Black players were protagonists in the team’s 5 world titles

In the month of celebration of the Black Consciousness, whose official date is this 20th, Brazil won its place for the 2022 World Cup, in Qatar.

The only one to compete in all editions of the tournament, the country will seek its sixth achievement in the competition. In his five conquests, he always had prominent black players, demolishing a thesis created in 1954, according to which miscegenation was responsible for the lack of psychological control of the selection against European teams and, consequently, for the lack of world titles until then.

In the 1958 World Cup, in Sweden, the team led by Pelé and Garrincha was the first to dissolve the racist arguments, which took shape after the dispute in the previous edition of the World Cup, when the then head of the Canadian delegation, João Lyra Filho (1906- 1988), made a report on the performance of Brazil.

In the document, the lawyer and sports director lists a series of arguments to justify yet another failure of the country and draws parallels between the team and the Brazilian people and exposes the issue of miscegenation as the main factor for the selection not to be competitive.

The top hat criticizes what he calls the valorization of improvisation and the “exhibition spell”, characteristics that he credits to blacks and mestizos, and which would be incompatible with the tactical obedience seen in European teams.

For it would be precisely the skills despised by João Lyra Filho that would make not only Pelé and Garrincha, but also Djalma Santos, Didi, Jairzinho, Romário, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho Gaúcho and so many other black aces some of the protagonists in the 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994 World Cups and 2002, which make Brazil the country with the most world titles in history.

“This shows the plurality of football, the diversity, this difference that Brazilian football has in relation to other football that is played around the world. This difference is due to the entry of the black player, it is because the black player brings this kind of football to football. difficulty playing on a dirt field, with holes, and brings that swing of samba, capoeira, all this diversity”, says the executive director of the Observatório da Discriminação Racial no Futebol, Marcelo Carvalho.

According to Carvalho, however, the success carried out by black players made society forget the sport’s racist past since its arrival in Brazil, especially in the history of the team from Canarinho.

“The national team has always been seen as a democratic space, for the affirmation of black players, but it is not disputed that the entry of black players into this space also went through racism,” he says.

In 1920, for example, Brazil went to Argentina to play a friendly. Upon arrival, the cast was greeted with a racist cartoon, published in the newspaper Crítica. In the image, Brazilians were portrayed as monkeys, with the text: “The monkeys are already in Argentine lands. This afternoon we will have to turn on the light at 4 pm to see them.”

The fact revolted part of the delegation, and some players refused to play. A few months after the fact, in 1921, Brazilians would return to Argentina to compete in the South American Championship. Instead of a condemnation of suffered racism, what was seen was one of the saddest episodes in the history of the former Brazilian Sports Confederation (CBD), today CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation).

On a recommendation from the president of the republic at the time, Epitácio Pessoa, who met with top hats from the entity, only white players were called up under the justification of preserving the country’s reputation abroad.

At the time, the CBD denied the president’s interference. Epitácio Pessoa also never admitted, but it is a fact that the main Brazilian player at the time, Arthur Friedenreich, was out. “We may not find documents, but our greatest player [Friedenreich] he was mestizo and was not drafted. So that happened,” says Carvalho.

Almost three decades later, in the 1950 World Cup, Brazil was defeated at home in the final game by Uruguay, an episode that became known as the Maracanazo. At the time, goalkeeper Barbosa was appointed as the great villain. He was accused of failing in the final, especially in the second goal, scored by Uruguayan Ghiggia.

In addition to the goalkeeper, defenders Bigode and Juvenal were blamed at the time. Coincidence or not, the three players most remembered for failure were black or mestizos.

It was only after the victory in 1958 and the next in 1962 that part of the Brazilian press recognized the impact of the narratives disseminated in 1950.

Journalist Mário Filho (1908-1966), for example, launched a new edition of the book “O Negro no Futebol Brasileiro”, originally released in 1947.

In the new version, he acknowledges that the defeat in 1950 “caused a resurgence of racism” in the country, despite the analysis he made in the previous version, by pointing to an “optimistic view about racial integration”.

“We took a long time to revisit these episodes because of this false idea that football is a democratic space”, says the executive director of the Observatory of Racial Discrimination in Football.