Tricolor's journey through I̶u̶g̶o̶s̶l̶á̶v̶i̶a̶ Bosnia | OneFootball

On this July 1st, still in the World Cup spirit, the Historical Archive dug through newspapers written in the Cyrillic alphabet and brought back the story of São Paulo’s trip to Sarajevo, Bosnia, which at the time was part of Yugoslavia. Check it out!

In 1969, São Paulo went on a major tour of Europe. The trip began with the club taking part in Valencia’s Golden Jubilee Tournament in Spain. The Tricolor got off to a good start, beating Germany’s Eintracht Frankfurt 2–0, but in the final the team was defeated by the hosts 4–0.

From the Iberian Peninsula, the Tricolor squad headed to the Scandinavian Peninsula, where they beat the Solna select team 3–2. With their confidence restored, São Paulo then traveled to a country that no longer exists: Yugoslavia.

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia emerged after World War II and, despite the name, had been a nation aligned with neither bloc since 1948, whether capitalist or communist, during the period best known as the Cold War.

Unconcerned with the international situation or anything of the sort, the Tricolor squad arrived in Belgrade, the country’s capital and today part of Serbia, at the end of July. The club’s first match in the land of the South Slavs would be against one of the local big four: Crvena Zvezda – better known in Brazil as Estrela Vermelha, or Red Star (the other big clubs, for the record, were Partizan, also from Belgrade, Dinamo from Zagreb, and Hajduk Split, both from present-day Croatia).

Even though they were the reigning league and cup champions, Red Star came nowhere close to matching the Tricolor, even with 15,000 supporters behind them. The newspaper Sportiski žurnal noted that the Brazilians played “with great calm and confidence, without wasting unnecessary energy. From the start they controlled the match and gave the impression that, whenever they wanted, they could raise the tempo.” And that is exactly what happened.

In the fourth minute, Benê opened the scoring. In the 30th, Babá got his, and almost at the end of the match, Zé Roberto added another. 3–0 – another excellent result on the tour. It was time, then, to head to Sarajevo – which at the time in Brazil was spelled Serajevo.

The local newspaper was very generous in publishing only this one image where we can actually get a good look at the São Paulo player’s shorts, lol

In Bosnia

São Paulo’s great match against the Serbs boosted the Brazilians’ reputation, and the capital of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (then a kind of autonomous republic within Yugoslavia), Sarajevo, was plastered with posters announcing the clash between the Tricolor and Željezničar – which could be translated as Railwaymen (and pronounced “Geliesnichar”).

With so much hype, a full house was no surprise: nearly 20,000 people packed into Koševo (which could barely hold 15,000) and watched the São Paulo players have to work very hard to keep level with the home team. The Brazilian press – through correspondents – emphasized that the team from São Paulo faced difficulties, but behaved like “beasts,” standing out defensively and not being drawn into the violent Yugoslav style of play (or rather, Bosnian).

The newspaper Borba even stated that Željezničar were the better side, that the Tricolor avoided defeat only because of great saves by goalkeeper Picasso, and that the only Brazilian goal, scored by Nenê in the 14th minute of the second half, came only through sheer luck and a mistake by the blue team’s keeper – the equalizer came five minutes later, through Mujić.

In the end, the 1–1 draw was a good result, one that did nothing to shake São Paulo’s European campaign – in fact, the squad was even rewarded with a bonus of 60 dollars (250 novos cruzeiros at the time).

After the match, the delegation boarded a train for a 20-hour journey to Craiova, Romania. In this other Balkan country, the team would play Universitatea Craiova, Rapid Bucharest, and Farul Constanța, but those matches are another story…

ŽELJEZNIČAR 1 x 1 SÃO PAULO07/30/1969. International Friendly: Single Match.Sarajevo (Yugoslavia, now Bosnia and Herzegovina), Koševo Stadium.

SPFC: Picasso; Cláudio Deodato, Eduardo, Roberto Dias and Édson Cegonha; Nenê and Benê; Paraná, Zé Roberto, Téia and Babá. COACH: Diede Lameiro. GOAL: Nenê, 14' 2nd half.

OPPONENT: Vasilije Radović; Fahrija Hrvat, Velija Bećirspahić, Hajrudin Saračević, Enver Hadžiabdić, Blagoje Bratić, Branislav Jelušić, Božidar Janković, Josip Bukal, Duško Bajić, Fikret Mujkić. COACH: Milan Ribar. GOAL: Mujkić, 19' 2nd half.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.