Michael Batson

The Botafogo area of Rio de Janeiro sits in the shadow of Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf Mountain) and is squeezed between the fabulously named Flamengo and Gloria to the north, and Copacabana and Ipanema in the south. Aside from stunning geography and beautiful beaches Botafogo is home to one of Rio’s most famous football teams, one of the city’s big four. The football club was founded in 1904 but the first sports club there was a rowing club founded late the century before. Some others of Rio’s big clubs also began life on the water like Flamengo and Vasco da Gama (whose full names also reflect their maritime origins), before branching out into other sports, most famously football. Because its exploits began on water, Botafogo became the first sports club in Brazil to be champions across three centuries: first in rowing, then football, and then rowing again. Botafogo FC are also known for the famous players who donned their distinctive colours and for their place in history as having two of their sons managing, one after the other in the same year, the greatest team ever to win the World Cup. All this from the team by the bay in Rio de Janeiro dubbed the Great Fire, the Glorious, and the Lone Star, from the club also known as the Universidade de Futebul, the University of Football.

The club is famous in Brazil (Brazil is the English spelling whereas Brasil is the Portuguese) for the many records it has set: going the most games unbeaten (52), the most unbeaten in the Brazilian Championship (42) both over the same period in the late 1970s, the most number of players to play for the Brazil national team (1094), the most number of players to play in the World Cup, and the highest win margin in a competitive match in Brazil; 24-0 against Sport Club Mangueira of Rio in 1909—a club that perhaps because of that ignominy later dissolved itself in 1927 having existed for just 21 years. Some of those players who donned the famous black and white stripes were amongst the finest to ever play the game anywhere and were instrumental in Brazil becoming three-time winners of the Jules Rimet Trophy. These included the sublime midfielder Didi at the 1958 World Cup; the dribbling genius Garrincha – the first player to win player of the tournament, be (joint) highest scorer and a World Cup winner in 1962; and his successor in Mexico in 1970, Jairzinho nicknamed the “Hurricane” by the faithful at the Maracanã—the first player to score in every match and win the World Cup. They had coaches like João Saldanha who oversaw Brazil qualify for that 1970 tournament unbeaten, a revered football philosopher who faced down a brutal military dictatorship, and Mário Zagallo who in Mexico became the first man to win the World Cup both as a manager and a player.

Botafogo began winning early: the Rio de Janeiro (Carioca) state title in 1907 (Brazil didn’t have a true national club competition until 1971 before which football developed around state leagues), and then again in 1910, 1912, and five more titles in the early-to-mid-1930s some of them consecutively (1932, 1933, 1934, 1935). Their players from these sides provided the Brazilian national team for the World Cups of 1930, 1934, and 1938 with a host of talented stars. Most notable of these then was the famous Leônidas da Silva (known as Diamante Negro the “Black Diamond”), the player who may have invented the bicycle kick (the origins are debatable) first witnessed on the global stage in a match at the 1938 World Cup against Italy, a tournament where he scored seven goals. In 1936 Botafogo started touring, launching a feature that would become a trend for successful Brazilian clubs attracted by the foreign exchange earnings, crossing the continent playing nine games in Mexico and the United States, winning six, losing two and with one draw. From 1939 Botafogo was coached by a Hungarian, Izidor “Dori” Kürschner, a great innovator who introduced into Brazilian football new training methods and tactics including the WM formation. Kürschner had enjoyed great success as a coach in Germany and in Switzerland with the Grasshopper Club Zurich, and his innovations he introduced helped to establish Brazil as one of the world leaders in the sport.

Botafogo play in black and white stripes because one of the club’s founders supported Juventus of Turin, which in turn took their colours from Notts County, one of the world’s oldest clubs. In the 1940s it merged with its namesake rowing club to form the Botafogo Football and Regatta Club or Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas (its full name) but it’s for football that the club is best known. Botafogo are also known as Estrel Solitária (the Lone Star) from the rowing club’s emblem which they adopted at the merger, but are also called Fogo, the “Fire” or sometimes more impressively the “Great Fire” among other nicknames like; O Glorioso (The Glorious One) and Alvinegro Carioca (Rio’s Black and White). Take your pick.

