Month: February 2022

Green Module – or COPA UNIÃO. Or I COPA UNIÃO – 1st COPA UNIÃO. The bottom line was that the big Brazilian clubs were never happy with the National championship for all kinds of right and wrong reason. That led to constant compromises to somewhat accommodate them, but now a pretext for breakaway was found: it was petty, but depending to whom – Botafogo and Coritiba were left out of the originally formulated national championship of 28 teams. Roughly, the exclusion was based on weak performance, a relegation of a kind. But big clubs cannot be relegated… Botafogo and Coritiba went to the courts and won their case. Back in the top level… which immediately led to many other clubs making the same claim for inclusion. As a result of the mess, “Clube dos Treze” (Club of Thirteen – the 13 biggest clubs) organized their own championship outside the CBF authority. They invited Coritiba, Goias, and Santa Cruz – PE to their championship, making it a league of 16. Note that America-RJ was not invited, but as soon as CBF attempted new compromise, amalgamating the break-away league with their own Yellow Module championship, America blamed CBF for ‘relegating’ them to second tier and refused to participate. Anyhow, the break-away championship was called Copa Uniao – and became the Green Module. There was bitter irony in the name – the ‘unification’ Cup was the tournament of run-aways, who played outside official authority. An illegal championship, technically. But quickly legalized somewhat, only the method of legalizing was found inadequate by the rebels and they boycotted it.
The Green Module was similar to the formula of the CBF’s Yellow Module (or may be it was the other way around – CBF mirroring the rebels in order to bring them back by legalization).
Two groups of 8 teams. In the first stage, Group A teams played against Group B teams.
In the second stage, teams played the other teams inside their groups. Winners of the
groups from both stages qualified to the semifinals.
FINAL TABLE – FIRST STAGE
GROUP A
TEAM Pts P W D L GF GA DIF
1. Clube ATLÉTICO Mineiro (Belo Horizonte-MG)14 8 6 2 0 14 3 11 Qualified
2. GRÊMIO de Football Portoalegrense (Porto Alegre-RS) 12 8 5 2 1 8 1 7
3. Sociedade Esportiva PALMEIRAS (São Paulo-SP) 9 8 4 1 3 6 7 -1
4.BOTAFOGO de Futebol e Regatas (Rio de Janeiro-RJ) 9 8 2 5 1 6 4 2
5.Esporte Clube BAHIA (Salvador-BA) 7 8 3 1 4 6 10 -4
6.Clube de Regatas FLAMENGO (Rio de Janeiro-RJ) 7 8 2 3 3 6 8 -2
7.SANTA CRUZ Futebol Clube (Recife-PE) 6 8 1 4 3 4 10 -6
8.Sport Club CORINTHIANS Paulista (São Paulo-SP) 5 8 1 3 4 4 9 -5

GROUP B
TEAM Pts P W D L GF GA DIF
1. Sport Club INTERNACIONAL (Porto Alegre-RS) 10 8 4 2 2 10 2 8 Qualified
2. FLUMINENSE Futebol Clube (Rio de Janeiro-RJ) 9 8 3 3 2 7 6 1
3. CRUZEIRO Esporte Clube (Belo Horizonte-MG) 8 8 1 6 1 4 5 -1
4. Clube de Regatas VASCO DA GAMA (Rio de Janeiro-RJ) 7 8 3 1 4 10 7 3
5. GOIÁS Esporte Clube (Goiânia-GO) 7 8 3 1 4 5 8 -3
6. SÃO PAULO Futebol Clube (São Paulo-SP) 6 8 2 2 4 7 7 0
7. CORITIBA Football Club (Curitiba-PR) 6 8 2 2 4 6 10 -4
8. SANTOS Futebol Clube (Santos-SP) 6 8 1 4 3 3 9 -6
FINAL TABLE – SECOND STAGE
GROUP A
TEAM Pts P W D L GF GA DIF
1-ATLÉTICO-MG 11 7 4 3 0 7 2 5
2-FLAMENGO 10 7 4 2 1 10 4 6 Qualified
3-PALMEIRAS 7 7 3 1 3 5 6 -1
4-BOTAFOGO 6 7 2 2 3 5 5 0
5-GRÊMIO 6 7 2 2 3 6 7 -1
6-BAHIA 6 7 1 4 2 5 8 -3
7-SANTA CRUZ 5 7 2 1 4 6 10 -4
8-CORINTHIANS 5 7 1 3 3 5 7 -2

