9. Gerson
Peter Robinson/EMPICS SportComing from a football family, his father and uncle both played professionally, Gerson grew up around the legends of Brazil's 1950s team, but would go on to outstrip most of them as the playmaker at the heart of the great 1970 World Cup side. Having established himself as the key player in the centre of the Flamengo team in the early 1960s, Gerson moved Botafogo in 1963 and played alongside some of the greatest Brazilian players of all in a team that won multiple Rio state championships and briefly rivaled Pele's Sao Paulo based Santos as the nation's top team. His finest hour, though, was the 1970 World Cup. Even amongst such a team of iconic stars it was Gerson that pulled the strings and orchestrated all the play as the brain of the Brazil team. Pele, naturally, walked away with the tournament's Golden Ball, but the Silver Ball awarded to Gerson as the second best player in the tournament is a tribute to how important he was to the team.
8. Nilton Santos
AP/Press Association ImagesAs Gerson was arriving at Botafogo, one of the club's greatest ever heroes was winding down his career there. Left back Nilton Santos spent every year of a career that ran from 1948-1964 with the Rio club, playing 723 times for them (still a club record). A strong defensive presence, Nilton is nevertheless best known as one of the first full backs to enjoy participating in attacking play like a winger in the manner of his distant successor Roberto Carlos. During the opening game of the 1958 World Cup against Austria Nilton scored a famous goal in which he picked the ball up in defence and ran past practically the whole Austrian team to score. The journalists that selected that years World Cup Dream Team picked six Brazilians, including an all Brazil defence in which Nilton was the standout player. He would go on to feature in the 1962 team as Brazil retained their title.