The ECHO’s Chris Beesley continues his daily series of articles on Everton and the World Cup running throughout the tournament in Qatar.
As winners of the previous two tournaments, there was great excitement on Merseyside at the prospect of welcoming Pele and friends as the Brazil national team were based at Goodison Park for all three of their Group 3 matches at the 1966 World Cup finals but ultimately the samba carnival on the pitch failed to hit the right notes for the defending champions despite their opening victory. Claudia Street, just off Walton Lane, in the shadow of Everton's home ground Goodison, was lovingly decorated by residents with colourful flags and flowers, while the ECHO interviewed a Wirral missionary who had returned home after living in the Brazilian interior state of Mato Grosso, a region comprising of Amazon rainforest, tropical wetlands and savannah.
Robert Watson, of Heswall, who had spent five years in South America before coming back for the sake of his wife’s health, said: “The Mato Grosso is a large tract of unexplored and underdeveloped country. But this is one of the rapidly growing areas of Brazil and the people there are just football mad like the rest.”
