November 22, 2022 • 36 mins
The stadium that has haunted Brazil for 64 years, caused grown adults to cry and led to more than one suicide.
This is a ghost story. Not about a person, but a place. A cursed stadium, actually. The Maracana has haunted Brazil for 64 years. Multiple people have killed themselves because of events that happened on its field. Want to know what was so traumatic about some soccer games? Well, you’re just going to have to click play, my friend.
The Best Soccer Podcast In The World is a bilingual podcast that tells your soon-to-be favorite soccer stories. The host, Nando Vila, will crack open some of the most iconic World Cup moments, putting them in cultural and geopolitical contexts. From legendary players to silly hairdos, to heart-wrenching losses.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
I want to tell you a ghost story. It's about
a stadium. The Manicana in Rio de Janeiro is the
largest stadium in the world, and it has haunted a
nation for the better part of a century. People have
killed themselves over the events that happened on its field.
You cannot say its name allowed in Brazil without sending
(00:26):
a shiver down the spine of anyone in earshot. And
this ghost story spans sixty four years. It includes World Cups,
giant jungle spiders, corruption, robo cops, carnival floats, a Guinness
World Record, a broken back, and literal shit. Thousands of
(00:50):
gallons of ship which doctors offering their services. This will
live in infamy one of the biggest football upsets of doubt.
The damage was done. Very sad story, to be honest.
The mood was one of nerves. You could feel it,
you could smell it, you could taste it. Lightning doesn't
strike twice right, one of the most sensational results. It
(01:10):
just doesn't happen. It got beyond anger, it got beyond sadness.
This is serious. It's one of the most surreal stories
in soccer history. Even those of us who witnessed it
have no idea how it happened. I'm Nando Vila and
this is the best soccer podcast in the world. Goes
(01:39):
with it, but it's still Christiano Ronaldo. Yes, it's wonderful.
Never let's go back to the beginning nineteen Television was
(02:18):
being born in nineteen fifty, but the World Cup wouldn't
be broadcast on TV for another four years. With Europe
decimated by World War Two, Brazil offered to host the
World Cup. Argentina withdrew from the tournament over a squabble
with the Brazilian federation. Germany was barred from joining for
(02:40):
obvious reasons. France, which qualified, decided not to make the track,
citing the strains of travel. India also qualified and withdrew
as well, allegedly because FIFA wouldn't let them play barefoot.
Brazil had never really been been considered among the top
teams prior to the war because as football was very
(03:01):
much in its infancy in in Brazil and they hadn't
done a huge amount before, at least on the world stage,
unlike Uruguay, who had won the world the first World
Cup and also won two Olympic Games. This is Daniel
Edwards a journalist covering South American soccer for Gold and
other platforms. But in Nanti fifty Brazil just the juggernaut
(03:28):
to the party. World Cup fever was in the air.
The Post office released commemorative stamps, World Cup themed floats
dominated the carnival, and Lamartine Babo composed an anthem with
the lyric Let's cheer for Brazil to be champions, wearing white.
In reforms, Brazil demolished any opposition who had the misfortune
(03:52):
to be placed before them. They romped Mexico four nil
in the opening match. Because of France and India's withdraw halls,
there was a last minute change of format. Instead of
a knockout round, the top team from each group advanced
to another group stage that would determine the winner. Spain,
Sweden and Uruguay joined Brazil in the final round. After
(04:16):
the third goal against Spain, fans waived audios with white handkerchiefs,
one of the lasting images from the tournament. They chanted
oles in the second half. It finished six one, which
was one fewer than Brazil got against Sweden. A dmid
Deminenez led the scoring, but the star of the team
(04:37):
was Zeno Italian newspaper Sport described him as Leonardo da
Vinci quote creating works of art with his feet in
the immense canvas of the Maracanap pitch. The Maracana. This
(04:59):
new Rio di Janeiro stadium was the crown jewel of
the new Brazilian government. It had an official capacity of
a hundred and eighty three thousand people, which was thirty
percent bigger than the next largest stadium in the world.
Starting in ten thousand workers built it like a modern
day Egyptian pyramid. By the nineteen fifty World Cup there
(05:21):
were still active construction zones because it wasn't finished yet.
They played in it anyway. Brazil played all but one
game there, winning every single one by a lot. The
last fixture was against uru Way, a tiny neighboring country
of three million people, which had won the nine and
(05:43):
twenty Olympics and the first ever World Cup held in ninety.
Uruguay had beaten Bolivia eight nil in the group stages,
but it looked considerably more ordinary in the second group.
Only one match separated the teams from the Juels Remay Trophy,
newly named after the long time Fee president, Luckily for history,
unluckily for Brazil the final group guy ended up being affected.
(06:05):
In the final, Brazil expected to win by a lot.
Omundo showed a picture of the Brazilian players under the
headline these are the world champions. Apparently they don't have
a term for the concept of jinks in Portuguese. On
the day of the final match, a hundred and seventy
three thousand, eight hundred and fifty people paid to enter
(06:28):
Maricana to this day a Guinness World record between guests, journalists, officials,
and those who snuck in. Estimates vary on how many
actually saw the game in person. Estimates from anywhere from
a hundred and fifty two possibly three hundred thousand people
been and attendance. The match kicked off at three pm.
(06:48):
The stadium was packed by eleven am. Hundreds of thousands
belted out the national anthem. The stadium was rocking. Uruguay's
Julio Perez Pede himself quote, I am not ashamed of
this brazil type the lead that looked to be very
comfortable online to when the first ever woke up. Firecrackers
(07:13):
shook the monumental stadium when Brazil took the lead. And
though this didn't air on television live. Some black and
white footage still remains. The players look tiny and jolty.
The ball is a heavy leather thing that barely rolls,
but it rolled for Brazil, and the ending to this
story seemed pretty straightforward. Basically, it went already really well
(07:34):
and until it didn't. Uruguay equalized and then took the
lead when Gigia scored, famed Uruguay, and novelist wrote, the
silence in Manicana was deafening, the most raucous silence in
the history of soccer. Many years later, I've seen this,
(07:58):
Giga said, only three people have silenced the Maricana Frank Sinatra, Pope,
John Paul the second and me. The near post shot
caught the Brazilian goalkeeper Muasia Barbosa leaning the wrong way.
The ball hit him, and as the camera behind the
goal pans across, it loses the ball, unsure where the
(08:21):
bounce was deflected. Eventually it scrolls back and spots the
ball in the back of the net. Next we see
Barbosa raised himself slowly, as if weighed down by the
disappointment of a nation, which caused pretty much national morning
in Brazil. Final whistle Uruguay to Brazil. In the videos,
(08:49):
everyone is crying, Uruguay from happiness, Brazilians in broken sorrow.
