The history of the Brazil national football team began with the team's first international match in 1914. Brazil played in the first FIFA World Cup in 1930. The Brazil national team has been successful throughout its history, winning the FIFA World Cup five times since the 1958 FIFA World Cup.
History
Early history (1916–57)
It is generally believed that the first game of the Brazil national football team was a 1914 match between a Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo select team and the English club Exeter City, held in Fluminense's stadium. Brazil won 2–0 with goals by Oswaldo Gomes and Osman, though it is claimed that the match was a 3–3 draw. The line-up for that first match was: Nélson I, Pennaforte, Alemão, Mica, Nesi, Dino I, Paschoal, Torteroli, Nilo, Coelho, Amaro.
In contrast to its future success, the national team's early appearances were not brilliant, partly because of an internal strife between Brazilian football associations over professionalism, which rendered the Brazilian Football Confederation unable to field full-strength teams.
Other early matches played during that time include several friendly games against Argentina (being defeated 3–0), Chile (first in 1916) and Uruguay (first on 12 July 1916).
After its debut against Exeter City, Brazil did not play against a European team until 1928, when the squad smashed Motherwell of Scotland 5–0 on 24 June 1928. Other European teams that Brazil played included Hungarian side Ferencváros. Led by the goalscoring abilities of Arthur Friedenreich, they were victorious at home in the South American Championships in 1919, repeating their victory, also at home, in 1922.
In 1930, Brazil travelled to play in the first World Cup, held in Uruguay. The squad defeated Bolivia but lost to Yugoslavia, being eliminated from the competition. They lost in the first round to Spain in 1934 in Italy, but reached the semi-finals in France in 1938, being defeated 2–1 by eventual winners he World Cup. Prior to the match, Brazilian newspaper O Mundo prematurely declared Brazil "the world champions". In one of the biggest upsets in football history, however, Uruguay scored with only 11 minutes remaining to win the match, and the Cup, in a game infamously known as "the Maracanzo". The match led to a period of national mourning, with Brazilian playwright Nelson Rodrigues later saying, "Everywhere has its irremediable national catastrophe, something like a Hiroshima. Our catastrophe, our Hiroshima, was the defeat by Uruguay in 1950."
For the 1954 World Cup in Switzerland, the Brazil national team was then almost completely renovated, with the team colours changed from all white to the yellow, blue and green of the national flag, so as to forget the Maracanazo, but still had a group of star players, including Nílton Santos, Djalma Santos and Didi. Brazil reached the quarter-final, where they were beaten 4–2 by tournament favourites Hungary in one of the ugliest matches in football history; it would become infamous as the Battle of Berne.
The Golden Era with Pelé (1958–70) 1958 World Cup
Brazil was determined to put right their failures in the previous two world cups, in particular the loss in the 1950 final to Uruguay. With substantial financial support from the technocratic government of Juscelino Kubitschek government they prepared for the 1958 World Cup in Stockholm like no other team had before. A delegation led by the team’s doctor, Hilton Gosling, assessed 25 sites in Sweden before choosing a training base in Hindås a resort town near Gothenburg. A scout was also sent to Europe to watch the qualifying matches a year before the tournament was set to begin. Brazil's head coach, Vicente Feola, imposed strict list of 40 things that they were not allowed to do, including wearing hats or using umbrellas, smoking while wearing official uniforms and talking to the press outside of specified times. To reduce distractions the Brazilians attempted without success to have a local nudist colony closed for the duration of the tournament. However they were successful in having all 28 female members of staff at the hotel the team was staying at sent home for the duration of their stay.The players were put through a rigorous fitness regime, while their backroom staff included not only Gosling but also a psychologist as memories of 1950 still affected some players and a dentist. A dentist was thought necessary as most of the players came from humble origins, so there was no desire to have their performance suffer from infections due to the lack of dental treatment.
Brazil were drawn in the toughest group, alongside England, the Soviet Union and Austria. They beat Austria 3–0 in their first match, then drew 0–0 with England. Brazil had been worried about their match with the USSR, who had exceptional fitness and were one of the favourites to win the tournament; their strategy was to take risks at the beginning of the match to try to score an early goal. Before the match, the leaders of the team, Hilderaldo Bellini, Nílton Santos and Didi spoke to coach Vicente Feola and persuaded him to make three substitutions that were crucial for Brazil to defeat the Soviets and win the Cup: Zito, Garrincha and Pelé, who is widely regarded as the greatest footballer of all time, would start playing against the Soviets.
From the kick off, they passed the ball to Garrincha, who beat three players before hitting the post with a shot. They kept up the pressure relentlessly, and after three minutes, which were later described as "the greatest three minutes in the history of football",Garrincha 122. Vavá gave Brazil the lead. They won the match by 2–0. Pelé scored the only goal of their quarter-final match against Wales, and they beat France 5–2 in the semi-final. Brazil then beat hosts Sweden in the final 5–2, winning their first World Cup and becoming the first nation to win a World Cup title outside of its own continent. A celebrated fact was that Feola would sometimes take naps during training sessions and close his eyes during matches, giving the impression that he was asleep. Because of this, Didi was sometimes said to be the real coach of the team, as he commanded the midfield.
