It was the most anticipated day in Brazil that year. On 16th
July, 1950 Brazil was meeting Uruguay in the final group game of the football
world cup (sometimes, this is incorrectly termed as the world cup final but
there was no knock-out format in that tournament). Brazil led Uruguay by a
single point coming into this match.
Thus, Uruguay had to win this match claim the world cup,
where as a draw would have sufficed for Brazil.
For the match on that fateful day, 173,830 tickets were
officially sold. Unooficial records indicate a crowd in excess of 200,000. This
is even now the highest crowd ever recorded in the world for an event.
The match was scheduled at the Maracana stadium in Rio de
Janeiro.
Coming into this match, Brazil had been in an impeccable
form. They had blown away heavyweights like Spain en route to this final group
game. On the other hand, the performance of the Uruguan national could not have
been more contrasting. After a draw in their first mathc, they scraped past
Sweden to reach this stage.
A win for the Selecao was most definitely on the cards.
All preparations were done to celebrate a Brazilian victory.
As the story goes, even the then FIFA president Mr. Jules Rimet had also
prepared a post-match speech congratulating the Brazilian team.
Carnivals started days before the match on the streets of
Rio de Janeiro to celebrate their national team's victory.
Local newspapers started publishing the photograph of the
Brazilian national team with the caption 'These are the world champions.'
Brazilian football federation prepared winners medal for the
entire Brazil squad.
On 16th July, the stadium was jampacked hours before the
kick-off. The deafening noise percolated to the Uruguayan dressing room too.
However, the Uruguayan captain Obdulio Varela was not intimidated.
However, the much respected Uruguyan coach Juan Lopez was
quite diffident. He asked his players to sacrifice their attacking intents and
defend so that they lose by a respectable margin.
Once Lopez exited the room, the legendary captain Varela
stood up and said these immortal words - 'Juan is a good man, but today he is
wrong..."
Varela, regarded as the best holding midfielder the world
has ever seen, started imposing himself and went into the break with the match
tied at 0-0.
However, just after the restart, Friaca scored to give
Brazil the lead. The towering character of Obdulio Varela again came to the
forefront. He just said 'It's time to win, boys.'
The rest, as the cliche goes, is history.
Uruguay scored
twice to lift the world cup in the biggest shock in football history.
The effect of this loss was unprecedented in the
football-mad country of Brazil. In the stadium itself, two supporters committed
suicide by jumping off the stands.
The next day was that of a day of mourning. The entire
country stood standstill. The then white and blue jersey was changed to the now
famous yellow one as it was believed that the earlier one was jinxed.
Moreover, "Maracanazo" became a slang in Brazil
meaning the Maracana blow!
Subham Ghosh connects football with history !