Belle claims the only time he saw his father cry
was because of this game. The Brazil coach Flavio Costa
escaped the stadium are Demid, got in his car and
just kept driving. Despite his costly mistake, moiss Barbosa was
(09:10):
voted goalkeeper of the tournament. The goalkeeper run on the
action for Brazil to the brunt of the criticism, essentially
led the life of a hermit. After that, he was
shumn from society. Very sad story. To be honest, Barbosa
played into his forties and after retiring, he overheard a
mother tell her daughter that is the man who made
(09:32):
all brazil cry. The story goes that he was blocked
from visiting and wishing luck to the Brazilian team. He
said quote in Brazil, the most you can get for
any crime is thirty years. For forty three years, I've
been paying for a crime I did not commit. He
died impoverished, never forgiven. Brazil didn't have another black goalkeeper
(09:56):
for fifty years. On the very first page of his autobiograph,
fee Zeno wrote, quote, I played for nineteen years. I
won a few titles, and yet together with the other
players in that campaign, I'm remembered as a loser. Newspapers
in Uruguay reported that three people died of excitement from
(10:16):
hearing the result on the radio in Rio, a man
collapsed in his home. Multiple people committed suicide. And you
know that that game got into the public consciousness of
of Brazil. Everybody from poets to writers to film directors
that they've all talked about it. This is a senior
writer for ESPN. Nelson Rodriguez, the famous Brazilian playwright, wrote quote,
(10:41):
everywhere has its irremediable national catastrophe, something like a Hiroshima.
Our catastrophe are Hiroshima was the defeat by Uruguay in
ninety One could call that an overreaction, but then again,
Brazilians sure do take their national team seriously. It's probably
one of the biggest football upsets of all time, no doubt.
(11:04):
It's known as the Marican Nasso, the Tragedy of the Maracana.
The Brazil team didn't play for another two years. They
didn't play at the Mariicana for four and that's the
year in nineteen fifty four when they debuted the now
trademark yellow jerseys with green collar to wash away the
stain on the white jerseys of the Marican Asso. It worked.
(11:30):
Brazil won the ninety eight World Cup with a teenager
named Peles bursting onto the scene and blowing people's minds
across the world watching on TV. Since then, Brazil have
won a total of five World Cups, more than any
other nation. Construction on the Mariican now was eventually finished
(11:52):
fifteen years after that fateful Uruguay game. More about what
happened next. After the break two thousand fourteen, Ebola was
creeping outward from West Africa. A Malaysian Airlines flight disappeared
(12:15):
over the ocean Russia. The next Crimea and Happy by
Farrell top of charts and for the first time since
the Mariicano, the World Cup final would return to the
Marican and Brazil was hell bent on being there. Sixty
four years later, here was a chance at home for
(12:35):
you know, the most successful footballing country in the world
to go and win the World Cup, to really to
to take it home. You know, I live in England.
They can sing about, oh football is coming home, but
you know, people ran away from home many years ago
and settled in Brazil. The entire nation had demons that
needed exercising. They were there on a mission to go
(12:56):
and right this incredible wrong. This is this incredible cruel
trick of of they that denied them. N it's it's
lightning doesn't strike twice, right, it's I think it was
essentially the messaging there, the Manicaa revamp. It was part
of the eleven billion dollars Brazil paid to stage the
World Cup. Before any team made it to Rio for
(13:18):
the final, they'd have to tour a series of sparkling
new stadiums criss crossing the giant nation. Some contexts on
Brazilian Brazil is not really a country, which is basically
a continent, right, it's just so enormous, Uh, It's it's
so diverse. The host city choices were puzzling, to say
the least. Key matches found themselves scheduled in far flung
(13:40):
places like Brazilia and Manaos. In practice, they wanted to
have a footprint all over the country. So you know,
they built a fancy stadium in the capital, Brasilia, which
I mean it's a fascinating city because it's it's an
entirely planned city and whatever. But you know, there wasn't
even a top flight team in Brazilia at the time.
The most extreme case was Manouse, which built a brand
(14:03):
new quarter billion dollars stadium deep in the Amazon. They
made another venue. Manouse just said they have been to,
which is in the middle of the Amazon. You know,
you can't drive to Manaos from anywhere or take a
train there. The only way they get there is by
playing or by boat. I mean, that's how isolated it is.
And it's literally in the jungle with like giant spiders
and whatever and extreme heat. The country sunk billions of
(14:25):
dollars into overvalued infrastructure, and like the Monica, much of
it was incomplete. Local teams inherited stadiums they couldn't afford
to maintain, let alone make rent payments. The man ultimately
held responsible was Regardot, then president of the Brazilian Federation.
He was the son in law of Jao Avdange, the
(14:46):
long time FIFA president before sept Bladder. Together they made
tens of millions of dollars off soccer through their long careers. Said,
I remember was involved in a fairly heavy h bit
of corrupt he's got an an enormous rap sheet. He
was extremely powerful within within the f A, within sort
of this very clubby, old old school system. He got
(15:09):
caught up in the FIFA scandals, but even before that,
he got caught up in a number of Brazilian domestic scandals.
He's a guy with just a very very blankly list
of accusations of abuse of power against him. And there
were problems with the infrastructure, problems with the building work.
People were getting angry because there was a fair increase
(15:30):
in public transport and real in and other major cities,
upset at how taxpayer funds were being funneled into construction
black holes. A protest movement kicked up in the month
leading up to the World Cup. It was violently shut
down by armed right police known as robocops, who fired
tear gas and rubber pull it's into the crowd. It's
very evident when you spend time there that there are
(15:52):
certain unresolved issues, or many unresolved issues involving race and ethnicity,
um involving the privileged class, which was almost entirely of
European descent, and kind of these these old money types
who kind of run any for every everything. You know.
They all go to the same schools, they were all
educated by the same priest. Brazil is definitely one of
(16:14):
the most extreme countries in the world and in terms
of the the wealth, the lifestyle of the super rich
versus everybody else. Protests were effectively silenced, but it did
just enough to topple day Shada. After he resigned, Jose
mariamarin usurped power. He was an old school politician linked
(16:35):
to the military regime. But there was a World Cup
to host, so construction continued unabated, and so did the optimism.
If Brazil loses, we will all go to hell, join
said the World Cup winning coach, who was now the
technical director. Said they had one hand on the trophy.
(16:57):
The five time champions rode around in a bus painted
with the phrase brace yourself, the sixth is coming again.
People jinks often they're very confident. Brazil got into a
World Cup. Oh yeah, I mean that that that Brazil
expects to win. That that's a constant. That's Alexei Lawless,
the former US international who has covered many World Cups
(17:17):
now for Fox Sports. Expectations are always high for Brazil,
Like when you're Brazil, Expectations always semifinal history and hosting
spoke in Brazil's favor, the actual team's abilities not so much.
