How Brazilian football hit rock bottom

[Music] even if you don't follow football you probably recognize this jersey it belongs to Brazil arguably the most football obsessed country in the world and definitely the most successful the Brazilian Men's National Team is the only team to have appeared in all 22 World Cups and the only one to win it five times that's how this jersey ended up everywhere and how this team became a symbol of Brazil wonderful [Music] I don't believe it what a go we have just but ask a Brazilian today about this team and you're unlikely to hear much praise it's

not fun to watch it's not entertaining I have very fun memories of like the 2002 World Cup I think it's been down here from there so many things needs to be rethink and I don't see the signs for it right now now Brazil is in a bit of a rut it failed to advance past the quarterfinals in the last two World Cups and Brazil are left heartbroken and since 2022 has fallen from first to fifth in FIFA's rankings but while reporting this story I heard that the problems are about more than just losing so I

wanted to find out what made the Brazilian national team so successful and why Brazilians today are falling out of love with it [Music] all right so if you've seen some of our previous videos about football the animation in this one is going to look familiar in the early 1900s there were already lots of people playing football in Brazil they were forming clubs but only LED in certain kinds of people upper class white Brazilians who could afford to play as unpaid amateurs they played football the proper way with coaches positions and football fields that they kept

to themselves they didn't allow poor workingclass Brazilians most of whom were black or mixed race to play but many still did they help pickup games in streets and empty lots instead with makeshift goals and balls these confined spaces LED them to create a new style of playing in the roots of football in Brazil you had to improvise even to play football this is Eduardo Danto a reporter covering football in Brazil you start to play around with your friends in the street and be creative and try to find solutions to beat your friends in the gam

those Solutions took inspiration from aspects of black Brazilian culture slow rhythmic dribbling moves resembled Samba a Brazilian dance juggling and volley kicks resembled capier a type of martial art popular in Brazil people began calling it Samba Football or the beautiful game Eduardo called it we called Art football here in Brazil That's a term inspired by the work of a Brazilian sociologist who argued that Brazil's mix of cultures and people would produce a more creative style of football that would be distinctly Brazilian in Brazil being a good player is a synonym of dribbling and having skills

and making beautiful goals and all that so that's our Essence but at first the players that embodi this style weren't allowed to play for the clubs meaning they were rarely among the players picked to play for the Brazilian national team which was known as the celosa or the selected here they are at the first World Cup in 1930 where after two games they were knocked out things started to change though when a club named Vasco de Gama won the Rio de Janeiro state championship in 1923 the club included non-white and workingclass players and even paid

some of them their Victory spurred other players to follow their example and by the 1930s most were paying working-class Brazilians to play suddenly these players could make a living playing football and their unique style and talent made them Stars leonitis D Silva grew up in a working class neighborhood in Rio before becoming one of the most prized players in the Brazilian Club League he was nicknamed the rubberman for his elasticity and may have invented this bicycle kick he made the s s for the 1938 World Cup where he scored more goals than any player and

led Brazil to the semi-finals as more workingclass players like him made it onto the clubs and the ca sa more Brazilians got to watch them play by 1950 Brazilians had fallen so far in love with football that they hosted the World Cup Brazil easily made it to the finals but tragically lost to Uruguay it was hugely traumatic and a step back for Brazilian football many blame the cisa's black goalkeeper for the [Applause] loss but Brazil would recover they arrived at the next World Cup with new bright yellow jerseys that match their flag then in 1958

they brought a 17-year-old player from a poor neighborhood in sou Paulo named P he would use this Brazilian style to conquer the football World all right before we get into Brazil's Golden Era I do want to welcome all of you who are new we are search party we cover Sports and geopolitics if you're into that kind of thing please consider subscribing we launched about a year ago and it's been an incredibly rewarding experience since then uh but it's also been quite a lot of work and I'll be the first to tell you there have been

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better help for supporting search party now I want to show you exactly how Brazil won its first World Cup this is the 1958 World Cup final between brazzil and Sweden he plays one short sharp blast in his whistle and the World Cup final is under Sweden style was very common for teams at that time their players are organized in fixed positions to create rigid formations but Brazil uses creativity to overwhelm them they had positions but by trading them and improvising they confused the Swedish Defenders by challenging them head-on with dribbling tricks they create scoring chances

and finish them in style the pops the ball back in and pelle's teenage genius does the rest from outside left provides the cross and here's P's second goal which sealed Brazil's first World Cup Championship for two goal pillow the emotion of the moment is just too much no doubt we'll see him again two more in 1962 and 70 would Mark Brazilian football's Golden Era and by winning with players from all across Brazilian society and with a distinctly Brazilian style they became a symbol of Brazilian identity one of the first for a country that was still

