Back in the fifties many Brazilian sides toured Europe and one club who hoped to cash in on the success of the 1958 World Cup winning Brazilian national team was Bela Vista Futebol Clube de Sete Lagoas. They weren’t a big club by any stretch of the imagination though a resourceful Brazilian businessman with an eye for opportunity organised a tour of Europe by Bela Vista in the hope of making some money.

Trumpeted as one of Brazil’s leading and most popular clubs they played 16 games in continental Europe including an opening match against the mighty Real Madrid  which they narrowly lost 2-1. More fixtures in France, Germany, Italy, Denmark and Holland saw them win just two games. Things got much worse when they crossed over into the UK.

Their opening game of the UK leg of the tour saw them get beat 5-0 by Birmingham City. They then travelled up to Newcastle where a crowd of 25000 witnessed a goalfest as the hapless visitors were hammered 12-1. The next two games against Middlesbrough and Sheffield United saw 4-0 defeats for the Brazilians.

By this time word of the exploits or rather lack of them had reached Brazil and the Brazilian FA tried in vain to recall the team claiming they were an embarrassment to Brazilian football. Finally the team returned to Brazil but not before an 8-0 loss at Luton Town and a 3-1 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur.

Finishing with a playing record of P22 W2 D2 L18 with 20 goals scored and 76 conceded, the tour was an abject failure. However the team returned to Brazil as heroes and in their home town of Sete Lagoas were greeted with a fireworks display and granted a parade through the town.

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For the first time in our on-going segment we leave the drizzled shores of England in favor of the rain forests of Brazil.  This week our Vintage 10Shirt is from one of the most storied clubs of Brazil, Sao Paulo.  The kit we have chosen here is a version of the away shirt worn throughout the 1970’s.

Geek Info: The Sao Paolo away kit has stayed remarkably the same for much of it’s history.  Perhaps that is due to the history behind it’s design.  In it’s original founding of 1930 the club was a merger of two teams, Paulistano and Associação Atlética das Palmeiras.  This shirt design is based on this fact because Paulistano’s colors were red and white, while Palmerias’ were black and white.  And as luck would have the combination of all three colors also matches the colors of Sao Paulo’s state flag.

Who Wore It? Pedro Rocha, Toninho Guerreiro, Jurandir, Forlán, Sérgio. (Limiting the list to just players of the early 70’s)

Managed By: José Poy

Accomplishments: 1970 & 71 Paulista Champions, 1975 Paulista Champions

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Rio de Janeiro based club Fluminense have released their third shirt designed by Adidas. The design features a dark red base with a green stripe centrally located underneath the club sponsor Unimed and manufacturer Adidas.

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