Robert Shaw looks at how the serious illness of a World Cup hero has brought to light the negative impact alcohol has had on Brazilian football
Brazilian football legend Socrates left hospital on September 22 after two stays for stomach haemorrhaging and liver-related problems that could yet necessitate a transplant. Given that doctors admit that the 57-year-old’s condition was life-theatening, the relief among friends, family and the better part of 190 million football fans is tangible.
Robert Shaw looks back at a Sao Paulo team filled with future Brazilian World Cup winners who won their third league title
The long-term significance A landmark season for Sao Paulo and coach Tele Santana, 1991 would prove a false dawn in the reform of Brazil's domestic football. The squad that Tele built featured 11 players including Cafu, Leonardo and Rai who would play international football. Championship success in 1991 established the platform for Sao Paulo's Libertadores and World Club titles in 1992 and 1993. The 20 clubs played each other once: play- offs between the top four followed, meaning the 1991 Serie A was the simplest format since the establishment of the competition 20 years previously.
Goal celebebrations in Brazil are becoming ever more choreographed and controversial, writes Robert Shaw
One of the best-known and most imitated goal celebrations is Bebeto’s baby-rocking tribute to newly born son Matheus during the 1994 World Cup game with Holland. This season a different Bebeto’s post-goal antics were received with less popular acclaim in Brazil.
Vasco da Gama's new president had to overcome electoral fraud before tackling years of neglect. Robert Shaw reports
Like many Brazilian footballers, Carlos Roberto de Oliveira was always known by a nickname – in his case Dinamite. In a career spanning three decades he scored 470 goals for one of the big Rio clubs, Vasco da Gama, as well as having a brief spell at Barcelona. Now he has a new role, as a president of his former club, having defeated one of the most controversial figures in Brazilian football, Eurico Miranda, in an election at the end of June.
São Caetano weren’t founded until 1989 yet rose rapidly to the pinnacle of the South American game, only to fall at the last hurdle and slip back as the richer giants reasserted themselves. Robert Shaw reports
Brazil’s most consistent club at the start of this decade were not one of the major names. Instead it was Associação Desportiva São Caetano, a club that rose from the third division of the São Paulo state league to upset the establishment before returning to near obscurity six years later.