Maracanazo
In 1950, an expectant world-record Maracanã crowd weren’t prepared
for the national ‘tragedy’ that followed. Marc Jobling - with the help of Tim Vickery - looks back at that
fateful day and what it would mean if Brazil banish their demons this summer.
“Everywhere has its irremediable national catastrophe, something like a Hiroshima. Our catastrophe, our Hiroshima, was the defeat by Uruguay in 1950.” – playwright Nelson Rodrigues
They named it ‘Maracanazo’ – the Maracanã blow. For a
nation determined to announce themself as a post-war superpower, it had seismic
effects. Even now, Brazil hasn’t fully recovered; haunted by the possibility
that history will repeat itself this summer. “Brazilian football is all about
winning – forget those ideas of it being a carnival in boots, where people are
happy to concede seven goals as long as they score eight. It’s all about
winning” revealed Tim Vickery, the freelance journalist who is an expert in all
things South American.
This wasn’t an explosion or natural disaster. It was
just one football match. But in Brazil, where football is an obsessive
religion, the consequences of losing this World Cup Final were huge. Vickery
labelled the aftermath: “an orgy of national self-hatred”. At this point, the
now five times world champions were still awaiting their maiden victory. Until
2010, Brazil were the only World Cup winners never to have won as hosts. Their
chance to rectify this mistake can’t come soon enough.
Yet it all looked so promising for the seleção. After
volunteering to host the first World Cup since the Second World War,
preparations began for their assumed coronation as world champions. “Europe was
rising from the ashes”, said veteran sports commentator Teixeira Heizer. “The
only reason why the World Cup was held in Brazil was that nobody else wanted to
host it.”
However, the hype surrounding this Brazilian side
wasn’t undeserved. They had talents such as Ademir, Jair and Zizinho – the idol
to Pelé and many others. “The 1950 team were a magnificent side, especially the
front three”, revealed Vickery. “Ademir wasn’t a particularly complex player –
he was quick, two-footed, could finish and was good in the air. Zizinho and
Jair were absolutely outstanding. Zizinho just blew the minds of the European
journalists who came over – they’d never seen anything like it. Whilst Jair was
tiny, he had a cannonball of a left foot.”
16 teams were drawn into four pools of four, with
each group winner progressing. To ensure more matches for their stadia,
Brazilian organisers overlooked a knockout format and insisted on a round-robin
final group stage involving these four. It remains the only World Cup to adopt
this strange set-up. As fate would have it, the finest two sides in the
winners’ group would play in the final, decisive match.
Getting there
Brazil breezed their way through to it, starting with
a 4-0 win against Mexico in the opening match (two teams that will meet at this
summer’s tournament). The game against Switzerland was in São Paulo, so coach
Flavio Costa replaced his midfield with three São Paulo players to please the locals.
The game finished 2-2.
Yugoslavia were next but Brazil finally secured a 2-0
success. Yugoslav captain Rajko Mitić hurt his head on an exposed Maracanã
girder and, by the time he was patched up, Ademir had put Brazil 1 up before
Zizinho sealed the victory. Spending the two preceding months at a training
camp had obviously focused the Brazilians, who destroyed Sweden 7-1 and Spain
6-1 in the final group phase.
The 1949 Copa America champions were relentless in
their quest to claim the Jules Rimet trophy. Uruguay, on the other hand, were
unspectacular. Although they humiliated Bolivia with an 8-0 thumping, several
teams withdrew from the competition for travel reasons and Uruguay’s one group
game took them through. The Celeste drew 2-2 with Spain and narrowly beat
Sweden 3-2 – a vast difference from the Brazilian demolitions.
They shouldn’t have been underestimated though.
Uruguay won the 1930 World Cup, yet didn’t participate in the following two. In
their minds, they were reining world champions. In the era of
two-points-for-a-win, Brazil went into the final match one point ahead of the
Uruguayans and simply had to avoid defeat in order to be crowned champions. The
Maracanã anticipated a party.
