{"id":107,"date":"2014-06-07T13:03:53","date_gmt":"2014-06-07T13:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.icons.com\/news\/?p=107"},"modified":"2024-07-17T13:55:35","modified_gmt":"2024-07-17T13:55:35","slug":"the-greatest-sides-never-to-win-the-world-cup-brazil-1982","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.icons.com\/news\/2014\/06\/07\/the-greatest-sides-never-to-win-the-world-cup-brazil-1982\/","title":{"rendered":"The Greatest Sides Never To Win The World Cup: Brazil 1982"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who cares about the also-rans? Nobody remembers the losers, right? Wrong. They do when they were as talented as… Brazil 1982.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Icons-Memorabilia\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Why were Brazil great in 1982?<\/h1>\n

If \u2018Joga Bonito<\/em>\u2019 was established by the Brazilian World Cup-winning side<\/a> of 1970, the team that manager Tele Santana assembled twelve years later cultivated it. The players loved the ball and the ball loved them back. Every touch was a caress. Every pass was played with such delicate precision.<\/p>\n

The sublime samba skills of Zico, Eder, Socrates<\/a>, Junior and Falcao were stunning to behold. This was pure footballing nirvana: silky smooth passing and movement interspersed with fancy flicks, spectacular long range strikes, and perfectly executed, curling free-kicks.<\/p>\n

1982 World Cup
\n<\/strong>Initially, Brazil looked unstoppable playing some heaven-sent football based around the beguiling ethos: you score two, we\u2019ll score three. In the first group stage they toyed with the opposition and scored for fun, netting ten times in their games against the Soviet Union, Scotland and New Zealand. The second phase saw them drawn in the ultimate \u2018Group of Death<\/em>\u2019 alongside Argentina<\/a> and Italy<\/a>, only the winner progressing. After a sumptuous 3-1 demolition of the defending World Cup holders, it came down to an all or nothing match up with the Italians.<\/p>\n

What went wrong?<\/h1>\n

Because of the better goal difference, Brazil only needed a draw against Italy in the final group game. Even back then, most managers would have adjusted their game plan accordingly, particularly against a team like Italy that had a counterattacking philosophy to begin with. But manager Santana didn\u2019t believe in that. Brazil did their thing. And while the romantic in you says it was right to do so, the fact is that it cost them the game. And with that the World Cup.<\/p>\n

In perhaps the greatest World Cup match of all-time against Italy they went behind three times to strikes by Paolo Rossi. Despite scoring two stunning goals through Socrates and Falcao, and needing only a draw to reach the semi-finals, it was too high a mountain against a well-organised defence. Brazil went out, and the world wept.<\/p>\n

What happened next?<\/h1>\n

Zico called that game against Italy \u201cthe day football died.\u201d As far as his vision of football is concerned, he was correct.<\/p>\n

Brazil began soul-searching again, divided between those who wanted a more European-style game and those who believed they should stick to Santana\u2019s vision. They would oscillate between the two. Four years later Santana would return on the World Cup, together with much of the ’82 team. But by that stage they were a spent force.<\/p>\n

At the 1986 World Cup a new South-American star was born, but he didn\u2019t play for the Brazilian team. His name? Diego Maradona<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Other posts in this series:<\/em>
\nHungary 1954<\/a>
\nPortugal 1966<\/a>
\nHolland 1974<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who cares about the also-rans? Nobody remembers the losers, right? Wrong. They do when they were as talented as… Brazil 1982. Why were Brazil great in 1982? If \u2018Joga Bonito\u2019 was established by the Brazilian World Cup-winning side of 1970, the team that manager Tele Santana assembled twelve years later cultivated it. The players loved… <\/p>\n

Read More<\/i><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[335],"tags":[120,166,9,73,123,165,121,167,18,122],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","tag-120","tag-autograph","tag-brazil","tag-italy","tag-rossi","tag-signed-memorabilia","tag-socrates","tag-sports-memorabilia","tag-world-cup","tag-zico"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfQcey-1J","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":911,"url":"https:\/\/www.icons.com\/news\/2016\/09\/08\/get-free-delivery-on-all-pele-signed-memorabilia\/","url_meta":{"origin":107,"position":0},"title":"Get Free Delivery On All Pele Signed Memorabilia!","author":"Icons.com","date":"September 8, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"All throughout this week we at Icons.com have been celebrating the extraordinary life and astonishing career of Brazilian football's biggest and most iconic name: Pel\u00e9. 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We are giving you 5 reasons what made the 1970 FIFA World Cup\u2122 Brazil team so special. #1: Revenge for 1966\u00a0FIFA World Cup\u2122\u00a0 The 1966 FIFA World Cup\u2122 had been a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Why We Love"","block_context":{"text":"Why We Love","link":"https:\/\/www.icons.com\/news\/category\/why-we-love\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"1970-World-Cup-Brazil-squad-is-the-greatest-team-of-all-time","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.icons.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/1970-World-Cup-Brazil-squad-is-the-greatest-team-of-all-time.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.icons.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/1970-World-Cup-Brazil-squad-is-the-greatest-team-of-all-time.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.icons.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/1970-World-Cup-Brazil-squad-is-the-greatest-team-of-all-time.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":104,"url":"https:\/\/www.icons.com\/news\/2014\/06\/12\/we-predict-the-2014-fifa-world-cup\/","url_meta":{"origin":107,"position":2},"title":"We Predict… The 2014 FIFA World Cup","author":"Icons.com","date":"June 12, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"It's that time again. 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Nobody remembers the losers, right? Wrong. They do when they were as talented as... Hungary 1954. Why were Hungary great in 1954? Despite the nation being ravaged by World War II, Hungary's footballers became the gold standard in Europe. Between 1945 and 1950 they went\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Miscellaneous"","block_context":{"text":"Miscellaneous","link":"https:\/\/www.icons.com\/news\/category\/miscellaneous\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Hungry","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.icons.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Hungry.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.icons.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Hungry.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.icons.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Hungry.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icons.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icons.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icons.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icons.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icons.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.icons.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3310,"href":"https:\/\/www.icons.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions\/3310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icons.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icons.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icons.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}