Brazil Need To Forgive

So I have wanted to do this article for a while now but needed time to research it a bit but with three years before Brazil host the next World Cup & with the apt mistake made by Wojciech Szczesny it seemed the right time for me to profile Moacir Barbosa.

Barbosa was Brazil’s 1950 World Cup goalkeeper blamed for the side not winning the final. That was the year Brazil last hosted the World Cup. Blamed & never forgiven, in his own words he said “Under Brazilian law the maximum sentence is 30 years. But my imprisonment has been for 50 years,” He was treated like a scapegoat ever since that game.

What did he do that was so wrong?

Well he was poorly positioned for the last goal which won Uruguay the World Cup. He left his near post thinking Alcides Gigghia was going to cross the ball & unfortunately for Barbosa, Gigghia drilled the ball home at his near post. The Maracana, purpose built for that day, was silent & Brazil was virtually silent to Barbosa till the day he died in 2000.

He was virtually penniless & a loner. The Brazilian football world shunned him with the exception of Vasco Da Gama, he played with them for ten years, who on hearing of his desperate times in the mid 90s gave him £700 a month to pay his rent. Fellow pros failed to help his cause in 1993 he was refused permission to see the players train for the Brazilian National team as the coaching staff believed he was jinxed. The Brazilian FA also refused him media accreditation that same year to commentate on international matches.

Now we know Brazil love the game but that love caused them to turn on one of their own, the thing I hate about footballing fans is that they forget that it is a team game. There were 11 Brazilian players on that field that day not just one. Unlike in the Birmingham/Arsenal Cup final, where Szezesny let a goal in with only injury time remaining, there were 10 minutes left for Brazil to equalise! They didn’t so they entered the park as a team & lost as a team. Yes there are moments that define a teams success & failure but these moments are reached by the team getting to that point. Fans put too much emphasis on single positions & players saying things like ‘without our defence we would not be top!’ Yes but you defend as a team & you need goals to win or they say ‘without his 20 goals we would have not won the league’ Again they helped but he needed others to create the goals & you cant win if you concede more than the opposition.

Maradona has always reacted badly when people have suggested he won the World Cup single handily in 86, he always credits his team mates for the success as he should. It takes a squad to win & a squad to lose.

As for Brazil in 2014 they should realise that they made a mistake with Barbosa, they regret how they treated Garrincha but he searched out his problems & was always a flawed genius. Barbosa made a mistake but as a keeper his mistakes a costly. In my honest opinion Brazil should dedicate the next World Cup not to there previous glorious winners but to the man they shamefully shunned, it may be too late for him to see it but it is a gesture that has been too long in coming.

3 Responses to “Brazil Need To Forgive”

  1. Very interesting. This comes up from time to time (normally in Ghiggia articles). Poor old Barbosa…. Brazil needs to forgive.

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  3. Great article. It’s incredible how badly he was treated. Just think if we did that to every England player who made a big mistake 😮

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