June 5 – You Say Potato… | On This Football Day

June 5 – You Say Potato…

BRAZILIAN goalkeepers are funny breed. In a nation renowned for producing the most skillful players on the planet, which right-thinking child would want to play in goal?

Perhaps this explains the curious cases of Dida, the man with the weakest jaw this side of Audley Harrison and Barbosa, whose gaff lost Brazil the 1950 World Cup.

Today in 1938 one of the first-ever Brazilian number 1′s was also having a shocker. But, when you have the nickname ‘Potatoes’, what do you expect?

The Brazilian ‘keeper, Algisto Lorenzato to his parent, was dubbed Batatais, which is Portuguese for potato he chipped in with a performance that nearly cost his side a spot in the World Cup quarter-finals.

The Selecao were taking on the Poland in their World Cup 1938 first round match in Strasbourg, France and soon enough it turned into a goal-fest. The Black Diamond, Leonidas, opened the scoring for Brazil and by half-time the South American’s were 3-1 up.

The heavens then opened at half-time and Brazil and particularly Potatoes, found the going somewhat tougher in the wet conditions. Soon enough the contest turned into the Ernst Wilimowoski show.

He soon netted twice as Potatoes’ confidence was mashed and would complete his hat-trick in the 90th minute when he equalised Jose Peracio’s 71st minute goal.

At 4-4 the match, possibly the most exciting this young tournament had ever seen, went into extra time as the two sides continued to trade blows, with Leonidas completing his hat-trick to put Brazil 6-4 up.

Wilimowoski wasn’t finished though, scoring a fourth with two minutes remaining, but it wasn’t enough. The Poles crashed out 6-5, with Wilimowoski making history by becoming the only player to ever bag four goals in an international and be on the losing side.

Our old friend Potatoes meanwhile was dropped quicker than a bag of old spuds for Brazil’s quarter-final match with Czechoslovakia as they would go on to claim third place in the competition. Amazingly enough, we’ve got footage of this 71-year-old match below, so marvel at the old school skills and display and then see what else was going on in football today here.