History of football in Brazil

[2] The victory in the 1958 World Cup, with a team led by blacks Didi and Pelé, mixed-race Vavá and Garrincha and captain Bellini, established football as the main element of national identification, gathering people of all colors, social conditions, creeds and different regions of the country.

[21] On May 30, 1909, Botafogo set the record for the biggest score in the history of Brazilian football, beating Sport Club Mangueira 24-0, in the Campeonato Carioca of that year.

The top scorer was Gilbert Hime, who made nine goals, a record until 1976, when Dario scored ten in the game between Sport and Santo Amaro, in the Campeonato Pernambucano, whose final result was 14-0.

The mestiço Carlos Alberto, in a match against his former club, America of Rio de Janeiro, in the 1914 Campeonato Carioca, covered himself with rice powder to make him look white.

The country's first title came two months later, when Brazil beat the Argentine team at the Club de Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata field in Buenos Aires 1-0 and took the Roca Cup home.

The writer Graciliano Ramos wrote in his chronicle Traças a Esmo that football was proof of European superiority over Brazilians, stating that its popularity would only be temporary due to the fragile biotype of those who lived in Brazil.

[30] Graciliano Ramos ended the chronicle ironically:The real regional sports have been abandoned: the porrete, the cachação, the arm wrestling, the foot race, so useful to a citizen who is engaged in the risky trade of stealing chickens, the oxen catch, the calto, the cavalhada, and best of all, the cambapé, the rasteira.

The trade union leaderships of the time, mostly composed of anarchists and communists, were suspicious of sport as they considered it a form of alienation produced by factory owners to deflect the attention of the proletariat from the workers' cause.

The expectation for the match was so great that the president of the time, Delfim Moreira, decreed an off-duty period in public offices; in Rio de Janeiro, shops did not operate that day.

[32] Even in other states, the match took on a patriotic feel, as O Estado de S. Paulo reports:In the circle of young people, it is considered unpatriotic the lack of interest in the outcome of the continental championship, declared by a Brazilian!

About this, the writer Mário Filho, addressing the specific case of Bangu, speaks in the book O Negro no Futebol Brasileiro:[37]Workers who played football well, who secured a place in the first team, went straight to the light room.

If, on the one hand, blacks and illiterates had not bothered them until then, Vasco's victory could not be supported by the elite, since there was a clear invasion of people without social status in a practice until then restricted to the wealthier sectors of society.

The exclusionary nature of the new league was made clear in its statute, which excluded the unemployed, illiterate and "those who derive their means of subsistence from any manual occupation" from practicing sport.

[32] In 1933, the player Floriano Peixoto Correa, known as Marechal da Vitória, publishes the book Grandezas e Misérias do Nosso Futebol, where he critically addresses amateurism.

I'm tired of being an amateur in football, where that status has ceased to exist for a long time, tainted by the hypocritical tipping system that clubs give their players, reserving the bulk of the income for themselves.

[50] Consequently, in 1933, the presidents of Vasco, Fluminense, América and Bangu split with the AMEA and founded the Liga Carioca de Football (LCF), the first entity to officially accept the registration of professional athletes.

Both disaffiliate from the CBD and create the Federação Brasileira de Football (FBF), which supported professionalism and obtained from FIFA the right to represent Brazil in international competitions.

The frequent fights between the CBD and the FBF led to Brazil sending only amateur players to the 1934 World Cup, which resulted in the team's disqualification from the competition.

The match, won with a goal by Friedenreich in the third overtime, led to him being carried on the shoulders of the fans through the city and his boots being displayed in a jewelry store, as well as earning him the nickname El Tigre from his opponents.

[68] Derived from the Torneio Rio-São Paulo, this competition soon gained the status of a national championship, officially receiving the denomination of Taça de Prata from the CBD.

[69][70] From the original 20 clubs, the championship reached 94 participants in 1979, in a process of expansion that increased with the arrival of Admiral Heleno de Barros Nunes at the head of the CDB after the departure of João Havelange.

Brazil proclaimed itself the "moral champion" for being the only undefeated team in this Cup and because Peru's goalkeeper, Ramón Quiroga, allegedly facilitated the match against Argentina, which needed to win by a difference of more than four goals; it won 6-0.

In 1982 World Cup, the team assembled by Telê Santana, which had Zico, Falcão, Sócrates, Júnior, Oscar and Toninho Cerezo as its main names, was considered a candidate for the title, but ended up being eliminated in the quarter-finals of the competition to Italy.

125 accused, including referees and players, among them two world champions for the Brazilian team, Amarildo and Marco Antônio, participated in a scheme that rigged results in favor of a group of bettors of the main game of chance of the time.

With the creation of the Copa União in 1987, several clubs from less popular regions that joined the Campeonato Brasileiro by being state champions no longer faced the so-called "big ones", causing a great risk of them going bankrupt.

[94] In 1997, TV Globo's Jornal Nacional released recordings of phone calls that would uncover a corruption scheme within the CBF, allegedly involving the sale of football match results.

[95] At the end of the decade, CBF president Ricardo Teixeira found himself involved in parliamentary commissions of inquiry in the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate, but with the help of loyal congressmen, he managed to get rid of the accusations.

Gama, who would not be among the relegated teams if the results achieved by São Paulo on the pitch were maintained, did not accept the situation and went to court against the CBF, leaving the realization of the 2000 championship uncertain.

[126] Although there were a number of safety and welfare problems for the fans who frequented these sectors, mostly caused by the state's negligence in not inspecting and maintaining old facilities, a large part of the regulars found satisfaction and joy in watching their heart team up close, even if with a little privileged view, for popular prices compatible with the financial reality of most Brazilians.

Several other decisions on suspended players have had their sentences extended or overturned by the Superior Court of Sports Justice, popularizing the term "tapetão," coined by Washington Rodrigues.