And you could send the pressure in the anticipation building
in the country that you know, if we're gonna do
(17:37):
this is not going to be pretty. You know, the
last time that Brazil in the World Cup in two
thousand two, you know, they had Ronaldinho and the original
Ronaldo and Rivaldo and Roberto Carlos and Cafo and whatever.
This time around not quite the same, And so they
went for what a guy they thought was a safe
(17:58):
pair of hands in Louis Philippe Scolari, Philippin Big Phil,
who you know, had been the coach of the two
thousand and two World Cup woarning team in Korea in Japan,
and his career hadn't necessarily really kicked on too much
as as a coach, and but he had this sort
(18:18):
of you know, macho bluster, the big mustache, so the
hopes were kind of pinned on him because he'd done
it before. Scolotti gave off strong grandfather vibes and listened
to the BGS while drawing up lineups. That's pretty awesome,
Scolotti said. Anyone who didn't like him, could quote go
to hell naturally, most of Brazil liked him. The FIFA
(18:41):
rankings listed reigning World Cup champion Spain up top, Germany
was second, and Brazil was third. Brazil warmed up for
the tournament the year before by winning the Confederations Cup,
which is sort of a dry run for hosting a
major tournament. The Confederations Cup is this again? Faith in
Spain and the squad was built almost entirely around the
precocious talents of Nada and I Might, of course, was
(19:04):
everyone's great hype. He'd been playing absolutely brilliant football. Name
had been carrying Santos, the team of Ballet, on his
back since he was seventeen, a year before he joined
Barcelona in a mega deal. Now at two, he was
poised to one day become the best player in the world.
(19:29):
Lass he received a tremendous amount of hype. He was
at Barcelona, he was playing with Lionel Messi. I remember
I was struck the year before the World Cup in
twenty thirteen. I was at the Confederations Cup in Brazil
and you know, you're watching TV and then the commercials
come on. I'm not kidding seventy of them, like three
(19:50):
out of four featured Neymars. Somehow, he I have never
seen an athlete so kind of overexposed. It was all
about him. In order to let name out of thrive,
Scotatti recruited a yokel of a center forward named fred
to do all the dirty work up top. Brazilians pronounce
it Freggie, but most people remember him because he had
(20:12):
whatever I think can best be described as sort of
a very nineteen seventies porn star mustache. Naturally, most of
Brazil liked him, and yeah, he just wasn't good. To
be fair, it was not the strongest Brazilian team, but
there was also that sense of nationalistic pride that can
sometimes obscure the realities, where they felt that not only
(20:34):
being the home team, but more importantly being Brazil and
the home team, that that would carry through any deficiencies
or weaknesses that they had. But damn it, this is Brazil.
Jola bonito, samba, waxed bikini lines. What Brazil knows how
to do is throw a party. The kaipi has flowed
(20:55):
until all hours of the night, the beaches thronged with
Sunga's look up. The world had come to Brazil, and
Brazil had put on a party. I think the fact
we're going now that his name and Brazil did its
part progressing out of the group stages to provide plenty
of reason to cheer. Name had scored two each against
Croatia and Cameroon that so desire. In between they drew
(21:23):
nil nil with Mexico. They were playing effectively. Um, it
definitely wasn't one of the mostly catching Brazil teams. It
was a team that relies a lot on nine matter.
It relies a lot on Thiago Silvarum and a lot
on their staff fullbacks. They weren't playing well the group stages.
There weren't necessarily alarm bells going off. But he was
(21:44):
obvious from the start that this was a workman like
Brazil toy. This wasn't, you know, Jogo bonito stereotype, Samba football,
whatever stupid stereotypes people come up with when it comes
to Brazil. This was a blue collar Zil side, one
that had some very good defenders. But you know when
in the final third they kind of had the labor.
(22:06):
Fred wasn't converting his chances and so it often was
a question of waiting for Neymar to do something. They
kind of won games by inertia by Atrician will skip
to his left. This says name. It's a stumbling run.
The round of sixteen match against Chile went to penalties,
(22:29):
which Brazil one. Afterwards, the players broke down in tears.
The tension of nearly exiting early clearly overwhelming them. I
think the mood was one of nerves. There's just tremendous
awareness of all right, we can't screw this up. In
the quarterfinals came Hamas Rodriguez and Colombia's that Taga Silva.
(22:52):
The captain for Brazil. It is David Luiz Extra. Brazil
went ahead by two. It seemed like smooth sailing, but
the wind came at a terrible cost. I don't think
it might be a changed because certainly the medical staff
for Brizilla signaling frantically towards the technical area, particularly that
(23:12):
gentleman there with his hands in there a need from
Colombia defender Juanca Milo Zuniga hit Namard, fracturing his back.
He was down. The nation gasped. He was out for
the rest of the World Cup. I think um Za
they wanted to lynch him. They were ready to take
him out of the country and and destroy him. There
(23:35):
was a huge outroar and definitely kind of poisoned relations
on the pitch between Brazil and Colombia for a few
years to the whole psychodrama drama quickly was created around
neymar and again because it's Brazil, you know, you had
all sorts of people. You had kind of which doctors
offering their services, You had people praying for neym Are.
(23:56):
You know, there was a sense can he somehow make
miraculous recovery. I you know, this is a spinal injury.
This is serious. You don't recover properly, you get hurt again.
You know, the consequences could be disastrous. Almost under the
radar was another body blow. Thiago Silva had picked up
his second yellow of the tournament after he blocked the
Colombian goalkeeper from taking a free kick. As a result,
(24:18):
he was suspended for the semifinal. So the semifinals, Brazil
traveled to the Stadio men it Out in Belzoni, where
Germany awaited. Germany and Brazil had met in the final
in two thousand and two, which Brazil one. Since then,
the German national team system had reinvented itself. These are
(24:40):
the two powers at that strage. Brazil had won five
World Cups. Germany had warden three World Cups, so you
know you have eight World Cups right there. They were
a fearsome opponent. They certainly scared Brazil, especially a Brazil
without their best player. As the Brazil's team got off
the bus at the minute, oh Scolatti and the team
(25:02):
were white fotisan name on baseball hats. During a stirring
national anthem, Defender David Louise and goalkeeper Julio says that
held up name out as a number ten jersey as
if he died or something. If it was surreal and
it was about to get a whole lot more so,
(25:23):
more about what happened next. After the break, the game
kicked off and for a few minutes it looked like
any other game. Then it didn't from Thomas Mueller scored
(25:54):
from the first corner of the game, and the Brazil
defense just evaporated. In a six period Germany added four
more and as the goals kept coming, you could feel it,
you could smell it, you could taste it. Where it
got beyond tears, it got beyond anger, It got beyond sadness,
streaking different good like closing check to the checond cham
(26:21):
Germany looking good for the final on Sunday, that might
get an It was, you know, just a a numbness
that and and a disbelief in that while while brazil
can lose, they can't lose like this. And so it was.