Eight different Botafogo players have been World Cup winners, three of them twice each. The remarkable Nilton Santos, who helped pioneer the modern wingback was one of those double world champions, played 723 games for the club over a 16-year career. Garrincha played 612 matches scoring 243 goals, but the club’s all-time top goal scorer was Quarentinha (Waldir Cardoso Lebrêgo) from the port city of Belem, gateway to the mighty Amazon, a striker usually at centre-forward with a fearsome left-foot, with 306 goals in 444 matches for a return of 0.68 goals per match. Other leading scorers have scored almost at the rate of a goal a game. There was the local lad Carvalho Leite (261 goals in 303 matches at 0.86), Heleno de Freitas (209 goals in 235 at 0.88), Nilo, another local (190 in 201 at 0.94), and Octavio Moraes (171, 200, 0.85).

The club has had famous Brazilian managers. There was Telê Santana responsible for putting together the Brazil teams of the 1982 and 1986 World Cups, probably the greatest teams not to become world champions (the Mighty Magyars aside). Former player Mário Zagallo, a World Cup winner as player and coach and probably the World’s most successful caretaker manager as he was with the 1970 Brazil side. The man responsible for assembling that World Cup winning team, João Saldanha, a Botafogo player, manager, director, and one of Brazil’s most famous football philosophers. Later came the captain of Brazil’s 1970 winning side, Carlos Alberto Torres, who managed Botafogo twice in remarkably short stints: first for less than a month in 1999, and then for just 10 days in 2002.

The club has won a host of honours throughout its history, at state, national, and continental levels across a multitude of competitions – Brazilian clubs play in numerous domestic competitions (up to seven) across an endless schedule that often sees players go years without a break. Botafogo won the Copa Conmebol in 1993 (Latin America’s short-lived version of the UEFA Cup). The Campeonato Brasileiro Série A and Série B titles. The inter-state Torneio Rio – São Paulo and Taça dos Campeões Estaduais Rio – São Paulo titles. The Campeonato Carioca (Champions of Rio) 21 times, and the cup competitions; Taça (or cup) Guanabara, and Taça Rio, seven times each. The club has moved stadium five times, called six different grounds home, played home matches for a while in north Rio and across the bay in Niteroi (nicknamed “Smile City”) but now call the former Olympic Stadium (Estádio Olímpico) and named for Nilton Santos, home. The site of their former ground, Estadio General Severiano, the first one they owned and once the club’s headquarters, sat in the heart of Botafogo, now bordered by the main thoroughfares to some of Rio’s most famous beaches; the Avenida Lauro Sodré heading south and northbound, the Avenida Venceslau Brás. The club lost possession of the land in the 1970s. The last match played there was on 30 November 1974 and the old stadium was demolished in 1977 with Botafogo moving to another ground in the north of the city. In the 1990s the club reacquired the land building a sports centre which opened in 1992 and a training ground named after one of those famous managers (João Saldanha) and is part of the Botafogo sports club playing basketball and volleyball, among other sports.

They once enjoyed some of the biggest sponsorship deals in Brazilian football but in recent years their financial situation has become dire, suffering a series of crises, and have been reduced to relying on handouts from benefactors for even some basics. The club’s first mascot was Donald Duck but not officially due to copyright, then an adopted dog named Biriba which turned up behind the goal at a match against Bonsucesso and stayed on as the club won the state championship that season with the mascot getting paid the same bonuses the players did; causing much mirth among opposition supporters. These days the club mascot is Manequinho, a urinating boy originating from a replica of the Manneken Pis statue in Brussels that stands near Botafogo's headquarters. The club has been relegated three times most recently in 2020 and is the only club to have won titles in three different centuries, including the state championship for rowing in 1899.

