The Nearly Men by Aidan Williams

Author:Aidan Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2022-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

7

Brazil 1982

The dream has ended, and it’s a shame, because it was a beautiful dream.

Zico

BRAZIL IN 1982 was a tumultuous place. It was a country and a people in dire need of some escapism. Almost two decades of brutal military dictatorship was entering its final throes amid a nosediving economy and hyperinflation. The so-called ‘Brazilian Miracle’ of the 1970s, where the regime’s popularity soared even as they tortured, exiled and murdered dissidents, and the ideal of building an economic superpower, was doomed by the 1980s. When prosperity dwindled, so too did the prevailing mood of the nation.

Football, for all its trivialities, has the delightful knack of uniting people, providing happiness and joy and the escape from the grim reality of normal life. In Brazil, this feeling is heightened and intensified given the degree to which the beautiful game is ingrained into the nation’s culture and identity. In 1982, to see the likes of Zico, Sócrates and Falcão astound the world with their play, their reinvention of Pelé’s jogo bonito, was a much-needed diversion for a troubled nation. A victory that summer in Spain would have been the perfect boost to the national mood at a time of significant hardship for Brazilians.

Football was the perfect means for Brazil to escape their repressive, troubled reality. The style this team espoused was indicative of the social freedoms being challenged, symbolising the hope of a new era and the gradual sense of emerging liberty. A São Paulo radio commentator was moved, during the 1982 World Cup, to describe the Seleção in lyrical tones, ‘Our team is divine and beautiful, our players geniuses.’ Brazilians were entranced by the carefree, stylish way their team of 1982 played: a mesmeric rapture in yellow, blue and white that captivated not just the devoted Brazilians but the rest of the world too.

Memories of the glory of 1970 were still fresh in the minds of Brazilians and the watching world, misty-eyed in their adoration for the dazzling yellow of Brazil and their breathtakingly extravagant style of play. The warm glow of that Mexican summer, when Pelé and co stormed to Brazil’s third World Cup victory, had created an image of what Brazilian football could be, what it could represent. But it was an image that had been tested over the course of the 1970s, when Brazil’s style veered from the sublime to the cynical and conservative.

Mário Zagallo, who had been brought in late in the day to lead the Seleção in their 1970 triumph, also took them into the 1974 World Cup. But with Pelé no longer part of the scene, it was a far more limited side that went to West Germany, and one that would be utterly overshadowed by the brilliance of the Dutch. Cláudio Coutinho had been a member of Zagallo’s coaching staff in 1974, and when he took over the national team in 1977 his stated aim of emulating the Dutch style, which had enthralled him so much, was not borne out by the reality.

Coutinho had

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