There were no there were no tears. It was like
(26:42):
I said, just this this numb, pale existence of almost
zombie like existence of the Brazilians down there. This is
quite a styishing. It also became the first player to
score sixteen World Cup goals, over to King Ronaldo's record.
Tony Crows scored twice sixty nine seconds apart. Well, you
(27:05):
could see in the reaction of the Brazilian pliers. They
look on their faces, they just couldn't believe what was happening.
He saw gods like David Luis in the middle of
the pitch just on the virgin of tiers and uh
and the guy Madani got started. It was it was
a blizz Nobody could have predicted anything like that. They're
(27:27):
killing up Sandy Kvida score it was five mill after
half an hour. Then there were the tears. The television
cameras panned to a female Brazil fan, a single tear
streaming down her face painted golden green. An old man
in the crowd clutched his replica World Cup trophy and sobbed.
Name of his mother was weeping. Name, turned off the
(27:49):
TV and went to play poker. According to O and S,
the national electrical supplier, viewership declined in Brazil after each goal.
By the five, a million televisions had been switched off.
Yogi Love turned to his assistant Hans Flick, who would
later succeed him as Germany coach, and said, HANSI tell me,
(28:09):
is this really happening. I cannot convey to you how
surreal this was. I've watched hundreds of matches and I've
never seen one like this. This just doesn't happen in
the sport, right, I mean, it very rarely happens that
a team scores three goals in a single half, and
certainly not in a World Cup semifinal. Certainly not against
(28:31):
a heavyweight like Brazil. Surely not against the Brazil team
playing at home. And you know, you get this kind
of the surreal sensation. Halftime, the teams went back down
the tunnel. Yogi Love's team talk was one he will
likely never have to repeat. He told his team not
to humiliate Brazil. It was it's completely deflated by by halftime.
(28:57):
I mean people knew, people knew it was over. And
I remember later speaking to um Sammy Codier. We had
him as a guest on our show, and he said,
we went into the locker room at halftime when we
had no idea how we should play the second game
like we were shocked as anybody, and their coach, you
Live said right, you know, whatever you do, you have
(29:18):
to respect them. You can't mock them. You can't. You
gotta keep going, but in a way that's not humiliating
to them. The game was already well beyond Brazil. Whatever
Scolari did to draw my cup for it, it just
went very wrong. One only needed to look at the
Brazil bus to know what would happen. Brace yourself, the
sixth is coming. Andrea Scherla ended up scoring twice. Brazil
(29:42):
fans started cheering every Germany passed and even applauding their goals.
They chanted obscenities at President Jilma Russef, who was in attendance.
The World Cup in itself have been envisioned, you know,
as this glowing endorsement of the presidency of dian Ma
Rossef who was in charge by then um and then
suddenly everything starts going wrong. There were problems with the infrastructure,
(30:05):
problems with the building work, there were huge, huge protests
against her even before the World Cup, and then obviously
to be to be associated even indirectly with the seven one,
it was just something that Dinma's government didn't need. An
In fact, I think it wasn't even two years after
after that World Cup she ended up getting impeached and
(30:28):
the pricess began, by which we now have Bosonada in
charge of Brazil. Fredgie left the field, subbed out to
a chorus of booze. Later on Oscar pulled one back
for Brazil. No one cared where there was five one
seven one, as it was in the end, it would
have made a difference. The damage was done. It ended
(30:51):
seven one. With the result Germany overtook Brazil for most
goals in World Cups. The six goal deficit was the
largest margin of victory in a World Cup semifinal, So
it was something probably you will never say again in
a guyme between two top teams in the World Cup.
(31:13):
Throughout the match, twelve members of the military police had
to be sent into the stands to break up fights.
One German fan was punched so hard in the head
while celebrating a goal that he lost hearing in his
right year. Several fans were rejected and one was arrested
for destroying a trash can. Fans poured out of the
stadium in agony, despair, disbelief. Vio Maradona, Brazil's longtime nemesis,
(31:36):
led a chant mocking the result. Some busses and flags
were set on fire in South Bower, but by and
large the country was too numb to protest, and it
was it was quite amazing to see it happened, because
you know, there were no demonstrations or people screaming and
(31:58):
yelling in the streets or anything like that, and it
had gone beyond any of that. Scolotti took full responsibility.
He called it quote a catastrophic, terrible loss, the worst
loss by a Brazilian national team ever. It was the
worst day of his life, he admitted. Fred said quote,
when the match ended, I wanted to climb into a
(32:19):
hole and never come back. Ten players on roster never
played a single minute for Brazil. Ever again Fredgie retired.
So then there's you know, an element of creeps out
of you know, we wasted an opportunity and this is
you know, embarrassing um and we embarrassed ourselves. We embarrassed
(32:42):
ourselves in the world. This will live in infamy. The
headline on the biggest selling broadsheet read quote a historic
shame o. Globo went with quote embarrassment, shame, humiliation. They
gave every single brazil player a rating of zero. The
magazine Vejia called it the worst ninety minutes in the
history of Brazilian soccer. The press dubbed it the agony
(33:05):
of mindel Oh Global wrote that quote, the defeat to
Germany makes the tragedy of nineteen fifty honorable. Another newspaper said,
quote nineteen fifty ends on the eighth of July. It added,
the soul of the former goalkeeper can finally rest in peace.
Barbosa's daughter found relief. She said, quote, now we can
(33:25):
absolve Barbosa. At least he got to the final. Instead,
his curse has passed on. Julio says that never shook
the seven to one loss. Years later, after he retired,
he said quote. Even today, when I lie down, it's
inevitable that I think about it. I'm already imagining the
(33:47):
day I die years from now. When they announced on
the news, Julio says that the goalkeeper in the seven
one has died. Scolari, who won a dang World Cup
in two thousand to agree quote, I will be remembered
as the coach to lose seven to one. Brazil never
got to the Monicana after all. Instead, Germany beat Argentina
(34:10):
in the historic stadium to win the final. Rio de
Janeiro has a terrible sewage system, even in its richest neighborhoods,
to say nothing of the nine favelas. Every second, thousands
of gallons of sewage dumps into the ocean. On bad days,
(34:32):
the ship is visible. Locals call it the black tongue.
And how's that for a metaphor? Sun glamour thongs Tourists
splashing blissfully in the ship infested waves. For a month,
Brazil led a samba carnival underneath the corrupt system shuffled
billions out of sight. Protesters were gunned down with rubber
(34:53):
bullets by robocops and a team wholly dependent on a
single player broke its back in his story Rick fashion,
The Curse Lingers, The Best Soccer podcast in the World,
(35:14):
is a production of Exile Content Studios in partnership with
I Hearts Michael podcast Network and is hosted by Me
Nando Villa, Produced by Anna and zach Lee Rigg, Written
by Zach Lee Rigg. Production assistants by Stella Emmett. Our
executive producers are Isaac Lee Rose Reed and myself Nando Villa.
