São Paulo's first trip to France | OneFootball

On a day when France and Iraq are playing in a 2026 World Cup match, the Historical Archive brings the account of the first time a São Paulo team toured French soil (since, unfortunately, the team has never been to Iraq). That inaugural visit took place in 1964, during the famous unbeaten tour of the Furacão Tricolor, which earned Tricolor the Blue Ribbon.

Diário Popular, 7/2/1964.

São Paulo had been on European soil since early May, having first visited Dukla Praha, from what was then Czechoslovakia (and won 2–0). The team had also already been to Dortmund, where they defeated Borussia 3–1. It was time, then, to take on the French.

The first clash in France would be against the Northern Football League select side (Ligue du Nord)—drawing a parallel with Brazil, it was something like a local state federation—on May 20, in Lens. The opponent’s team was made up basically of players from Union Sportive Valenciennes-Anzin and Racing Club de Lens, the two main clubs in the region at the time.

From the very first moment, it was all São Paulo, with center-forward Del Vecchio tormenting the local defenders. Just four minutes in, he received the ball from Bazzaninho and struck across goal to score Tricolor’s first. Three minutes later, this time with a precise header, the striker got another and doubled the lead.

The third goal came in a play involving that same Del Vecchio, in the 21st minute, with a shot from some twenty meters out, probably deflected by Valdir Birigüi. Still in the first half, Masnaghetti scored the home side’s consolation goal. The final 45 minutes were merely to run out the clock.

Despite what was reported by Brazilian newspapers, the third goal in this match was in fact Valdir’s.

From northern France, the tour moved on to Brussels—close by—where the São Paulo side drew 0–0 with a very strong Anderlecht, which featured seven players from the Belgian national team that, a year earlier, had humiliated Brazil with a crushing 5–1 win right there in the Belgian capital. And São Paulo nearly won, as Valdir hit the post...

The delegation then returned via a Sabena Convair to Paris, and from there the group took a train toward the far south, where, already on the Côte d’Azur, they stayed in Le Grau-du-Roi, a coastal village near Nîmes. And, after a training session at that city’s municipal stadium, a curious and regrettable episode took place: the team bus went over a large hole in the road and the vehicle’s luggage compartment opened, without anyone noticing. When they arrived at the hotel, the surprise: a large suitcase had disappeared—probably thrown onto the road by the jolt.

In the May 26, 1964 edition of the local newspaper Midi Libre, the following notice was published: “A suitcase weighing 20 to 25 kilos, containing cups, trophies and other mementos that the Brazilian select side received during the European tour, fell from the bus that was taking the São Paulo team to train at the Municipal Stadium in Nîmes. Whoever finds the object in question on National Highway 113, between Nîmes and Le Grau-du-Roi, will be doing our guests a great service by taking it to the headquarters of Nîmes Olympique”.

Of course, the suitcase was never found and the trophies—whose records themselves remain unknown to this day—were never recovered.

Only five or six thousand people came to Stade Jean Bouin to watch São Paulo face Nîmes Olympique on the afternoon of May 26. The blame lay with the heavy rains that fell on the region before, during, and after the match. Despite the adverse setting, Tricolor had no trouble beating the French side, which fielded a strengthened lineup with two players from Toulouse and one from Monaco. 3–0, with goals by Del Vecchio and Pagão, still in the first half, and Prado late in the second.

The sad note was Benê’s serious injury. In a move in which he exchanged passes with Marco Antônio, the attacking midfielder was hit hard in the right leg by the French team’s center-back. At the hospital, it was confirmed that the player had fractured the fibula in his right leg. He would end up unable to continue the tour with the delegation and was forced to return to Brazil on May 30.

Despite the regrettable incident, a relaxed atmosphere and good humor prevailed among the players. They never missed a chance to have fun at the expense of the rookies from the countryside, Valdir and Sudaco, who had strong rural accents. When a car cut off the group’s bus on one occasion in Paris, everyone burst out laughing on hearing Birigüi yell at the European driver: “Can’t you see, you old clown?”

Sudaco, however, was the favorite target. At a dinner where oysters were served, the inexperienced young man, unfamiliar with such fancy food, was caught off guard. When asked whether the dish was good, he replied: “I only ate one, because it was way too tough, I almost broke a tooth!”

Restless as ever, though, the Tricolor squad soon left France once again and went to face Germany’s Karlsruher, in Karlsruhe, on that same May 30. The story of that match is for another time, but São Paulo won again, 2–0 (with two more goals from Del Vecchio).

From the Rhine, the delegation would return to northern France, as they had arranged a “rematch” with Valenciennes-Anzin. On the way back, traveled by road, an unexpected problem arose soon after they crossed the border into Belgium: the bus broke down. The driver even tried to fix it right there, but no luck. They went to one repair shop, then another... and time kept passing.