developing yes we are a poor country but we have joy we love this we love the ball we love football and we bring this passion that we have in life to football in a moment of time where people didn't have much joy in their lives because of the social problems in Brazil you had always the national team has Escape we we were winning having an international recognition so that became like a Unstoppable wave but as the sport began to change the s s had to change with it in the 1980s football was quickly becoming a

lucrative business thanks largely to Growing TV contracts clubs in European leagues earned by far the most money and began scouring the globe for players to spend it on naturally they started signing Brazilians and we willing to pay top dollar for one on the cell s after Romario scored the most goals at the 88 Olympics he was signed by a Dutch team then by Spanish heavyweight FC Barcelona for 12 million EUR in ' 89 aldir signed with the Portuguese club then an Italian one for 9 million then a young player named Ronaldo made the Sol s

in 1994 they won brazilian's fourth world cup and even though he didn't play he signed to a Dutch team for 55 million EUR where he flourished he signed next with Barcelona for a world record 15 million then finally to enter Milan for another world record 26.5 million EUR football players were becoming some of Brazil's most valuable exports and business was booming in 2002 Brazil won a fifth world cup with 11 out of its 23 players coming from European clubs at the next World Cup the number jumped to 20 out of 23 and many people began

feeling like they playing more like Europeans in this 2006 quarterfinals match Brazilian players are in a much more rigid and defensive structure than they were in Pal's era and although they displayed the same flashes of creativity they were dribbling a lot less after they lost this game many in the media called it the end of the beautiful game a Brazilian newspaper said that they played without the Brazilian way of playing by moving to European clubs Brazilian players were having to learn European tactics which left less room for creativity Eduardo thinks the Salasar were changing their

style because they had to football became a much more physical sport so like you don't have much space to create anymore if you watch the matches like P The Defenders are really hard on him but he had space to run to dribble it sounds like if Brazil was to suddenly play like P did it just it simply wouldn't work anymore I don't think anybody can play like that while the celosa moved away from a distinct Brazilian style its players spent less time in Brazil brail in the 2010s European clubs began signing players as early as

18 years old leaving only a year or two for Brazilian fans to see them play there once they made the cell they were often world famous but Brazilians didn't feel quite the same connection you have that identification but you don't have that bond that forms when you see the player many many times in the stadium and you cheer for him these changes were driven by the globalization of football and were in many ways out of Brazil's control the problem was the celosa were losing they lost in the quarterfinals of the 2010 World Cup then in

2014 while hosting the tournament this happened he G through Germany score it's exactly what Brazil was dreading everyone in Brazil remembers when they were another one here so he was just like go and go and go it's all over Brazil are being humiliated and I was I was be like oh my God what is happening here now they have got seven scammer him I was so mad that I started to scream at the TV Oscar he's got a goal It's Brazil 1 Germany 7 and I have never seen a goal less celebrated in my life

my wife she was so scared that she never wanted to talk about football anymore it's a humiliation it was almost the worst defeat in World Cup history and it happened to of all teams Brazil in Brazil it's like the trauma that really crystallize this feeling of distancing yourself from the national team many fans drifted further away after Brazil was knocked out of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups but their feelings aren't just about these losses today the celisa don't have many players that play in Brazil and they don't play a style that many feel is

uniquely Brazilian that distinct identity is what many fans Miss I think that team has lost it you know Collective spirit that they had this joab Bonito like they had an amazing capability that you do not see anymore on the like the current players I never thought me that sense that we lost something but I I believe yes that that we did now the celosa are in danger of becoming a symbol of Brazil's divisions bad times in Brazil a political crisis drags down the economy it's been described as the world's biggest corruption Scandal over the past

decade Brazil has struggled through several economic crises and it's contributed to a grow political divide there in 2018 they elected a far-right politician named Jer balsero who many feel unfairly used the iconic yellow Jersey as a symbol of this movement now it's seen by many as divisive support for bonaro by some celosa players pushed the team further into the political divide bringing fans back will be difficult but it is possible the salosa might just need a spark maybe a new player a beautiful goal or best of all a win all right everyone thanks so much

for watching episode 14 uh I want to especially thank the fans that responded to the survey and the ones who let me interview them thank you for your time uh I'd want to do that more so keep an eye out on the community tab for future stories I may ask some of you to talk to me and help me understand your country your sports team uh your sport a little bit better other than that please keep watching keep commenting keep sending me story ideas and if you're new here please consider subscribing we also have memberships

all the information you need is in the description below we're going to move on in 2 weeks to the next biggest sports event this year and that's the Olympics so look out for two Olympic videos uh the first one's coming about two weeks and then the other ones two weeks after that uh all right everyone thanks so much see you soon