Soccer in Sun and Shadow

Barbosa

When it was time to select the best goalkeeper of the 1950 World Cup, journalists voted unanimously for the Brazilian Moacyr Barbosa. Without a doubt, Barbosa was the best keeper in the country, a man with springs in his legs whose calm self-assurance filled the entire team with confidence. He continued to be the best until he retired years later when he was in his forties. Over such a long career, who knows how many goals Barbosa blocked, and he never hurt a single striker.

But in that final match in 1950, the Uruguayan attacker Ghiggia surprised him with a bull’s-eye from the right wing. Barbosa, who had come forward, leaped back and his fingers grazed the ball as he fell. He got up convinced that he had knocked the shot away and found the ball in the back of the net. That was the goal that left Maracanã Stadium dumbstruck and crowned Uruguay as champions.

Years went by and Barbosa was never forgiven. In 1993, during the qualifiers for the World Cup in the United States, he wanted to wish the Brazilian players well. He went to visit them at their training camp and those in charge would not let him in. By then he was dependent on the generosity of his sister-in-law, living in her home with nothing but a miserable pension. Barbosa commented: “In Brazil, the most you can get for any crime is thirty years. For forty-three years I’ve been paying for a crime I did not commit.”