“I left Noroeste so I wouldn’t have to travel by bus anymore, and here I am, in the Belgian countryside, stuck with the same problems I had in Bauru,” Leal remarked, to everyone’s amusement.

After a lot of wear and tear—and, of course, a lot of rain—everything was sorted out and, on June 3, the Tricolor players were ready and fit for another clash. With a full house, no reinforcements from other teams, a more cohesive lineup, and all the support of French referee Dhumerelle, Valenciennes proved strong enough to impose a draw on Tricolor, achieved in the second half: 1–1, with the Brazilian goal scored by Bazzaninho from a free kick in the first half.

As the challenges went by and the unbeaten run kept growing, São Paulo’s tour was drawing more and more attention wherever it went. So it was no surprise to see Parc Lescure, in Bordeaux, packed—with more than 30,000 people—to welcome the Brazilians on June 13 for a match against the home crowd’s favorites, Girondins de Bordeaux.

Perhaps the atmosphere itself raised the local side’s expectations too much, and they began the match dishing out kicks and hard tackles, with the referee playing blind, after Prado opened the scoring in the very first minute. The São Paulo players did not take it lightly and quickly responded, both physically and technically, and in the 25th minute they scored again, this time through Del Vecchio. Bordeaux pulled one back in the first half and pushed hard for an equalizer in the second, but that was as far as it went.

Another São Paulo victory: 2–1. Thus, the club left France with three wins and one draw. And the tour remained unbeaten... and would stay that way until the return to Brazil at the end of June.

NORTHERN LEAGUE 1 x 3 SÃO PAULO20/05/1964. International Friendly: Single Match.Lens (France), Stade Félix-Bollaert.

SPFC: Suly; De Sordi, Bellini and Riberto; Sudaco and Jurandir; Faustino, Benê, Del Vecchio, Bazzaninho and Valdir Birigüi. COACH: Oto Vieira. GOALS: Del Vecchio, 4/1; Del Vecchio, 7/1; Valdir Birigüi, 21/1.

OPPONENT: Joseph Magiera (Marcelin Dobat); Enzo Zamparini, Bernard Placzek, Louis Provelli and Wolfgang Matzky; Marc Bourrier and Bolec Kocik; Jean-Pierre Guinot, Ahmed Oudjani, Serge Masnaghetti and Guy Guillon. COACHES: Robert Domergue (Valenciennes) and Élie Fruchart (Lens). GOAL: Serge Masnaghetti, 37/1.

REFEREE: Carette (France). ATTENDANCE: ~30,000 present

NÎMES OLYMPIQUE 0 x 3 SÃO PAULO26/05/1964. International Friendly: Single Match.Nîmes (France), Stade Jean Bouin.

SPFC: Suly (Gilberto); De Sordi, Bellini and Riberto (Virgílio); Sudaco and Jurandir; Faustino, Marco Antônio, Del Vecchio (Prado), Benê (Pagão, 32/1) and Valdir Birigüi. COACH: Oto Vieira. GOALS: Del Vecchio, 36/1; Pagão, 44/1; Prado, 40/2.

OPPONENT: Louis Landi; Charles Poirier, Carlos Monín García, Jacky Novi and Pierre Barlaguet; Abdelhamid Zouba and Salah Djebaili; Paul Chillan, José Del Rosário Parodi Rojas, Hassan Akesbi and Samuel Edimo N’Ganga. COACH: Pierre Pibarot.

REFEREE: Barberau (France). ATTENDANCE: ~5,000 present

VALENCIENNES-ANZIN 1 x 1 SÃO PAULO03/06/1964. International Friendly: Single Match.Valenciennes (France), Stade Nungesser.

SPFC: Suly; De Sordi, Bellini and Riberto; Leal and Virgílio; Faustino, Pagão (Marco Antônio), Del Vecchio, Bazzaninho and Valdir Birigüi. COACH: Oto Vieira. GOAL: Bazzaninho (free kick), 20/1.

OPPONENT: Yvon Clément; Patrice Mayet, Jean-Claude Piumi, Louis Provelli and Wolfgang Matzky; Joseph Bonnel and Bolec Kocik; Guy Guillon, Étienne Sansonetti, Serge Masnaghetti and Serge Breuvart. COACH: Robert Domergue. GOAL: Bolec Kocik, 22/2.

REFEREE: Dhumerelle (France). ATTENDANCE: ~20,000 present.

BORDEAUX 1 x 2 SÃO PAULO13/06/1964. International Friendly: Single Match.Bordeaux (France), Stade Parc Lescure.

SPFC: Suly; De Sordi, Bellini, Jurandir (Virgílio, 30/2) and Riberto; Sudaco and Bazzaninho; Faustino (Nondas, 40/2), Prado, Del Vecchio and Valdir Birigüi. COACH: Oto Vieira. GOALS: Prado, 1/1; Del Vecchio, 25/1.

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