December 27 – Fiasco da Gama
THE CHAOTIC world of Brazilian football was outdoing itself today in 2000 when a re-jigged season, designed to protect the country’s biggest teams from the ignominy of relegation reached it’s climax with minnows Sao Caetano taking on the mighty Vasco da Gama for the national championship.
In order to safeguard the bigger teams from the drop the Brazilian league had a year earlier introduced a system where teams were relegated on a two-season rolling basis, but Botafogo, most famous for being Garrincha’s former stomping ground, found themselves in danger of the drop.
The Rio club responded by heading to the courtroom, where they complained that Sao Paulo had fielded a player with a false birth certificate. They won their case, and sent down Vasco da Gama instead.
Vasco were next to call in the lawyers, having the decision overturned by the civil courts, but this resulted in a ban from Fifa, who refuse to recognise teams that appeal outside their legal jurisdiction. Confused? Thought so, this makes the Carlos Tevez affair look clear-cut.
This all left the Brazilian federation in a bit of a pickle. Wanting to keep everyone happy, they organised a one-off trophy to replace the 2000 league season. The Copa Joao Havelange was a complicated, lengthy tournament that was open to clubs from the top four divisions.
Sao Caetano had only been established 11 years earlier and after finishing as runner-up in the Second Division that season they made it through to the knock-out stage of the new national championship and eventually reached the final.
Their opponents were, fittingly, none other than the same Vasco da Gama side that had helped create the whole mess in the first place. Led by Brazilian talisman Romario, Vasca played out a 1-1 draw in the first leg today in 2000. The second leg had to be abandoned when a non-fatal crowd crush occurred and Vasco would go on to win the replayed match 3-1.
Sao Caetano had done enough to earn a place in the top flight for the next season and would supersede their 2000 achievements by reaching the final of the 2002 Copa Libertadores, where they would lose out to Paraguay’s Olimpia.
Tragedy struck the Azulao in 2004 when defender Serginho collapsed on the pitch in a game against Sao Paulo and died from a pre-existing heart condition. The club had known about the condition but played him anyway and as a result were docked 24 points and within two seasons they had been relegated back down to the Second Division.
See highlights of Sao Caetano’s Libertadores clash with Olimpia below and see who else was being robbed today here. We’ll be back with some more action tomorrow, so don’t go working too hard.
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