“82 A Cup forever”, by Celso Unzelte and Gustavo Longhi, provides detailed research on the competition
The World Cup is part of our emotional memory. Everyone remembers a memorable game, a goal, an emotional narration and where and with whom we watched a game. The competition played in Spain, in 1982, was perhaps the greatest example of identification between fans and the Brazilian team. “I wanted to have been four-time world champion at 14, not at 26. This is how, in a very affective way, I usually summarize my fascination with the World Cup (and the Brazilian team) of 82. A fascination that also belongs to an entire generation, mine, made up of people born between the second half of the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s (…)”, reports Celso Unzelte, one of the most renowned football journalists and researchers, in the presentation of “82 A Cup forever” (Letras do Brasil/2022). The work was written together with Gustavo Longhi de Carvalho, another great researcher: “ (…) The 82 World Cup fascinates many who followed it and many (like me) who got to know it more deeply after it occurred. Therefore, it is a Cup forever, (…)”.In this case, I identify more with Gustavo, as we were five years old in 1982.
The team that competed in the World Cup in Spain is, perhaps, the only one that subverts the perverse national sporting culture, which execrates the losers and does not exalt the winners as it should. The defeat to Italy, on July 5, at the Sarriá Stadium, in Barcelona, by 3-2, did not take away the shine of the team led by Telê Santana.
The country was still under dictatorship, but times were different. That year, the population would go to the polls to choose governors and, two years later, they would participate in the “Diretas Já” campaign. In the midst of the serious Brazilian economic crisis, the World Cup held in Spain generated an atmosphere of euphoria, mainly due to the gala displays of the Canarian team. After two World Cups with disappointing performances (1974 and 1978), Brazil finally played well again. To this day, that team is revered and remembered for its artistic football. Zico, Falcão, Sócrates, Éder, Júnior, Cerezo and other stars were part of the best generation since 1970, the year of the third championship.
Celso and Gustavo’s work transports us to moments of emotion and joy. When we are reading the pages of “82 A Cup forever“, we hope that the outcome of that World Cup will be different, with Brazil champion. However, the text, with accurate journalistic rigor, reminds us that football is capricious and not always the best can win. The book by the duo of journalists is comparable to the monumental “Anatomy of a Defeat”, by Paulo Perdigão, which scrutinizes the Brazilian defeat in the 1950 World Cup, inside the Maracanã, to Uruguay. Another national sporting tragedy.
I close this “Memória da Pan” with a phrase from Celso Unzelte that is in the book: “(…) we, human beings, do not miss things – but, rather, ourselves at the time they happened (…).”
The 1982 World Cup is still being played in all of our memories and I’m sure that, one day, Doctor Sócrates will lift the champion’s cup.
*This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Jovem Pan.