World record crowd
On 16th July 1950, the official attendance was
173,850 but in truth over 200,000 packed into the new stadium – 100 of those
belonged to La Garra Charrúa. According to Vickery, the stadium looked “like a
giant spaceship. Building it was a huge declaration of intent - Brazil was the
country of the future and the future was arriving.”
To put things incredibly mildly, the Brazilian people
were confident of victory. Their route to the final convinced them that home
glory was their destiny. After all, two of the previous three tournaments
resulted in the host’s coronation. There was excessive pre-match pride. Gazeta Esportiva declared, “Tomorrow we
will beat Uruguay!” whilst O Mundo
boasted, “These are the World Champions” next to a team photo. Uruguay’s
inspirational captain Obdulio Varela was so incensed by O Mundo that he bought every copy he could find, took them to the
dressing room and urinated on them in front of his team.
Brazil’s squad were given solid gold watches
inscribed: “For the World Champions”. The victory parade was planned, where
there would be scenes of absolute euphoria. Even FIFA’s President Jules Rimet
fell for the postulation – writing a congratulatory speech in Portuguese. Rio’s
Mayor chanted over the PA system: “You players who in less than a few hours
will be acclaimed champions by your compatriots. You who are superior to every
other competitor.” The downfall would be spectacular.
From kick off, Brazil flew out of the traps and it
seemed only a matter of time before they scored – they had 17 attempts.
Ademir’s header forced a li but no goal came in a goalless first half. a
spectacular save from Roque Maspoli but no goal came in a goalless first half.
Frustrated, those in attendance were unaware that a sly punch by Varela in the
28th minute would become a psychological turning point. Left back Bigode (named
after his moustache) didn’t even retaliate; he just took it. Varela walked away
victoriously clutching his shirt in a symbolic little win.
Brazil continued the blitz into the second half, with
Zizinho going close. Finally, in the 47th minute, a breakthrough when Ademir’s
pass found Friaça, who bobbled a shot past Maspoli to ease the growing
Brazilian worries. Appealing for an offside only to buy time, Varela wisely let
the crowd lose their voices and shoot their fireworks before restarting. The
talented Juan Schiaffino immediately went close. The 66th minute saw Alcides
Ghiggia turn Bigode inside out, before crossing the ball for Schiaffino to
equalise.
Doubts began to creep in and uncertainty stained the
atmosphere. Brazil were still on their way to World Cup victory but were
shaken. In hindsight, perhaps the clues were there during their Copa America
triumph. Needing just a draw against Paraguay in their final game, they lost
2-1. The resulting play-off saw an emphatic 7-0 win but there were concerns
that they were susceptible to crippling nerves.
In the 79th minute, the killer blow. Ghiggia was sent
down the right flank and ghosted past a defeated Bigode, bearing down on Moacyr
Barbosa’s goal. The in-form goalkeeper was in the midst of a great tournament
but didn’t know what to do here – close down Ghiggia or anticipate another
cross to Schiaffino. His indecisiveness proved costly. Ghiggia’s shot was low
and at Barbosa’s near post, but the keeper couldn’t get down in time. 2-1 to
Uruguay and the muted Maracanã’s jaws dropped collectively. Radio commentator
Luiz Mendes shouted “Gol du Uruguay” many times, each with a new strain of
horror and disbelief.
With 10 minutes to rescue their World Cup dream,
Brazil resorted to speculative shots to try and find a way through the
rear-guard. But it never came. With Friaça’s corner approaching the far post,
Uruguay’s Schubert Gambetta caught the ball. He’d heard the full time whistle.
The match was over and the national mourning began for the shell-shocked
Brazilians. This wasn’t part of the script.
