One boy runs up, shapes to shoot, then rolls his foot over the top of the ball, sitting the keeper on his backside, before rolling it into an empty net. The teenagers on the pitch nearest the road are having fun, doing one-on-one drills against a goalkeeper. Gaggles of kids play on the football pitches and a figure in Flamengo’s red, moulded into the shape of a player taking a free-kick, gazes down from the roof of the clubhouse. The soul of ’82 still burns brightly here. There is a gated condo complex called Dream Village, which is guarded by a tailor’s dummy in a sharp suit and sunglasses. Our players started to leave for Europe and spent their best years abroad and we lost what made us unique.’įollow the coast road out of Rio, beyond Ipanema’s golden sands and its footvolley courts, beyond the poverty of the sprawling favela of Rocinha, beyond the spectacular rock face of Pedra da Gavea, beyond the Olympic Park and its broken promises, beyond Barra da Tijuca, Rio’s version of Miami, and you reach Recreio and a small right turn off the Avenida das Americas.ĭespite winning the World Cup, the 1994 Brazil side is held in lower regard compared to the 1982 side It was the end of a golden era in Brazil. We had four great midfielders in that team and we have never really had a great midfielder again. ‘It was on that day that, morally, we lost the role as custodians of beautiful football. It was a message that creativity could be destroyed by strength. ‘We were starting to sense an emergence from Brazil’s military dictatorship by then,’ he says, ‘but that result, in a match when Zico’s shirt was ripped to shreds by defenders, seemed to carry a message that culture is not important. Marcos Uchoa, a respected former sports journalist who is standing for election as a federal representative this autumn, was working at Galeao airport on the outskirts of the city when Zico, Socrates and their team of football gods returned home after their 3-2 defeat to Italy in the last game of the second group phase of the 1982 World Cup. The next evening, a small group gathers round a table in Bar Lagoa, a few blocks from Ipanema Beach. Brazilian football has paid a high price right until now for what happened in ’82 in terms of the quality of the football we play. Nobody talks about the 1994 side that won the World Cup. ‘Brazil played in 1982 and they lost but who cares? It was fantastic. ‘I haven’t rooted for Brazil for years,’ he says.

He played for Brazil at the 1970 World Cup and tormented England’s defence in Guadalajara but now he is shaking his head. It is lunchtime and Paulo Cezar ‘Caju’ is sitting in a bustling cafe in Leblon, an affluent suburb of Rio de Janeiro.

Claquette zico