FRANCE 98 – Team Detail

The only country to have played in the final stages of every World Cup, Brazil’s record is staggering – greatest number of victories (1958, ’62, ’70 and ’94), current holders and firm favourites to win FRANCE 98.

Again their squad is impressive but it is the presence of the 21-year-old Ronaldo, considered by many to be the greatest player in the world, that gives Brazil an extra advantage. The importance placed by the country with success in the World Cup cannot be overstressed. In 1962, after their second World Cup success, the then Brazilian president Joao Goulart proudly boasted: “We have neither rice nor bread but we have Pele, Garrincha, Amarildo. And we have the Cup. That is what matters.”

Football first arrived in Brazil in 1894, thanks to Charles Miller, the son of an Englishman from Sao Paulo. Miller organised the first matches in Sao Paulo, with rich, white Englishmen and Brazilians founding the first clubs and regional leagues. The first club formed was Sporting Club Rio Grande, on July 14, 1900, and for 20 decades football was the excusive reserve of the white elite — the poor, be they white, half-caste or black, were excluded.

The Rio de Janiero club Vasco de Gama, backed by Portuguese colonisers, was the first to break this taboo, forming a multi-racial team that won the Rio championship in 1923. Arthur Friendenreich, a half-caste nicknamed “The Tiger” was Brazil’s first national football hero. Born of a German father and a black Brazilian mother, Friendenreich amassed 1,329 goals in a 26-year career.

Football rapidly became the national sport and in 1950 Brazil staged the World Cup for the first, and so far only, time. Brazil dominated the competition but were shocked 2-1 by Uruguay in the final at the giant Maracana stadium.

Eight years later they won their first World Cup, when 17-year-old Pele and Garrincha inspired triumph in Sweden. Brazil triumphed again in Chile in 1962, and for a third time in Mexico in 1970. Players such as Didi, Vava, Jairzinho, Tostao, Rivelino and Pele established themselves as legends during this time.

At the 1994 finals in the United States, Brazil became the first country to win four World Cups when they beat Italy in the final on penalties.

Brazil is the only country to have taken part in every World Cup finals, and in Pele they produced arguably the greatest footballer ever seen.