“Only 3 people have silenced the Maracana – Sinatra, Pope John-Paul II and me” – Alcides Ghiggia
Tears
Fans openly wept as Rimet was brought onto the pitch
by hysterically crying policemen. There were suicides that night, with two
throwing themselves from the stadium itself. The consequences were huge for
Brazilian football and society in general. “Losing in the final shows how
manic-depressive football can be”, added Vickery. “Had they won they would have
gained immortality. 24 hours after thinking they were great, they decided they
were shit, believing ‘We Brazilians are a mongrel race, are morally inferior
and will never amount to anything.’”
Amongst the scapegoats was the all-white kit. A
competition was held to design a new shirt that was more patriotic, won by
19-year-old Aldyr Garcia Schlee. This was the birth of the seleção’s iconic
gold and green shirts. Not that they were seen for a while – the scarred
national team didn’t play again until April 1952 and avoided the Maracanã until
March 1954. The three black players – Bigode, Juvenal and Barbosa – were
labelled cowards by the press.
Barbosa
“A multi-racial society was still something that was
fairly new and it was the black players that got most of the blame. Rationality
went out the window”, continued Vickery. Yet nobody took more of the blame than
goalkeeper Barbosa. He was never forgiven for his mistake, abused every day and
his life was made a misery. He once tried to visit the seleção to wish them
luck but was turned away. Forgetting Pelé and Jairzinho, Barbosa’s main 1970
memory occurred in a supermarket. A woman pointed at him and shouted: “Look at
him, son. He is the man that made all of Brazil cry”.
Barbosa later tormented
himself by working at the Maracanã and invited his remaining friends to a
special barbecue at his home. The smoke smelt different, there were strange
white logs – he was burning the Maracanazo goalposts. A cathartic experience,
he claimed that the steak that day was the best he’d ever eaten. Starting a
goalkeeping curse – a position symbolic of protecting the nation - no other
black man was entrusted with the role until Dida nearly 50 years later. He
moaned: “In Brazil, the most you get for any crime is 30 years. But my
imprisonment has been for 50.”
Vickery believes the “absolute fury of nationalism”
was evident in the 1954 tournament. “You could see the consequences when they
played the great Hungary side in the quarterfinal because they got themselves
whipped up in the dressing room beforehand. The players had to kiss the flag.
They were told they had to avenge the deaths of Monte Cassino, where Brazilians
had fought in the Second World War. Quite what the Hungarians had to do with
this, fuck only knows! They went out and kicked them from pillar to post
because they weren’t going to let anyone say that they were weak and would
bottle it on the big occasion.”
World titles in 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994 and 2002 have
helped remove the clouds that polluted the beautiful Brazilian skies but there’s
still a sense of incompleteness - those weren’t on home turf. “For those that
remembered it, the demons were slightly banished in 1970 when they beat Uruguay
in the semi-final. The older members of that team had very vivid memories. Pelé
has memories of his dad listening to it on the radio with his mates and
watching them cry their eyes out at the final whistle.”
Redemption
Looking forward, Vickery predicts a much calmer
reaction to any failings from Neymar, Daniel Alves, Oscar and company: “For
today’s players, it’s ancient history. In 1950, the players were doing far more
than representing Brazilian football, they were representing Brazil’s place in
the world. That’s changed now and thankfully society is much more mature. It
won’t be seen as a reflection on the inherent weaknesses of the Brazilian
people, it’ll be seen as the deficiencies of the football team. But I would
still hate to be those players if they lose.”
The 1950 World Cup
provided several myths. India’s team didn’t withdraw because they had to wear
boots. English newspapers didn’t assume the shock 1-0 defeat to the USA was a
mis-print, before printing a 10-1 victory. But the impact of this final on the
Brazilian people is no myth. They were psychologically paralysed by defeat, it
simply wasn’t meant to happen. In a country where football is such a strong
bedrock of society, the Uruguayan victory shattered their self-esteem. Only
being crowned champions this summer would bring it back fully. They’d call it
the ‘Maracanã redenção’ – the Maracanã redemption.
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This article is to be published in 'brasileiro', an alternative World Cup guide being produced by the MA Sports Journalism class at the University of Sunderland.
