Tricolor's trip through I̶u̶g̶o̶s̶l̶a̶v̶i̶a̶ 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’s participation in Valencia’s Golden Jubilee Tournament, in Spain. 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 tricolors headed to the Scandinavian Peninsula, where they beat the Solna select team 3–2. With their confidence restored, São Paulo then set off for a country that no longer even exists: Yugoslavia.

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia emerged after World War II and, despite its name, had been a nation not aligned with any bloc since 1948, whether capitalist or communist, during the era best known as the Cold War.

Unconcerned with the international situation or anything of the sort, the tricolors arrived in Belgrade, the country’s capital and today located in Serbia, at the end of July. The club’s first commitment in the land of the South Slavs would be against one of the local big four: Crvena Zvezda – better known in Brazil as Red Star (the other big clubs, namely, 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 tricolors, even with 15,000 people backing them. The newspaper Sportiski žurnal highlighted that the Brazilians played “with great calm and confidence, without wasting unnecessary energy. From the very beginning they controlled the match and gave the impression that, whenever they wanted, they could raise the pace.” And that is exactly what happened.

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

The local newspaper was very generous in publishing only this one image where we can clearly see the São Paulo player’s shorts, lol

In Bosnia

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

With so much buzz, it was no surprise that the stadium was packed: nearly 20,000 people crammed into Koševo (which barely held 15,000) and watched the São Paulo players have to work very hard to stay level with the home team. The Brazilian press – through correspondents – stressed that the São Paulo side ran into difficulties, but behaved like “beasts,” standing out defensively and not letting themselves get dragged into the violent Yugoslav game (or rather, Bosnian).

The newspaper Borba, in fact, states that Željezničar were the better side, that Tricolor were only not beaten 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 by sheer luck and a mistake by the blue team’s keeper – the equalizer came five minutes later, through Mujić.

All in all, the 1–1 draw was a good result, one that in no way shook São Paulo’s European campaign – in fact, the squad was even rewarded with a bonus of 60 dollars (250 new cruzeiros at the time).

After the match, the delegation took a train for a 20-hour trip toward Craiova, in Romania. In this other Balkan country, the team would play against 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.