The Seleção had high hopes before heading to Switzerland but the ‘Battle of Berne’ quarter-final ended in a riot
The fallout from the defeat to Uruguay in the 1950 World Cup final overshadowed Brazil’s buildup to Switzerland. Some of the Brazilian press had labelled the national team “bottlers” and what many saw as their inability to perform in crunch games had become a preoccupation.
The pressure had eased a little after the Seleção went unbeaten on their way to clinching the Campeonato Pan-Americano in 1952 – Brazil’s first tournament win on foreign soil. But losing the deciding match to Paraguay in the Sul-Americano the following year raised more questions over the team’s temperament. Alfredo Moreira Júnior had replaced Flávio Costa as manager. Zezé, as he was known, made fewer than 50 appearances as a midfielder at Flamengo, Palestra Itália (now Palmeiras) and Botafogo but would go on to clock up a staggering 474 games as Fluminense coach over several spells from the 1950s to the early 70s – a record that still stands today. Zezé was famed for being one of the country’s early strategists and tried to bring some balance to the Brazil squad that had fired in an impressive 22 goals in the World Cup in 1950 but were suspect at the back. The coach toyed with zonal marking, which made Brazil’s defence a little tighter but reduced their firepower.
Zezé’s side won six games in a row in the buildup to the 1954 World Cup. Yet the Seleção were wrong if they had thought tempers had cooled four years after the loss to Uruguay. David Nasser, a well-known columnist for one of the country’s most popular newspapers, O Cruzeiro, vented the frustration many felt. “A lot of the press in the Americas stated that cachaça [a distilled spirit made from fermented sugarcane juice] had defeated Brazil and that we were a poorly fed people, that ate rice, beans and farinha [yellow manioc flour] and our athletes could barely stand. It was said that Brazil fell shamefully to a group of old Uruguayans with varicose veins and erysipelas [who destroyed] the Brazilian boys. The time has come to respond to these people. To show these gentlemen that we are not the broken, fearful and syphilitic people they say.” The message to the Brazil squad was not quite as succinct as “England expects” but the sentiment was as clear.
The Brazilian contingent flew to Switzerland for what was to be a groundbreaking tournament. The 1954 World Cup was the first to go out on television and the first time the players were given fixed squad numbers. It remains the highest-scoring tournament, with 140 goals – an average of 5.38 goals per match – and Austria 7-5 Switzerland in Lausanne is still the game with the most goals in the competition’s history. This was also Brazil’s first time using yellow shirts with a green trim in a World Cup. The brightly coloured jersey was well received. Radio presenter and football commentator, Geraldo José de Almeida, was there in Switzerland and is credited with nicknaming the team the Seleção Canarinho – the Little Canary.
Brazil could not have got off to a better start when they dispatched Mexico 5-0 in Geneva. They then drew 1-1 with Yugoslavia after extra time. The Seleção had attacked throughout the game, convinced they needed to win and unaware a draw would send both teams through. According to some accounts, the Brazil captain, José Bauer, sank to the floor in the changing room, wailing: “We’ve lost the World Cup again”. Many other players were in tears and only found out they were in the quarter-finals on the bus back to the hotel.
Up next was a game against a Hungary team at their peak. The Mighty Magyars were unbeaten in 29 matches spanning over four years. The absence Ferenc Puskás made no difference and the Hungarians were two up in less than 10 minutes. Djalma Santos and Julinho scored but Brazil crashed out 4-2 in what became known as “the Battle of Berne”. Hungary’s Jozsef Bozsik and Brazil’s Nílton Santos and Humberto were sent off after an unruly performance and a mass brawl involving 20 players.
The riot not only included both teams but also members of the media and delegations of the two countries and spilt over into the changing rooms, resulting in injuries to players, police officers and officials. With Europe now in the grip of the cold war, there were even accusations that the English official Arthur Ellis – who had been an assistant referee in the Brazil v Uruguay game in 1950 – was part of a communist plot against the South Americans. “I thought it was going to be the greatest game I’d ever see. I was on top of the world. It was a wholly deluded anticipation,” Ellis would tell The Independent decades later. “Whether politics and religion had something to do with it, I don’t know, but they behaved like animals. It was a disgrace.” The Seleção were sent packing and Hungary would lose the final 3-2 against West Germany.
Back home, the Brazilian press was in uproar. At first they claimed the Seleção had been the better team but had been cheated once again by some debatable decisions by a European referee. Later stories emerged concerning the side and the tone changed. Some reports suggested the squad had been wholly deflated when the draw pitched them against Hungary in the quarters. There were rumours that some players had been out on the town the night before the match and that others had feigned injuries or pretended to be sick to get out of the game. It was also claimed that the head of the delegation, João Lyra Filho, had already bought tickets home before the tie was played.
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Years after the competition in Switzerland, the man who had created Brazil’s yellow kit recalled his time meeting the Seleção. Aldyr Schlee was a teenager studying law but dreamt of being a designer. Part of the prize he received from the Correio da Manhã newspaper and the Brazilian Sports Confederation was a visit to meet the Brazil squad during the World Cup qualifiers. But the youngster was shocked by what he had seen and even turned down a trip to Switzerland, as he told Terra in 2010: “I was only 19 years old and I was very intimidated by it all. Many things happened. Some people absconded from the camp, got drunk, broke their nose and then told the press that they couldn’t play because they had fallen over in the bathroom. It was shocking. A real mess.”
After the game against Uruguay in 1950, the renowned author and journalist Mário Filho acknowledged a rise in racism following the defeat. Writing in Folha de São Paulo in 2018, Alberto Nogueira and Jair dos Santos Cortecertu also claimed that Brazil’s head of delegation in Switzerland, Filho, had defended the whitening of the population in the 1920s. Filho was well connected and multitalented. In a wide-ranging career, he had been a lawyer, president of Botafogo, the first president of the National Sports Council and a supporter of João Havelange’s candidacy for the Fifa presidency. Filho also wrote a report following the campaign in Switzerland, listing his reasons for failure. The report was the basis for his book World Cup, 1954. Filho pointed to what he saw as the characteristics of black and mixed-races as the cause of the squad’s exit: “In Brazilian football, the showy footwork is an expression of art, but it comes at the detriment of performance and results. It would be easy to compare the appearance of a Brazilian team made up of a growing number of blacks and mulattoes with that of Argentine, German, Hungarian or English football.”
Filho added: “The Brazilians had a lot of pride and a good physique, but they improvised too much and were spontaneous. On the other hand, Europeans had self-control and a high culture.” Four years later, a black 17-year-old prodigy and a mixed-race magician would help Brazil lift their first World Cup.
Brazil in the World Cup by Jon Cotterill is available to buy now