Our executive producers that I Heart are Gisel Bances and
(35:36):
ar Lean Santana. Sound designed by Ula Mendoza Are Awesome.
Theme song is by lu j Special Thanks to all
of the voices that participated in this episode, Gabriele Marcatti,
Daniel Edwards, and Alexei Lawless. For more podcasts, listen to
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. The
I want to tell you a ghost story. It's about
a stadium. The Manicana in Rio de Janeiro is the
largest stadium in the world, and it has haunted a
nation for the better part of a century. People have
killed themselves over the events that happened on its field.
You cannot say its name allowed in Brazil without sending
(00:26):
a shiver down the spine of anyone in earshot. And
this ghost story spans sixty four years. It includes World Cups,
giant jungle spiders, corruption, robo cops, carnival floats, a Guinness
World Record, a broken back, and literal shit. Thousands of
(00:50):
gallons of ship which doctors offering their services. This will
live in infamy one of the biggest football upsets of doubt.
The damage was done. Very sad story, to be honest.
The mood was one of nerves. You could feel it,
you could smell it, you could taste it. Lightning doesn't
strike twice right, one of the most sensational results. It
(01:10):
just doesn't happen. It got beyond anger, it got beyond sadness.
This is serious. It's one of the most surreal stories
in soccer history. Even those of us who witnessed it
have no idea how it happened. I'm Nando Vila and
this is the best soccer podcast in the world. Goes
(01:39):
with it, but it's still Christiano Ronaldo. Yes, it's wonderful.
Never let's go back to the beginning nineteen Television was
(02:18):
being born in nineteen fifty, but the World Cup wouldn't
be broadcast on TV for another four years. With Europe
decimated by World War Two, Brazil offered to host the
World Cup. Argentina withdrew from the tournament over a squabble
with the Brazilian federation. Germany was barred from joining for
(02:40):
obvious reasons. France, which qualified, decided not to make the track,
citing the strains of travel. India also qualified and withdrew
as well, allegedly because FIFA wouldn't let them play barefoot.
Brazil had never really been been considered among the top
teams prior to the war because as football was very
(03:01):
much in its infancy in in Brazil and they hadn't
done a huge amount before, at least on the world stage,
unlike Uruguay, who had won the world the first World
Cup and also won two Olympic Games. This is Daniel
Edwards a journalist covering South American soccer for Gold and
other platforms. But in Nanti fifty Brazil just the juggernaut
(03:28):
to the party. World Cup fever was in the air.
The Post office released commemorative stamps, World Cup themed floats
dominated the carnival, and Lamartine Babo composed an anthem with
the lyric Let's cheer for Brazil to be champions, wearing white.
In reforms, Brazil demolished any opposition who had the misfortune
(03:52):
to be placed before them. They romped Mexico four nil
in the opening match. Because of France and India's withdraw halls,
there was a last minute change of format. Instead of
a knockout round, the top team from each group advanced
to another group stage that would determine the winner. Spain,
Sweden and Uruguay joined Brazil in the final round. After
(04:16):
the third goal against Spain, fans waived audios with white handkerchiefs,
one of the lasting images from the tournament. They chanted
oles in the second half. It finished six one, which
was one fewer than Brazil got against Sweden. A dmid
Deminenez led the scoring, but the star of the team
(04:37):
was Zeno Italian newspaper Sport described him as Leonardo da
Vinci quote creating works of art with his feet in
the immense canvas of the Maracanap pitch. The Maracana. This
(04:59):
new Rio di Janeiro stadium was the crown jewel of
the new Brazilian government. It had an official capacity of
a hundred and eighty three thousand people, which was thirty
percent bigger than the next largest stadium in the world.
Starting in ten thousand workers built it like a modern
day Egyptian pyramid. By the nineteen fifty World Cup there
(05:21):
were still active construction zones because it wasn't finished yet.
They played in it anyway. Brazil played all but one
game there, winning every single one by a lot. The
last fixture was against uru Way, a tiny neighboring country
of three million people, which had won the nine and
(05:43):
twenty Olympics and the first ever World Cup held in ninety.
Uruguay had beaten Bolivia eight nil in the group stages,
but it looked considerably more ordinary in the second group.
Only one match separated the teams from the Juels Remay Trophy,
newly named after the long time Fee president, Luckily for history,
unluckily for Brazil the final group guy ended up being affected.
(06:05):
In the final, Brazil expected to win by a lot.
Omundo showed a picture of the Brazilian players under the
headline these are the world champions. Apparently they don't have
a term for the concept of jinks in Portuguese. On
the day of the final match, a hundred and seventy
three thousand, eight hundred and fifty people paid to enter
(06:28):
Maricana to this day a Guinness World record between guests, journalists, officials,
and those who snuck in. Estimates vary on how many
actually saw the game in person. Estimates from anywhere from
a hundred and fifty two possibly three hundred thousand people
been and attendance. The match kicked off at three pm.
(06:48):
The stadium was packed by eleven am. Hundreds of thousands
belted out the national anthem. The stadium was rocking. Uruguay's
Julio Perez Pede himself quote, I am not ashamed of
this brazil type the lead that looked to be very
comfortable online to when the first ever woke up. Firecrackers
(07:13):
shook the monumental stadium when Brazil took the lead. And
though this didn't air on television live. Some black and
white footage still remains. The players look tiny and jolty.
The ball is a heavy leather thing that barely rolls,
but it rolled for Brazil, and the ending to this
story seemed pretty straightforward. Basically, it went already really well
(07:34):
and until it didn't. Uruguay equalized and then took the
lead when Gigia scored, famed Uruguay, and novelist wrote, the
silence in Manicana was deafening, the most raucous silence in
the history of soccer. Many years later, I've seen this,
(07:58):
Giga said, only three people have silenced the Maricana Frank Sinatra, Pope,
John Paul the second and me. The near post shot
caught the Brazilian goalkeeper Muasia Barbosa leaning the wrong way.
The ball hit him, and as the camera behind the
goal pans across, it loses the ball, unsure where the
(08:21):
bounce was deflected. Eventually it scrolls back and spots the
ball in the back of the net. Next we see
Barbosa raised himself slowly, as if weighed down by the
disappointment of a nation, which caused pretty much national morning
in Brazil. Final whistle Uruguay to Brazil. In the videos,
(08:49):
everyone is crying, Uruguay from happiness, Brazilians in broken sorrow.
