Why Brazil is Brazil?

This might be my favorite post with skillful goals. It explains why Brazil got that stereotyping of skills, beauty and dancing samba in football.These goals are from the old Brazilian generation, scored in local leagues, so most of them not famous at all outside Brazil. However, the players themselves are mostly most famous Brazilian players from the 70s and early 80s.

Let's start by Jairzinho, who starred in 1970 and 1974 WCs


Next is Nelinho who scored one of best goals in 1978 WC



Falcao, who was a superstar in 1982 WC scored this wonderful goal in 1976 in Brazilian semi-final in last second



Everyone knows Zico, a nice peice of skills in 1982 with Flamengo



What about Rivelino? He is the first one to invent the flip-falp, not Ronaldinho



Reinaldo played 1978 WC, but was out of shape. He supposed to be the new Pele but a bad knee injury ended his career early



I don't know this player, but it is from 1989 season, worth enjoying


You can't talk about Brazilian football with mentioning freekicks
this goal is from Eder in 1981 game (watch at second 50). For me he was better in free kicks than Roberto Carlos



Finally, Dr. Socrates who started his football career at 26 and was famous by his back heel skills. This video shows some of his heel skills and much more.

Football Karate

Even if you aren't a football fan, you must have seen the picture in the left for Zizo headbutt.
If you follow football daily, you might heard about Totti disgusting tackle and red card yesterday.
But, almost no one knows the picture in the bottom.
It is one of the funniest / ugliest incidents in Saudi league involving Rivelino (in white shirt) almost 28 years ago.

Totti red card:


This tackle was yesterday in the Italian cup final of Inter-Roma (1-0). The other player was Mario Balotelli,
an Italian striker originally from Ghana famous by Super Mario. God only knows what did he do or say to Totti, who is 14 years older than him. Not that Totti record is clean, but Balotelli record is so dirty. He just had a bad incident in the Semi Final vs. Barca two weeks ago. He gave a finger to Inter fans and threw his shirt in the ground. Matterazzi attacked him in the player tunnel that created so much criticism on Inter.

Rivelino red card:

Now, let's go 28 years ago, almost in 1978 or 1979 to Saudi field, in a game between Hilal and Ittihad, and let's watch the chase:



For clarification, Rivo (as Saudis used to call him) is in the white shirt chasing "Saad Break", a right back from Ittihad in the yellow one.

Now, let me analyze that:
- Zizo headbutt: press kept speculating a lot on what Matterazzi said to Zizo. Matterazzi had a black history, and a black future before/after this headbutt. So, apprantly, he said something too aweful to Zizo.


- Totti red card: Baletolli is following his teammate Matterazzi steps in the good manners. He might have said something to Totti that made him retaliate.


- Rivo: Rivo didn't speak English or Arabic. "Saad Break" didn't speak Portugese nor English. There is no way that they both had a conversation of any kind. This leaves with only one communication possibility "Body Language" :)

For the record, Rivo played next to Pele in 1970 scoring 3 goals to win the world cup. He gave the famous pass in the final to Pele. He played in 1974 and 1978 WCs and scored 3 more goals and was a clean player overall. (unlike Zidane and Totti who got a decent record of red cards).

What happened next?
Not sure if this incident happened in the same game, or after, but Rivo did a bad tackle to the exact same player. He was banned for few months on the local league after that, despite the fact he was playing to the most powerful team, that people think the soccer federation favors him.

Rivelino scoring great goals in Saudi

Rivelino played next to Pele in 1970 WC and scored 3 important goals, and in 1974 WC scored another 3 important goals. All six goals were strong shots outside the penalty box, and I don't think any other player did that in the history of WC.

Rivo (as Saudis later called him) came to play in Hilal for 3 seasons starting 1979. He had great memories. He almost depended only in his free kicks and long range shots. He was famous by his swerving kicks.

This was considered the goal of the season in the most famous local derby against Nasr.


Another great goal against same team.
Well, one more free kick against the same team.
Another free kick against Ittihad
He also had bad temper he got suspended for few months after a red card and a fight on that game.