One of the most interesting stories of the 1958 World Cup occurred when the team had to provide blue shirts to play in the final against Sweden. Both teams wore yellow uniforms, but Brazil lost a draw made by the World Cup organizers. The head of the delegation, Paulo Machado de Carvalho, expected the home team to give up their home uniform, but that was not what happened.
The manager ruled out the possibility of returning to wearing white, which was marked by the defeat in 1950. No way! The idea was to quickly get a set of blue shirts. Practically all sources about the 1958 World Cup give the version that the purchase took place in a store in Stockholm. The players themselves and members of the coaching staff, such as masseur Mário Américo, provided the information that had been disseminated extensively in recent decades.
When researching my book “1958 – Brazil is champion” (Letras do Pensamento) I began to suspect that the information could be incorrect. The team beat Franca 5-2, in the semi-final, in Stockholm, on June 24, a Tuesday. Concerned about the “already won” atmosphere, Paulo Machado de Carvalho returned with the players to the concentration in Hindas, located 400 kilometers away. The delegation’s definitive trip to the Swedish capital only took place on Saturday afternoon, June 28, on the eve of the final against the home team. Therefore, it would be unlikely that blue shirts would still be purchased in Stockholm that day.
When the draw was made, the delegation was in Hindas and one of my deductions is that the material could have been acquired in Gothenburg, a relatively large city, 60 kilometers from the Brazilian camp (in this city, Brazil had played against England, the USSR and Wales, one of the reasons why Hindas was chosen as the camp in Sweden).
This week, after a conversation with my friend Cássio Brandão, the biggest collector of historic football shirts in Brazil, I decided to insist on research and, to my surprise, I found precious information in the Correio da Manhã archive. The cover of the June 28th edition has the following headline: “Shirts purchased in Boros”.
The text is signed by journalist Janos Lengyel: “In permanent contact, today [27.06.1958]with the Brazilian delegation, at the Hindas concentration, we learned about all the measures taken by the leadership of the delegation, with reference to Sunday’s match against Sweden. One of them, for example, was related to the purchase of blue shirts for our team which, as our readers must already know, will not be able to play in yellow shirts. (…) since Brazil lost in the draw to choose the shirts. Early in the morning, Brazilian leaders went to Boros [ou Boras]where blue shirts with yellow numbers were purchased. It was not possible, however, to obtain the CBD shields and, therefore, it became necessary to remove the shields from the yellow shirts, so that they could be nailed to the new shirts (…)”.
The city of Boros or Boras was 30 kilometers from the Brazilian concentration, that is, closer than Gothenburg. Apparently, the mystery that lasted decades now seems to be solved. The curious thing is that in the report the journalist asks the following question about the purchase of the shirts: “(…) This purchase of shirts, it should be noted, was not without surprise, as we know that the CBD had blue and white shirts. We just don’t know why they didn’t come with our delegation, so that the case that has now been created could be resolved, free of charge…”.