Belle claims the only time he saw his father cry
was because of this game. The Brazil coach Flavio Costa
escaped the stadium are Demid, got in his car and
just kept driving. Despite his costly mistake, moiss Barbosa was
(09:10):
voted goalkeeper of the tournament. The goalkeeper run on the
action for Brazil to the brunt of the criticism, essentially
led the life of a hermit. After that, he was
shumn from society. Very sad story. To be honest, Barbosa
played into his forties and after retiring, he overheard a
mother tell her daughter that is the man who made
(09:32):
all brazil cry. The story goes that he was blocked
from visiting and wishing luck to the Brazilian team. He
said quote in Brazil, the most you can get for
any crime is thirty years. For forty three years, I've
been paying for a crime I did not commit. He
died impoverished, never forgiven. Brazil didn't have another black goalkeeper
(09:56):
for fifty years. On the very first page of his autobiograph,
fee Zeno wrote, quote, I played for nineteen years. I
won a few titles, and yet together with the other
players in that campaign, I'm remembered as a loser. Newspapers
in Uruguay reported that three people died of excitement from
(10:16):
hearing the result on the radio in Rio, a man
collapsed in his home. Multiple people committed suicide. And you
know that that game got into the public consciousness of
of Brazil. Everybody from poets to writers to film directors
that they've all talked about it. This is a senior
writer for ESPN. Nelson Rodriguez, the famous Brazilian playwright, wrote quote,
(10:41):
everywhere has its irremediable national catastrophe, something like a Hiroshima.
Our catastrophe are Hiroshima was the defeat by Uruguay in
ninety One could call that an overreaction, but then again,
Brazilians sure do take their national team seriously. It's probably
one of the biggest football upsets of all time, no doubt.
(11:04):
It's known as the Marican Nasso, the Tragedy of the Maracana.
The Brazil team didn't play for another two years. They
didn't play at the Mariicana for four and that's the
year in nineteen fifty four when they debuted the now
trademark yellow jerseys with green collar to wash away the
stain on the white jerseys of the Marican Asso. It worked.
(11:30):
Brazil won the ninety eight World Cup with a teenager
named Peles bursting onto the scene and blowing people's minds
across the world watching on TV. Since then, Brazil have
won a total of five World Cups, more than any
other nation. Construction on the Mariican now was eventually finished
(11:52):
fifteen years after that fateful Uruguay game. More about what
happened next. After the break two thousand fourteen, Ebola was
creeping outward from West Africa. A Malaysian Airlines flight disappeared
(12:15):
over the ocean Russia. The next Crimea and Happy by
Farrell top of charts and for the first time since
the Mariicano, the World Cup final would return to the
Marican and Brazil was hell bent on being there. Sixty
four years later, here was a chance at home for
(12:35):
you know, the most successful footballing country in the world
to go and win the World Cup, to really to
to take it home. You know, I live in England.
They can sing about, oh football is coming home, but
you know, people ran away from home many years ago
and settled in Brazil. The entire nation had demons that
needed exercising. They were there on a mission to go
(12:56):
and right this incredible wrong. This is this incredible cruel
trick of of they that denied them. N it's it's
lightning doesn't strike twice, right, it's I think it was
essentially the messaging there, the Manicaa revamp. It was part
of the eleven billion dollars Brazil paid to stage the
World Cup. Before any team made it to Rio for
(13:18):
the final, they'd have to tour a series of sparkling
new stadiums criss crossing the giant nation. Some contexts on
Brazilian Brazil is not really a country, which is basically
a continent, right, it's just so enormous, Uh, It's it's
so diverse. The host city choices were puzzling, to say
the least. Key matches found themselves scheduled in far flung
(13:40):
places like Brazilia and Manaos. In practice, they wanted to
have a footprint all over the country. So you know,
they built a fancy stadium in the capital, Brasilia, which
I mean it's a fascinating city because it's it's an
entirely planned city and whatever. But you know, there wasn't
even a top flight team in Brazilia at the time.
The most extreme case was Manouse, which built a brand
(14:03):
new quarter billion dollars stadium deep in the Amazon. They
made another venue. Manouse just said they have been to,
which is in the middle of the Amazon. You know,
you can't drive to Manaos from anywhere or take a
train there. The only way they get there is by
playing or by boat. I mean, that's how isolated it is.
And it's literally in the jungle with like giant spiders
and whatever and extreme heat. The country sunk billions of
(14:25):
dollars into overvalued infrastructure, and like the Monica, much of
it was incomplete. Local teams inherited stadiums they couldn't afford
to maintain, let alone make rent payments. The man ultimately
held responsible was Regardot, then president of the Brazilian Federation.
He was the son in law of Jao Avdange, the
(14:46):
long time FIFA president before sept Bladder. Together they made
tens of millions of dollars off soccer through their long careers. Said,
I remember was involved in a fairly heavy h bit
of corrupt he's got an an enormous rap sheet. He
was extremely powerful within within the f A, within sort
of this very clubby, old old school system. He got
(15:09):
caught up in the FIFA scandals, but even before that,
he got caught up in a number of Brazilian domestic scandals.
He's a guy with just a very very blankly list
of accusations of abuse of power against him. And there
were problems with the infrastructure, problems with the building work.
People were getting angry because there was a fair increase
(15:30):
in public transport and real in and other major cities,
upset at how taxpayer funds were being funneled into construction
black holes. A protest movement kicked up in the month
leading up to the World Cup. It was violently shut
down by armed right police known as robocops, who fired
tear gas and rubber pull it's into the crowd. It's
very evident when you spend time there that there are
(15:52):
certain unresolved issues, or many unresolved issues involving race and ethnicity,
um involving the privileged class, which was almost entirely of
European descent, and kind of these these old money types
who kind of run any for every everything. You know.
They all go to the same schools, they were all
educated by the same priest. Brazil is definitely one of
(16:14):
the most extreme countries in the world and in terms
of the the wealth, the lifestyle of the super rich
versus everybody else. Protests were effectively silenced, but it did
just enough to topple day Shada. After he resigned, Jose
mariamarin usurped power. He was an old school politician linked
(16:35):
to the military regime. But there was a World Cup
to host, so construction continued unabated, and so did the optimism.
If Brazil loses, we will all go to hell, join
said the World Cup winning coach, who was now the
technical director. Said they had one hand on the trophy.
(16:57):
The five time champions rode around in a bus painted
with the phrase brace yourself, the sixth is coming again.
People jinks often they're very confident. Brazil got into a
World Cup. Oh yeah, I mean that that that Brazil
expects to win. That that's a constant. That's Alexei Lawless,
the former US international who has covered many World Cups
(17:17):
now for Fox Sports. Expectations are always high for Brazil,
Like when you're Brazil, Expectations always semifinal history and hosting
spoke in Brazil's favor, the actual team's abilities not so much.
And you could send the pressure in the anticipation building
in the country that you know, if we're gonna do
(17:37):
this is not going to be pretty. You know, the
last time that Brazil in the World Cup in two
thousand two, you know, they had Ronaldinho and the original
Ronaldo and Rivaldo and Roberto Carlos and Cafo and whatever.
