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One year on: Fred’s plight with Brazil

By on December 3, 2015

There has only ever been one man to play in a World Cup final at the Maracana and watch another.  Alcides Ghiggia, who sadly passed away over the summer, scored the winning goal in Uruguay’s famous Maracanaço win over Brazil in the 1950 World Cup final, and was the only player that day who was still around to witness the next World Cup in Brazil. At the age of eighty-seven, the late Ghiggia gave an interview to FIFA ahead of the World Cup in 2014, and joked: “What I always say is that only three people have ever been able to silence the Maracana: the Pope, Frank Sinatra and me.”

Ghiggia’s goal symbolized the single greatest moment of shame in Brazilian sporting history, and only in an attempt to exorcise those demons sixty-four years later did any capitulation of Brazil’s national team come close to matching the heartbreak of a loss in the World Cup final on home soil.  It was a loss in the World Cup semifinals for the Selecao this time around, and it was Fred whose career was scythed apart in one devastating blow.

Yet this loss was just as devastating for Brazil not in itself, but the ruthlessness and humiliation of Germany’s seven 7-1 demolition of Luiz Scolari’s men.  Fred was the scapegoat and bore the brunt of the blame and fury, however broadly the recriminations should have extended.

To gauge exactly the extent of the vehement hatred that stemmed Fred’s way, many months later a different Brazilian footballer by the nickname of Fred appeared for the national team in a friendly match with Honduras. When his name was announced at the stadium in São Paulo, boos rang across the ground, having mistaken the Shakthar Donestk midfielder for his namesake.

It’s hard to remember, however, that Fred was completely hapless to avoid his fate.  Not just because of Brazil’s suicidal defending that night, but because of another major tournament fixture at the Maracana just a year prior.

Those in the lower rows of section 102 at the newly renovated Maracana stadium were lucky enough to celebrate with their heros not once, but twice on a hot summers’ night in late June, 2013.  It was the Confederations Cup final and a bright, young Brazilian side caught Spain on the wrong foot within five minutes of the opening whistle.  Fred, in classic poachers’ style, poked the ball into the back of the net after falling to the ground in a jumble of bodies on the goal line.  Neymar and Fred, the star’s “straight man,” wheeled away, over the advertising boards and into the stands.

On the brink of the half, Neymar bagged another and leapt into the same spot in the stands.  It was Fred who wrote his name in Brazilian history books with a third on the other side of halftime, a cool, low finish into the bottom right corner from the edge of the area.  He won the Silver Boot at the tournament with four goals, as well.  This was a Brazil team who believed they could win the World Cup the following summer.  During their national anthem, FIFA only played he first part but the stadium emphatically continued onto the second chorus a capella.

Over the course of the winter, however, the cracks started to appear due to Neymar’s strained fitness.  The hype surrounding Fred somewhat died down as he returned to club football in Brazil and by the World Cup the following summer, Brazil’s front-line looked shaky.  After edging through the group stages, the critics were into Fred.  “If Brazil go far, it will be in spite of Fred, not because of him,” they said.

With just one goal in their first five matches leading into the Semifinals, things took a sour turn for Brazil as Neymar suffered an injury.  Without their main man, Fred looked lost and stranded up front.  Every touch of his was booed and when he was hauled off in the second half, his fate was sealed.

Perhaps he was set up to fail.  On the club level, he is a good player but pales in comparison to many stars on show at the World Cup.  His back-up a the World Cup, Jo, is now plying his trade in the Middle East during the prime of his career.  Even Fred’s nickname sounds ordinary and out of place next to Brazilian greats such as Ronaldinho, Pele, Neymar, Rivaldo and Socrates.

He has scored some brilliant goals and his production rate still hasn’t fallen for Fluminense in Brazil’s too division, but that World Cup semifinal revealed truly how much he relied on Neymar to ever reach the heights of the Confederations Cup final in 2013.

Back in 1950, Moacir Barbosa, the goalkeeper blamed for Ghiggia’s goal, was perhaps the most affected by the loss. Others appeared in Brazil’s World Cup winning squads of 1958 and 1962, but not Barbosa. They say the Brazilian Football Confederation didn’t allow him to commentate on future games and he was turned away from watching their training sessions. “Under Brazilian law, the maximum sentence is 30 years,” he famously said shortly before his death in 2000. “But I have served 50.”  Fred is only a year into his sentence, but how long that year has been.

Photo credit: By Tânia Rêgo/ABr [CC BY 3.0 br (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/br/deed.en) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.