Story by Nestor Watach | Planet Football
Winning the World Cup guarantees football immortality. Players including Pele and Diego Maradona lit up the greatest stage of all and ensured that their legacies will live on long after they’ve left us.
There are few more exclusive clubs in football than the list of players who have won the World Cup. The number of living World Cup winners from football’s earlier generations grows smaller with each passing year.
Here are the 10 oldest World Cup winners who remain among football’s living legends.
10. Geoff Hurst – 84 years old
Following the passing of Sir Bobby Charlton in October 2023, the iconic Wembley hat-trick goalscorer became the last surviving member of England’s 1966 World Cup-winning team.
“To be left to live on without them feels lonely. Lonelier in fact than I can possibly put into words,” Hurst wrote in his 2024 memoir, fittingly titled ‘Last Boy of ’66’.
“The 11 of us shared in something that no other Englishman has ever experienced. Now they have all gone. Heroes from an era that is slipping into sepia.”
9. Gerson – 85 years old
“I respect his opinion, but I don’t agree,” Gerson reacted to Pele’s 125 greatest living footballers, ripping up the paper it was written on during a live broadcast in Brazil.
“Apart from Zidane, Platini, and Fontaine, I’m behind 11 Frenchmen? It’s a joke to hear this.”
Tell us how you really feel. Gerson might have a point, to be fair, having played 70 times for Brazil in their greatest era, culminating in the crowning glory of his role as their midfield anchor in the 1970 final victory.
He scored the second goal in their 4-1 victory over Italy at the Azteca, and has been hailed by football historian Jonathan Wilson as a pioneer of the deep-lying playmaker role.
8. Mengalvio – 86 years old
A Santos great who enjoyed a great relationship with Pele, he won both the Copa Libertadores and World Cup in 1962.
But he played a considerably bigger role for his club than his country, never making it onto the pitch in Chile as Brazil coach Aymore Moreira favoured Didi alongside Mengalvio’s renowned Santos team-mate Zito in the heart of that midfield.
7. Brito – 86 years old
The centre-back played 45 times for Brazil, including one appearance in the 1966 World Cup before a more leading role in their unforgettable 1970 triumph.
That outrageously exciting Brazil side weren’t famed for their defensive stability, keeping just one clean sheet, but Brito played every minute, marshalling the backline and providing the foundations for Pele, Jairzinho and Rivelino to blow away all and sundry.
6. Amarildo – 86 years old
The last surviving participant from the 1962 World Cup final, a 3-1 victory for Brazil over Czechoslovakia in Santiago.
Amarildo started up front and scored Brazil’s early equaliser, cancelling out the opener from Czech icon Josef Masopust.
He’d stepped in for the injured Pele, who’d suffered a tournament-ending muscle injury striking the ball against the same opponents back in the group stages.
5. Terry Paine – 87 years old
Hurst is the last surviving member of the England XI that beat West Germany in the World Cup final, but there are others still with us from Alf Ramsey’s 22-man squad.
As well as 84-year-old Liverpool legend Ian Callaghan, who doesn’t quite make this top 10, Southampton icon Paine also served in a back-up role in ’66.
Saints’ all-time appearance-maker earned 19 England caps, including in their 2-0 group-stage victory over Mexico that summer.
4. Jose Altafini – 87 years old
Incredibly, Pele – who was famously just 17 when he scored twice in the 1958 World Cup final – was not the last surviving member of that Brazil squad.
In fact, the top four of this list were all part of Vicente Feola’s 22-man squad, composed entirely of domestically based players, when the Selecao won the first of their five World Cups.
Legendary Brazilian-Italian striker Altafini, known as ‘Mazzola’ in the country of his birth, represented both countries at World Cups. He lifted the trophy with Brazil in 1958 before turning out for the Azzurri four years later.
Fun fact: after hanging up his boots, he became a commentator. He coined the term ‘golazzo’, adapted from his native Portuguese ‘golaço’, and it’s his voice that can be heard in the iconic ‘Football Italia’ intro.
3. Moacir – 90 years old
Not to be confused with Moacir Barbosa, the goalkeeper whose performance in the shock 2-1 defeat ‘Maracanazo’ to Uruguay in 1950 was the stuff of Brazilian footballing infamy. He tragically never got his hands on the World Cup and died in 2000.
Relatively lesser-known midfielder Moacir had a relatively modest career away from the spotlight. He won titles in Uruguay and Ecuador, played six times for his country and was part of the squad in ’58, but he did not make it onto the pitch.
2. Pepe – 91 years old
The Portuguese sh*thouse was getting on a bit, but he wasn’t quite that old. Not a World Cup winner anyhow.
This Pepe was a proper one-club legend, having scored 405 goals in 750 appearances for his hometown club Santos. He also notched 22 goals in 41 games for Brazil, with whom he won both the 1958 and 1962 World Cups.
Pele and Pepe played over 700 games together for club and country. That surely must be a record.
“The whole world knew the seriousness of Pele’s illness,” Pepe said when Pele passed in 2022.
“But mainly we, the closest and most intimate, had more contact with him and his family.
“We hoped that the illness would be reversed, and the ‘King of the Ball’, the greatest of all, would return with his happy smile and his constant good humour.
“But it wasn’t possible. Pele left us, and with him [goes] the eternal memory of the greatest footballer of all time. Rest in peace, King Pele, my great friend. Football is in mourning.”
1. Dino Sani – 94 years old
Dino Sani was also featured in that ’58 Brazil squad, but more of a squad back-up. He played 15 times for the Selecao in the late 50s and early 60s, during which time he represented Sao Paulo, Boca Juniors and AC Milan, with whom he won the European Cup alongside Alfantini in 1963.
The midfielder went on to have an even more extraordinary coaching career, taking charge of over 12 teams across three continents, with almost 800 games in the dugout between 1969 and 1995.
Stints included Corinthians, Internacional, Palmeiras, Flamengo and Fluminense in his native Brazil as well as Boca Juniors, Penarol, Tokyo Verdy and two spells in charge of the Qatar national team.