This time around not quite the same, And so they
went for what a guy they thought was a safe
(17:58):
pair of hands in Louis Philippe Scolari, Philippin Big Phil,
who you know, had been the coach of the two
thousand and two World Cup woarning team in Korea in Japan,
and his career hadn't necessarily really kicked on too much
as as a coach, and but he had this sort
(18:18):
of you know, macho bluster, the big mustache, so the
hopes were kind of pinned on him because he'd done
it before. Scolotti gave off strong grandfather vibes and listened
to the BGS while drawing up lineups. That's pretty awesome,
Scolotti said. Anyone who didn't like him, could quote go
to hell naturally, most of Brazil liked him. The FIFA
(18:41):
rankings listed reigning World Cup champion Spain up top, Germany
was second, and Brazil was third. Brazil warmed up for
the tournament the year before by winning the Confederations Cup,
which is sort of a dry run for hosting a
major tournament. The Confederations Cup is this again? Faith in
Spain and the squad was built almost entirely around the
precocious talents of Nada and I Might, of course, was
(19:04):
everyone's great hype. He'd been playing absolutely brilliant football. Name
had been carrying Santos, the team of Ballet, on his
back since he was seventeen, a year before he joined
Barcelona in a mega deal. Now at two, he was
poised to one day become the best player in the world.
(19:29):
Lass he received a tremendous amount of hype. He was
at Barcelona, he was playing with Lionel Messi. I remember
I was struck the year before the World Cup in
twenty thirteen. I was at the Confederations Cup in Brazil
and you know, you're watching TV and then the commercials
come on. I'm not kidding seventy of them, like three
(19:50):
out of four featured Neymars. Somehow, he I have never
seen an athlete so kind of overexposed. It was all
about him. In order to let name out of thrive,
Scotatti recruited a yokel of a center forward named fred
to do all the dirty work up top. Brazilians pronounce
it Freggie, but most people remember him because he had
(20:12):
whatever I think can best be described as sort of
a very nineteen seventies porn star mustache. Naturally, most of
Brazil liked him, and yeah, he just wasn't good. To
be fair, it was not the strongest Brazilian team, but
there was also that sense of nationalistic pride that can
sometimes obscure the realities, where they felt that not only
(20:34):
being the home team, but more importantly being Brazil and
the home team, that that would carry through any deficiencies
or weaknesses that they had. But damn it, this is Brazil.
Jola bonito, samba, waxed bikini lines. What Brazil knows how
to do is throw a party. The kaipi has flowed
(20:55):
until all hours of the night, the beaches thronged with
Sunga's look up. The world had come to Brazil, and
Brazil had put on a party. I think the fact
we're going now that his name and Brazil did its
part progressing out of the group stages to provide plenty
of reason to cheer. Name had scored two each against
Croatia and Cameroon that so desire. In between they drew
(21:23):
nil nil with Mexico. They were playing effectively. Um, it
definitely wasn't one of the mostly catching Brazil teams. It
was a team that relies a lot on nine matter.
It relies a lot on Thiago Silvarum and a lot
on their staff fullbacks. They weren't playing well the group stages.
There weren't necessarily alarm bells going off. But he was
(21:44):
obvious from the start that this was a workman like
Brazil toy. This wasn't, you know, Jogo bonito stereotype, Samba football,
whatever stupid stereotypes people come up with when it comes
to Brazil. This was a blue collar Zil side, one
that had some very good defenders. But you know when
in the final third they kind of had the labor.
(22:06):
Fred wasn't converting his chances and so it often was
a question of waiting for Neymar to do something. They
kind of won games by inertia by Atrician will skip
to his left. This says name. It's a stumbling run.
The round of sixteen match against Chile went to penalties,
(22:29):
which Brazil one. Afterwards, the players broke down in tears.
The tension of nearly exiting early clearly overwhelming them. I
think the mood was one of nerves. There's just tremendous
awareness of all right, we can't screw this up. In
the quarterfinals came Hamas Rodriguez and Colombia's that Taga Silva.
(22:52):
The captain for Brazil. It is David Luiz Extra. Brazil
went ahead by two. It seemed like smooth sailing, but
the wind came at a terrible cost. I don't think
it might be a changed because certainly the medical staff
for Brizilla signaling frantically towards the technical area, particularly that
(23:12):
gentleman there with his hands in there a need from
Colombia defender Juanca Milo Zuniga hit Namard, fracturing his back.
He was down. The nation gasped. He was out for
the rest of the World Cup. I think um Za
they wanted to lynch him. They were ready to take
him out of the country and and destroy him. There
(23:35):
was a huge outroar and definitely kind of poisoned relations
on the pitch between Brazil and Colombia for a few
years to the whole psychodrama drama quickly was created around
neymar and again because it's Brazil, you know, you had
all sorts of people. You had kind of which doctors
offering their services, You had people praying for neym Are.
(23:56):
You know, there was a sense can he somehow make
miraculous recovery. I you know, this is a spinal injury.
This is serious. You don't recover properly, you get hurt again.
You know, the consequences could be disastrous. Almost under the
radar was another body blow. Thiago Silva had picked up
his second yellow of the tournament after he blocked the
Colombian goalkeeper from taking a free kick. As a result,
(24:18):
he was suspended for the semifinal. So the semifinals, Brazil
traveled to the Stadio men it Out in Belzoni, where
Germany awaited. Germany and Brazil had met in the final
in two thousand and two, which Brazil one. Since then,
the German national team system had reinvented itself. These are
(24:40):
the two powers at that strage. Brazil had won five
World Cups. Germany had warden three World Cups, so you
know you have eight World Cups right there. They were
a fearsome opponent. They certainly scared Brazil, especially a Brazil
without their best player. As the Brazil's team got off
the bus at the minute, oh Scolatti and the team
(25:02):
were white fotisan name on baseball hats. During a stirring
national anthem, Defender David Louise and goalkeeper Julio says that
held up name out as a number ten jersey as
if he died or something. If it was surreal and
it was about to get a whole lot more so,
(25:23):
more about what happened next. After the break, the game
kicked off and for a few minutes it looked like
any other game. Then it didn't from Thomas Mueller scored
(25:54):
from the first corner of the game, and the Brazil
defense just evaporated. In a six period Germany added four
more and as the goals kept coming, you could feel it,
you could smell it, you could taste it. Where it
got beyond tears, it got beyond anger, It got beyond sadness,
streaking different good like closing check to the checond cham
(26:21):
Germany looking good for the final on Sunday, that might
get an It was, you know, just a a numbness
that and and a disbelief in that while while brazil
can lose, they can't lose like this. And so it was.
There were no there were no tears. It was like
(26:42):
I said, just this this numb, pale existence of almost
zombie like existence of the Brazilians down there. This is
quite a styishing. It also became the first player to
score sixteen World Cup goals, over to King Ronaldo's record.
Tony Crows scored twice sixty nine seconds apart. Well, you
(27:05):
could see in the reaction of the Brazilian pliers. They
look on their faces, they just couldn't believe what was happening.