In 1938 the club completed the rebuild of its original stadium, Estádio de General Severiano, out of concrete replacing the old wooden structure. The new stadium was dubbed “the most beautiful stadium in Brazil” held barely 20,000 and was much used before the mighty Maracanã was built over a decade later. When the Maracanã was completed, the first goal to be scored in the new stadium was by Botafogo’s Didi in a match between representative teams from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. After the catastrophe of losing the World Cup final to Uruguay, a loss so severe it impacted the national psyche for over a generation, the first match to be played in the Maracanã was between Botafogo and América CF of neighbouring Tijuca for the Campeonato Carioca.

Botafogo established themselves as a force to be reckoned with when, in 1948, they defeated the legendary Vasco da Gama team 3-1 at home in the Estadio de General Severiano. Vasco had reigned in Brazilian football throughout the 1940s and 1950s, but their memorable achievements were broader, societal, and eclipsed just sport. They were the club that overcame football as the sport of the upper-class white elite and broke the colour bar in Brazil by picking black and coloured players before any of their rivals. The great Vasco team (1944-53) had collected numerous titles and victories: national, regional, and international, among them. They became the first continental champion in the world, when they won the first South American Championship of Champions Clubs, a team so good they were nicknamed the Expresso da Vitória” or “Victory Express”. That team was succeeded by the Super-Super-champions (1956-59) which toured Europe undefeated and winning the Rio-São Paulo tournament. In 1957, they won their first international tournament, the Tournoi de Paris (Santos won in 1961 and 1962, and Botafogo was to win it in 1963), a competition then hosted by Racing of Paris but later was taken over by Paris Saint-Germain and regarded as France’s most prestigious friendly tournament.

It was Botafogo who first challenged the great Vasco team’s mantle as super-champions and the years that followed were marked by victories and idols. From 1957-59 the club was managed by João Saldanha who had been Kurchner’s translator, learning much about coaching from the Hungarian at the same time – Saldanha resigned as coach after the club’s allowed Didi to move to Spain. In 1957, on the eve of the World Cup, the Carioca (Rio de Janeiro) title was won with a historic 6-2 rout over Fluminense with the charismatic Saldanha in charge. The rivalry between the two teams is dubbed the Clássico Vovô (the “Granpa Classic”) and is the oldest football classic rivalry in Brazil dating from October 1905, and the third oldest in Latin America. The Alvinegro (black and whites) team brought together stars such as Garrincha, Nilton Santos, Didi, Quarentinha, Amarildo (Amarildo Tavares da Silveira, a striker who replaced Pelé at the 1962 World Cup, Everton once tried to sign him but instead he went to Milan), Paulo Valentim (another striker) and Mário Zagallo. Zagallo was initially an inside forward but realising the depth of competition in that position, reinvented himself as a winger and went on to represent Brazil at both the 1958 and 1962 World Cups and to manage the national side to victory at the World cup in Mexico in 1970, the first man to become a World Cup winner as both player and as a manager.

Didi played for Botafogo in three spells from 1956-65 with a year at Real Madrid and another two years at Sporting Cristal in Peru in between. Creative, highly technical, a great passer of the ball, a free-kick specialist (he invented the “dry leaf” free-kick later popularised by Cristiano Ronaldo) and winner of the Golden Ball as best player at the 1958 World Cup. Didi was arguably the greatest Brazilian player of the pre-television age, and up to that point probably their best midfielder ever. Later, he returned to Peru to twice manage Sporting (named for Cristal Beer they are known locally as the Brewery Club) and then the Peru national team at the 1970 World Cup where they played Brazil in the quarterfinals in one of the games of the tournament. With these players Botafogo won three State Championships, three Rio-São Paulo titles and served as the basis for the Brazilian team that won the World Cups in 1958 and 1962. Botafogo were Rio champions (Carioca Championship) in 1961 and 1962, rivalling Santos as the two greatest Brazilian club teams of that era with the two greatest players of maybe any era: Garrincha and Pelé.

To be continued ...