It is difficult to determine which FIFA World Cup match was the greatest of all time. The football of the early days is virtually unrecognisable today. Yet, in terms of sheer impact, it is difficult to beat Uruguay’s win against Brazil in the last match — it was not a final per se — of the 1950 edition, at the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro.
There is little doubt over Brazil’s legacy as a football powerhouse. Not only are their five World Cups a record, but they are also the only team to appear in every edition of the tournament. But Brazil’s association with football is not restricted to their incomparable record — or about their delightfully aggressive characteristic style.
In Brazil, football runs deeper than success and style: it is part of their national identity.
By the time World War II had ended, the country was already fanatic about football. What was once a sport for the elite White was now universal. In 1950, it was also a way out of what Brian Glanville described as “the dreadful slums of the favelas which tumbled down the hills of Rio, of the remote hovels of a vast state-like Minas Gerais.”
Brazil, Germany, and Argentina had bid for the 1942 World Cup, which had to be called off due to the World War. With Europe in shambles after the War, Brazil presented — and won — the bid at the 1946 FIFA Congress, in Luxembourg. They got the rights this time.
Only 13 teams participated. In Group 1, Brazil thumped Mexico 4-0 before Switzerland held them to a 2-2 draw, but a 2-0 win over Yugoslavia saw them cruise into the top four. France’s withdrawal left Group 4 with only two teams: Uruguay thrashed Bolivia 8-0 to join Brazil, Sweden, and Spain, the other group toppers.
For the only time in World Cup history, there was no knockout. The top four battled it out in a round-robin league. There was little doubt over the Brazilian supremacy: while Uruguay drew 2-2 against Spain and beat Sweden 3-2, Brazil won their matches 7-1 and 6-1.
That reduced the penultimate match to a third-place decider (Sweden won 3-1) and the last match — Brazil versus Uruguay — to a virtual final. Since Uruguay had drawn against Spain, all Brazil needed was a draw. This was not supposed to be difficult, for they had beaten Uruguay 5-1 in the Copa América the previous year.
The 1949 Copa América had been Brazil’s first title in 27 years. Of their seven league matches, they had lost only once — 1-2 against Paraguay. In the playoff three days after that defeat, they had defeated Paraguay 7-0. In all, they had scored 46 goals in eight matches and conceded seven.
The Brazilians had prepared well for the World Cup. For four months ahead of the World Cup, the squad had camped in a lavish house just outside Rio. Restrictions were many. The married footballers were not allowed to meet their wives. Everyone had to be bed by ten. And so on.
All that build-up had borne fruit. They were now one match away from the ultimate glory in a sport that defined the nation. The people were buzzing in anticipation. Everyone was certain their team was winning — too certain, some of them.
A victory song, Brazil os vencedores (Brazil, the champions), had been prepared. A carnival had been planned. On the eve of the "final", Ângelo Mendes de Moraes, the mayor of Rio, addressed the Brazilian team as champions. Twenty-two gold medals bearing names of the Brazilian footballers were apparently made — though this may be an urban legend.
Even the Brazilian newspapers celebrated in advance. “Tomorrow, we will beat Uruguay,” ran a headline in the Gazeta Esportiva. On the morning of the match, O Mundo published a photograph of the Brazilian side, hailing them as world champions. The latter did not go down well with Uruguayan captain Obdulio Varela. He bought every copy of O Mundo he could find, and asked his teammates to spit and urinate on them.
Ahead of the match, Uruguayan coach Juan López advised the team to play defensive football. After he left, Varela insisted they attacked Brazil. He then delivered a motivational speech that ended in the now-famous "muchachos, los de afuera son de palo, que comience la función (boys, outsiders don’t play, let’s start the show)".
Varela’s words might have had some impact, but the Uruguayan footballers were justifiably tense. Julio Pérez later admitted to wetting himself during the national anthem (I am not ashamed of this).
How vast was the crowd that day? The official attendance reads 1,73,850, but the unofficial count is in excess of 1,99,000. We shall never know exactly how many watched the game — but it is fair to assume that the count will never be matched.
The first half went goalless. Two minutes after the break, the crowd erupted when Friaça put Brazil 1-0 ahead. At this point, Varela tucked the ball under his arm and approached the English referee George Reader to challenge the goal. He even demanded an interpreter. The goal stayed put, but Varela had ruined the mood of that vast crowd, who were now booing him instead of celebrating the goal. He had prevented Brazil from running away with the momentum.
But Uruguay also needed a goal, and that happened in the 66th minute. Varela passed to Alcides Ghiggia, who crossed from the right wing, and Juan Alberto Schiaffino equalised. Thirteen minutes later, Ghiggia scored.
In the history of sport, perhaps never had a moment reduced a crowd of two hundred thousand to absolute silence.
“Ghiggia’s goal was received in silence by all the stadium. Its strength was so great, its impact so violent, that the goal, one simple goal, seemed to divide Brazilian life into two distinct phases: before it and after it,” wrote Joáo Máximo.
“Three people have silenced the Maracanã — Frank Sinatra, the Pope and me,” Ghiggia later told the BBC.
Brazil went flat out in search of a leveller — and failed. Uruguay lifted the World Cup, leaving the crowd “completely dumbfounded and bewildered”. The crowd never found its voice back that day, or in the months to come.
Yet, as Alex Bellos wrote in Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life (2002), “As the crowds left the Maracanã only one act of violence was recorded: the granite bust of mayor Ângelo Mendes de Moraes…was knocked over.” Unlike their counterparts across history and geography, the Rio fans did not turn vicious in defeat that day. The scar, perhaps, ran too deep.
Maracanaço (roughly “the Blow of Maracanã”) was considered a national tragedy, even “the worst tragedy in the history of Brazil”.
Yet, amid the gloom, there was hope of a future. As writer Carlos Heitor Cony, present that day, wrote: “Survivors of that cruel afternoon believed they would never again be able to be happy… These are the things that build nations, a people drenched in their own pain.”
Brazil picked themselves up to become the first nation to win the World Cup thrice, in 1958, 1962, and 1970. The star of two of these editions was Edson Arantes do Nascimento, who was nine years old when he had seen his father cry for the first time after Maracanaço. Football celebrates him as Pelé.
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