He saw gods like David Luis in the middle of
the pitch just on the virgin of tiers and uh
and the guy Madani got started. It was it was
a blizz Nobody could have predicted anything like that. They're
(27:27):
killing up Sandy Kvida score it was five mill after
half an hour. Then there were the tears. The television
cameras panned to a female Brazil fan, a single tear
streaming down her face painted golden green. An old man
in the crowd clutched his replica World Cup trophy and sobbed.
Name of his mother was weeping. Name, turned off the
(27:49):
TV and went to play poker. According to O and S,
the national electrical supplier, viewership declined in Brazil after each goal.
By the five, a million televisions had been switched off.
Yogi Love turned to his assistant Hans Flick, who would
later succeed him as Germany coach, and said, HANSI tell me,
(28:09):
is this really happening. I cannot convey to you how
surreal this was. I've watched hundreds of matches and I've
never seen one like this. This just doesn't happen in
the sport, right, I mean, it very rarely happens that
a team scores three goals in a single half, and
certainly not in a World Cup semifinal. Certainly not against
(28:31):
a heavyweight like Brazil. Surely not against the Brazil team
playing at home. And you know, you get this kind
of the surreal sensation. Halftime, the teams went back down
the tunnel. Yogi Love's team talk was one he will
likely never have to repeat. He told his team not
to humiliate Brazil. It was it's completely deflated by by halftime.
(28:57):
I mean people knew, people knew it was over. And
I remember later speaking to um Sammy Codier. We had
him as a guest on our show, and he said,
we went into the locker room at halftime when we
had no idea how we should play the second game
like we were shocked as anybody, and their coach, you
Live said right, you know, whatever you do, you have
(29:18):
to respect them. You can't mock them. You can't. You
gotta keep going, but in a way that's not humiliating
to them. The game was already well beyond Brazil. Whatever
Scolari did to draw my cup for it, it just
went very wrong. One only needed to look at the
Brazil bus to know what would happen. Brace yourself, the
sixth is coming. Andrea Scherla ended up scoring twice. Brazil
(29:42):
fans started cheering every Germany passed and even applauding their goals.
They chanted obscenities at President Jilma Russef, who was in attendance.
The World Cup in itself have been envisioned, you know,
as this glowing endorsement of the presidency of dian Ma
Rossef who was in charge by then um and then
suddenly everything starts going wrong. There were problems with the infrastructure,
(30:05):
problems with the building work, there were huge, huge protests
against her even before the World Cup, and then obviously
to be to be associated even indirectly with the seven one,
it was just something that Dinma's government didn't need. An
In fact, I think it wasn't even two years after
after that World Cup she ended up getting impeached and
(30:28):
the pricess began, by which we now have Bosonada in
charge of Brazil. Fredgie left the field, subbed out to
a chorus of booze. Later on Oscar pulled one back
for Brazil. No one cared where there was five one
seven one, as it was in the end, it would
have made a difference. The damage was done. It ended
(30:51):
seven one. With the result Germany overtook Brazil for most
goals in World Cups. The six goal deficit was the
largest margin of victory in a World Cup semifinal, So
it was something probably you will never say again in
a guyme between two top teams in the World Cup.
(31:13):
Throughout the match, twelve members of the military police had
to be sent into the stands to break up fights.
One German fan was punched so hard in the head
while celebrating a goal that he lost hearing in his
right year. Several fans were rejected and one was arrested
for destroying a trash can. Fans poured out of the
stadium in agony, despair, disbelief. Vio Maradona, Brazil's longtime nemesis,
(31:36):
led a chant mocking the result. Some busses and flags
were set on fire in South Bower, but by and
large the country was too numb to protest, and it
was it was quite amazing to see it happened, because
you know, there were no demonstrations or people screaming and
(31:58):
yelling in the streets or anything like that, and it
had gone beyond any of that. Scolotti took full responsibility.
He called it quote a catastrophic, terrible loss, the worst
loss by a Brazilian national team ever. It was the
worst day of his life, he admitted. Fred said quote,
when the match ended, I wanted to climb into a
(32:19):
hole and never come back. Ten players on roster never
played a single minute for Brazil. Ever again Fredgie retired.
So then there's you know, an element of creeps out
of you know, we wasted an opportunity and this is
you know, embarrassing um and we embarrassed ourselves. We embarrassed
(32:42):
ourselves in the world. This will live in infamy. The
headline on the biggest selling broadsheet read quote a historic
shame o. Globo went with quote embarrassment, shame, humiliation. They
gave every single brazil player a rating of zero. The
magazine Vejia called it the worst ninety minutes in the
history of Brazilian soccer. The press dubbed it the agony
(33:05):
of mindel Oh Global wrote that quote, the defeat to
Germany makes the tragedy of nineteen fifty honorable. Another newspaper said,
quote nineteen fifty ends on the eighth of July. It added,
the soul of the former goalkeeper can finally rest in peace.
Barbosa's daughter found relief. She said, quote, now we can
(33:25):
absolve Barbosa. At least he got to the final. Instead,
his curse has passed on. Julio says that never shook
the seven to one loss. Years later, after he retired,
he said quote. Even today, when I lie down, it's
inevitable that I think about it. I'm already imagining the
(33:47):
day I die years from now. When they announced on
the news, Julio says that the goalkeeper in the seven
one has died. Scolari, who won a dang World Cup
in two thousand to agree quote, I will be remembered
as the coach to lose seven to one. Brazil never
got to the Monicana after all. Instead, Germany beat Argentina
(34:10):
in the historic stadium to win the final. Rio de
Janeiro has a terrible sewage system, even in its richest neighborhoods,
to say nothing of the nine favelas. Every second, thousands
of gallons of sewage dumps into the ocean. On bad days,
(34:32):
the ship is visible. Locals call it the black tongue.
And how's that for a metaphor? Sun glamour thongs Tourists
splashing blissfully in the ship infested waves. For a month,
Brazil led a samba carnival underneath the corrupt system shuffled
billions out of sight. Protesters were gunned down with rubber
(34:53):
bullets by robocops and a team wholly dependent on a
single player broke its back in his story Rick fashion,
The Curse Lingers, The Best Soccer podcast in the World,
(35:14):
is a production of Exile Content Studios in partnership with
I Hearts Michael podcast Network and is hosted by Me
Nando Villa, Produced by Anna and zach Lee Rigg, Written
by Zach Lee Rigg. Production assistants by Stella Emmett. Our
executive producers are Isaac Lee Rose Reed and myself Nando Villa.
Our executive producers that I Heart are Gisel Bances and
(35:36):
ar Lean Santana. Sound designed by Ula Mendoza Are Awesome.
Theme song is by lu j Special Thanks to all
of the voices that participated in this episode, Gabriele Marcatti,
Daniel Edwards, and Alexei Lawless. For more podcasts, listen to
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. The
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