after Greek philosophers, Sócrates was born in 1954 in Belém, the city on the banks of the Amazon estuary and capital of the North Brazilian state of Pará. Sócrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira came to football relatively late, having trained as a medical student until he was nineteen. Nicknamed 'The Doctor', Sócrates subsequently continued his studies whilst playing for Botafogo Futebol Clube and became a doctor of medicine, a rare achievement for a professional footballer (he was a graduate of the Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto). After retiring as a player in the late 1980s he practised medicine at Ribeirao Preto. 
In his early playing days he was notably unwilling to join in the wild celebrations of his team-mates when he scored a goal (of which there were one hundred and seventy two over the course of two hundred and ninety seven matches. He would have played many more but missed two whole seasons in 1978 and 1979 whilst completing his doctorate); so much so that the fans complained to the club president considering this aloofness as a sign of a lack of passion. The president, in turn, begged Sócrates to be more demonstrative and Sócrates obliged, in future, with parodic celebrations, kneeling on the ground, throwing up his arms and invoking success from whatever Gods there might be. A deeply intelligent man he was also a talented musician, playing trumpet in a salsa band, and was politically active. During his time at Corinthians he co-founded the Corinthians Democracy Movement, in opposition to the then-ruling right-wing military dictatorship in Brazil. Sócrates and his team mates protested against the regime's treatment of footballers, and showed support to the wider movement for democratisation, by wearing shirts with 'Democracia!' written on them during games. Sócrates stated in several interviews that his childhood heroes were Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and John Lennon. As if that wasn't cool enough for a footballer, he was also a heavy drinker and smoker - notoriously, being a forty-a-day man at the very time when he was captaining the 1982 Brazil side, one of the greatest teams never to win the world cup. 
That second group stage defeat to Italy is still the stuff of nightmares for lovers of the The Beautiful Game the world over. Just like Hungary in 1954 and the Netherlands in 1974, here was a team blessed with, quite literally, all the talents, except for the ability to win the biggest prize of all. Ironically, his younger brother, Raí was a member of the Brazil squad which did win the World Cup in 1994. Sócrates would later note: 'Titles are ephemeral. What matters in football is the passion, regardless of conquests.' He set up a sporting medicine clinic in Ribeirão Preto where he lived with his wife and six children. He was a columnist for a number of newspapers and magazines, writing not only about sports, but also medicine, politics and economics. He frequently appeared on Brazilian TV programmes as a football pundit. At the time of his death, Sócrates was writing a speculative novel about the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. In 2004, aged fifty, Sócrates made an appearance as a substitute for Garforth Town in the Northern Counties League after a one-off deal to become player-coach. He was taken to the Albert Einstein Hospital in São Paulo with food poisoning on Friday, according to his wife. A hospital statement said on Saturday that the former footballer was 'in a critical condition due to a septic shock of intestinal origin.' Previously, Sócrates was taken to hospital twice in August and September this year with bleeding in his digestive tract. After these incidents he admitted that he had problems with alcohol, especially so during his playing career. In a recent television interview, Sócrates said he that had considered alcohol his 'companion' but believed its regular use had never affected his performance on the field. 'Alcohol did not affect my career, in part because I never had the physical build to play this game,' he said. 'Soccer became my profession only when I was already twenty four. I was too thin and when I was young I did not have the opportunity to prepare myself physically for the sport.' Football fans will prefer to remember those balmy nights in Spain in June 1982. And that goal against the USSR. Two body-swerves and a thunderous drive that almost burst the net. Magic.
The 1980s image of Sócrates is still plastered across retro T-shirts today, just like his hero Che Guevara, and his affect on a generation of football fans who fell in love with the Samba Boys of '82 is almost as revolutionary. His style of play was unmistakable; elegant and effortless almost to the point of nonchalance, and with a penchant for the back-heel that prompted Pelé to once remark that Sócrates played better going backwards than most footballers were going forward. Sócrates played for Botafogo and Corinthians in Brazil before an unhappy one-season spell in Italy at Fiorentina. He then saw out his career with Flamengo and Santos before retiring in 1989 at the age of thirty five. The first child of a self-educated intellectual father, a lover of the classics who named three of his sons after Greek philosophers, Sócrates was born in 1954 in Belém, the city on the banks of the Amazon estuary and capital of the North Brazilian state of Pará. Sócrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira came to football relatively late, having trained as a medical student until he was nineteen. Nicknamed 'The Doctor', Sócrates subsequently continued his studies whilst playing for Botafogo Futebol Clube and became a doctor of medicine, a rare achievement for a professional footballer (he was a graduate of the Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto). After retiring as a player in the late 1980s he practised medicine at Ribeirao Preto. 
In his early playing days he was notably unwilling to join in the wild celebrations of his team-mates when he scored a goal (of which there were one hundred and seventy two over the course of two hundred and ninety seven matches. He would have played many more but missed two whole seasons in 1978 and 1979 whilst completing his doctorate); so much so that the fans complained to the club president considering this aloofness as a sign of a lack of passion. The president, in turn, begged Sócrates to be more demonstrative and Sócrates obliged, in future, with parodic celebrations, kneeling on the ground, throwing up his arms and invoking success from whatever Gods there might be. A deeply intelligent man he was also a talented musician, playing trumpet in a salsa band, and was politically active. During his time at Corinthians he co-founded the Corinthians Democracy Movement, in opposition to the then-ruling right-wing military dictatorship in Brazil. Sócrates and his team mates protested against the regime's treatment of footballers, and showed support to the wider movement for democratisation, by wearing shirts with 'Democracia!' written on them during games. Sócrates stated in several interviews that his childhood heroes were Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and John Lennon. As if that wasn't cool enough for a footballer, he was also a heavy drinker and smoker - notoriously, being a forty-a-day man at the very time when he was captaining the 1982 Brazil side, one of the greatest teams never to win the world cup. 
That second group stage defeat to Italy is still the stuff of nightmares for lovers of the The Beautiful Game the world over. Just like Hungary in 1954 and the Netherlands in 1974, here was a team blessed with, quite literally, all the talents, except for the ability to win the biggest prize of all. Ironically, his younger brother, Raí was a member of the Brazil squad which did win the World Cup in 1994. Sócrates would later note: 'Titles are ephemeral. What matters in football is the passion, regardless of conquests.' He set up a sporting medicine clinic in Ribeirão Preto where he lived with his wife and six children. He was a columnist for a number of newspapers and magazines, writing not only about sports, but also medicine, politics and economics. He frequently appeared on Brazilian TV programmes as a football pundit. At the time of his death, Sócrates was writing a speculative novel about the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. In 2004, aged fifty, Sócrates made an appearance as a substitute for Garforth Town in the Northern Counties League after a one-off deal to become player-coach. He was taken to the Albert Einstein Hospital in São Paulo with food poisoning on Friday, according to his wife. A hospital statement said on Saturday that the former footballer was 'in a critical condition due to a septic shock of intestinal origin.' Previously, Sócrates was taken to hospital twice in August and September this year with bleeding in his digestive tract. After these incidents he admitted that he had problems with alcohol, especially so during his playing career. In a recent television interview, Sócrates said he that had considered alcohol his 'companion' but believed its regular use had never affected his performance on the field. 'Alcohol did not affect my career, in part because I never had the physical build to play this game,' he said. 'Soccer became my profession only when I was already twenty four. I was too thin and when I was young I did not have the opportunity to prepare myself physically for the sport.' Football fans will prefer to remember those balmy nights in Spain in June 1982. And that goal against the USSR. Two body-swerves and a thunderous drive that almost burst the net. Magic. 
