The football family was saddened this week with the untimely passing of Socrates, the Brazilian midfielder famous for captaining Tele Santana’s legendary Brazilian 1982 World Cup team, last Sunday.
Greeks would be forgiven for feeling a strong connection to the great midfielder called Socrates famous for playing in a Sao Paolo team called Corinthians. Socrates passed away from septic shock at the age of 57 after a recent history of liver problems and gastrointestinal bleeding that required four hospitalization in the past three months.
The death of Socrates means that the sport has lost one of its most outspoken critics of pragmatic football that focuses on winning at the expense of artistry and the entertainment of fans.
Socrates will be remembered for being part of one of the greatest midfields the world has ever seen, the fabulous five from the Brazilian National team of the early 80s. Falcao and Cerezzo deep in midfield, Eder, Zico and Socrates in attacking midfield with Serginho as the lone centre forward and pure striker. The football this team produced is now a remnant of a bygone era where freedom, expression of artistry and flair was liberated by manager Tele Santana over the need for formations, tactics and zonal football.
No Brazilian team has ever played like this again and as Jonathan Wilson wrote in Inverting the Pyramid, Tele Santana’s side played “an effortless, fluid game full of deliciously angled passes and fearsome long-range shooting”.
For four and a half games out of five, they were utterly captivating. In total, Brazil scored 15 goals in five games. And almost every one of them was exquisite – from Zico’s inch-perfect free-kick against Scotland to Eder’s chip and Socrates’ pile driver against USSR. When it came to the crunch against Italy, however, they couldn’t rein themselves in. Rather than play out the draw that would have seen them progress to the semi-finals, Brazil kept pushing forward – playing right into a counter-attacking Italian side’s hands. When the Azzurri eventually won 3-2, Zico called it “the day that football died”.
But Brazil 1982’s refusal to compromise their creativity means their legacy will live on forever. Later in life Socrates talked about the much-loved but under-achieving Brazilian national squad of 1982. ”I still travel the world and find out that the 82 team is everybody’s team,” he said. But he said he had only once watched the painful Brazil v Italy match during that World Cup.
The Greek Gods were known to punish the beautiful in jealous rages and football seems to mirror mythology. The 1954 Hungarians, the 1974 Dutch and the 1982 Brazilians are arguably the three greatest teams the world has seen yet all failed in the conquest for ultimate glory. History remembers the winners yet a true testament to the influence and impact of the ’82 Brazilian team is they are remembered and adored by fans all over the world 30 years later when they failed to make the semi finals.
The Brazilians seem to discuss this team more so than most of their victorious teams such is the way supporters like to torment themselves with tragedy. Fans will remember his outspoken criticism of Carlos Dunga and Mano Menezes for making Brazil play European football; his buoyant admiration for Paulo Henrique Ganso; his respect for Neymar; his youthful commitment to the Corinthians Democracy movement in the late 70s and early 80s that established a democratic approach to club management at Corinthians as a form of protest against increasing regimentation in Brazilian football and militaristic rule more generally; his degree in medicine; his love of alcohol and habit of smoking cigarettes; his 172 goals in 297 games for Corinthians; his 22 goals in 60 games for Brazil; and his lifelong commitment to freedom, creativity, democracy, football and art. Socrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira: you redefined the meaning of a sports figure that became a global intellectual and political commentator.
On the soccer field, no midfielder in the history of the game has been able to read the game like you. You were one of the greatest playmakers and creative midfielders in the history of football. Rest in peace. We will miss you.