1962 World Cup In the 1962 World Cup in Chile, Brazil earned its second title with Garrincha as the star player, a mantle and responsibility laid upon him after the regular talisman, Pelé, was injured during the second group match against Czechoslovakia and unable to play for the remainder of the tournament.
1966 World Cup At the 1966 World Cup in England, the preparation of the team was affected by political influences. All the major Brazilian clubs wanted their players included in Brazil's team, to give them more exposure. In the final months of preparation for the World Cup, the coach Vicente Feola was working with 46 players, of which only 22 would go to England; this caused significant internal dispute and psychological pressure on the players and managing staff. The result was that, in 1966, Brazil had their worst performance in a World Cup. Although they played all of their matches in the same stadium in the same city (the city of Liverpool's Goodison Park), Brazil became the second nation to be eliminated in the first round while holding the World Cup crown after Italy in 1950. After the 2002, 2010, 2014, and 2018 World Cups, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany respectively were also added to this list.
Another perhaps bigger issue was that Pelé, who had possibly been at the height of his career at this stage, was being chopped off at seemingly every opportunity in the group matches. The 1966 tournament was remembered for its excessively physical play, and Pelé was one of the players most affected by such play. After becoming the first player ever to score in three World Cups, with a direct free kick against Bulgaria, he had to rest due to fatigue for the match against Hungary, which Brazil lost. He then faced Portugal, and several violent tackles by the Portuguese defenders caused him to leave the match and the tournament. Brazil also lost this match and was eliminated in the first round of the World Cup for the first time since 1934. After the tournament, Pelé declared that he did not wish to play in the World Cup again. Nonetheless, he returned in 1970.
1970 World Cup Brazil won its third World Cup in Mexico, with the 1970 World Cup. It fielded what has since then often been considered the best football squad ever, led by Pelé in his last World Cup finals, captain Carlos Alberto Torres, Jairzinho, Tostão, Gérson and Rivellino.
Brazil's results in 1970 were as follows:
Group 3 Brazil 4–1 Czechoslovakia Brazil 1–0 England Brazil 3–2 Romania Quarterfinals Brazil 4–2 Peru Semifinals Brazil 3–1 Uruguay Final Brazil 4–1 Italy
They won all six of their games, with all but two of their matches were won by two or more goals. The speedy Jairzinho was the second top scorer with seven goals (he had scored in all six games), while Pelé finished with four goals. Brazil played all six of their matches – with the exception of the final – in Guadalajara, the final being played in Mexico City. As a result, Brazil lifted the Jules Rimet trophy for the third time (the first nation to do so), which meant that they were allowed to keep it, as had been stipulated at the time of the World Cup's inception in 1930. A replacement was then commissioned, though it would be 24 years before Brazil next won it.
The dry spell (1971–93)
After the international retirement of Pelé and other stars from the 1970 squad, Brazil was not able to overcome the Netherlands' Total Football in the 1974 World Cup. The generation of 1974 could not defend their title, finishing in fourth place after failing to achieve victory against a strong Poland team.
In the second group stage of the 1978 World Cup, Brazil was competing with tournament host Argentina for top spot and a place in the finals. In their last group match, Brazil defeated Poland 3–1 to go to the top of the group with a goal difference of +5. In this tournament, Brazil had many challenges on and off the pitch to contend with: for their group stage matches, all of which took place at the Estadio José María Minella in Mar del Plata, which had an atrocious pitch and was very difficult to play on. There were rumors that the Argentine organizers had deliberately sabotaged the pitch to make it nearly unplayable for the Brazilians.
During one of their group stage matches against Sweden, Brazil had scored a goal in the last seconds of stoppage time, but the head referee, Welshman Clive Thomas blew his whistle right before Zico headed the ball went into the net from a corner-kick, denying Brazil a 2–1 victory and leaving them with a 1–1 draw. In the second round-robin phase, Brazil beat Poland 3–1 for the first scheduled game of 21 June, which started at 4:45 p.m. Argentina's match, which started on the same day at 7:15 p.m. went into their final match of that round against Peru knowing how many goals they needed to win by in order to win the phase and qualify for the final match. Although they had the same record as Brazil (1 win, 1 draw) before the Seleção'''s game against Poland, Brazil were in first place in that round on goal difference, having scored two more goals than Argentina. But in its last group match, the Argentine squad defeated Peru 6–0 and thus with the higher second round goal difference of three more goals scored than the Brazilians, the Argentines qualified for the final match, in a match accused of ultimately-unproven match fixing by the Argentine military government in place at the time. The Brazilian team won their third place match against Italy in Buenos Aires, and were the only team to remain unbeaten in the tournament.