GROUP B
TEAM Pts P W D L GF GA DIF
1-CRUZEIRO 12 7 5 2 0 12 1 11 Qualified
2-SÃO PAULO 11 7 5 1 1 14 5 9
3-FLUMINENSE 8 7 3 2 2 7 6 1
4-CORITIBA 6 7 2 2 3 9 12 -3
5-VASCO 6 7 2 2 3 7 11 -4
6-SANTOS 5 7 1 3 3 4 8 -4
7-INTERNACIONAL 4 7 1 2 4 2 8 -6
8-GOIÁS 4 7 0 4 3 3 7 -4
Since Atlético-MG had already won the first stage, the second stage runner-up,
Flamengo, qualified for the semifinal. For winning both stages, Atlético earned an
extra point in the semifinals. Once again one may wonder what that extra point was suppose to mean when the next stage is direct elimination.
Semi-finals
Flamengo 1-0 Atletico MG 3-2
Internacional 0-0 Cruzeiro 0-0 1-0 (overtime)
Final
Internacional 1-1 Flamengo 0-1
Bebeto scored both goals for Flamengo at the final.
Flamengo won Copa Uniao – that is certain. The rest… depends on what one ‘considers’. Again: Flamengo and Internacional did not enter the next stage organized by CBF and technically the new champion of Brazil was Sport (Recife). Which was already technically a Second level team, not even a sole champion of the Yellow Module, but only shared the title and that not because CBF ruled it, by because of private agreement between the Yellow Module finalists. In the eyes of the South American Federation Sport was Brazilian champions, for the Green Module was a run-away championship and also because Flamengo and Internacional forfeited CBF’s affort to amalgamate the rebels championship with the official one. On the other hand: the Green Module was ‘normalized’ and recognized as First Level by CBF. So, Flamengo should have been Brazil’s champion – pretty much the argument for refusing to play some final stage against Second Level clubs. The safest and solid thing to say is that Flamengo won Copa Uniao.
The final table makes only statistical sense and nothing else. There was no relegation, so the table speaks only for the future – this were the 16 teams which were entering the next year’s top level championship plus 8 promoted teams from the Yellow Module. By hook or crook, the championship was normalized.
BRAZILIAN CHAMPIONSHIP 1987 – FINAL TABLE
TEAM Pts P W D L GF GA DIF
1-FLAMENGO 24 19 9 6 4 22 15 7
2-INTERNACIONAL 18 19 6 6 7 14 12 2
3-ATLÉTICO-MG 25 17 10 5 2 23 9 14
4-CRUZEIRO 21 17 6 9 2 16 7 9
5-GRÊMIO 18 15 7 4 4 14 8 6
6-SÃO PAULO 17 15 7 3 5 21 12 9
7-FLUMINENSE 17 15 6 5 4 14 12 2
8-PALMEIRAS 16 15 7 2 6 11 13 -2
9-BOTAFOGO 15 15 4 7 4 11 9 2
10-VASCO 13 15 5 3 7 17 18 -1
11-BAHIA 13 15 4 5 6 11 18 -7
12-CORITIBA 12 15 4 4 7 15 22 -7
13-GOIÁS 11 15 3 5 7 8 15 -7
14-SANTA CRUZ 11 15 3 5 7 10 20 -10
15-SANTOS 11 15 2 7 6 7 17 -10
16-CORINTHIANS 10 15 2 6 7 9 16 -7
And that was all… ‘consider’ Flamengo new champions of Brazil – at the poster says.

Yellow Module – or Taça Roberto Gomes Pedrosa. Organized by CBF in response to the run-away championship of the big clubs – which looks like rival and somewhat legitimate national championship, but further negotiations made it something impossible to make sense of: after the big clubs run away, it was obvious that the teams playing in the Yellow Module were second tier. The effort of CBF to restore its authority on the national championship also made the Yellow Module something like Second Division – teams were going to be promoted to the run-away league and not the other way. But CBF scheduled a final phase for contesting the title between the best 2 teams of the Yellow Module against the best 2 of the Green Module – that equalized the rival championship on the same footing. And when the Green Module teams refused to play such ‘big final’… the winner of the Yellow Module technically became the champion of Brazil – on one hand, the Greens abandoned official stage and there was no other way by to declare Yellow champion. On the other hand, Yellow teams had to play in the Copa Libertadores because the Green Module legally was outside the official members of the South American Football Federation, but CBF was. However, circumstances once again put an obstacle and at the end the Yellow Module had 2 winners, not one. Of course, the Green Module had it own champion and thus the big clubs did not recognize the CBF champions. To say that Yellow Module was the real top Brazilian championship could be rested on the fact that in the official records now stays only a note regarding 1987 Second Level championship ‘not played’ and the same list of Brazilian champions the winners of the Yellow Module are listed. Against that is another fact: 8 teams from the Yellow Module were promoted to the Green Module – going up, effectively, to higher league. ‘Consider’ this championship as you like… at the end.
First Phase. Two groups of 8 teams. In the first stage, Group A teams played against Group B teams. In the second stage, teams played the other teams inside their groups. Winners of the groups from both stages qualified to the semifinals. Trouble started before any matches were played… América-RJ was invited by CBF to join Group B. But the team protested for being relegated to the Yellow Module and withdrew from the competition. Thus, 15 instead of 16 teams participated – but at the very end once again there were 16 teams…
FINAL TABLE – 1st Stage
GROUP A
TEAM Pts P W D L GF GA DIF
1. Clube ATLÉTICO Paranaense (Curitiba-PR) 9 7 3 3 1 8 5 3 Qualified
2. GUARANI Futebol Clube (Campinas-SP) 9 7 4 1 2 9 6 3
3. CRICIÚMA Esporte Clube (Criciúma-SC) 8 7 4 0 3 9 9 0
4. Associação PORTUGUESA de Desportos (São Paulo-SP) 8 7 3 2 2 10 6 4
5. ATLÉTICO Club Goianiense (Goiânia-GO) 8 7 3 2 2 7 6 1
6. Associação Atlética INTERNACIONAL (Limeira-SP) 7 7 3 1 3 5 7 -2
7. RIO BRANCO Atlético Clube (Cariacica-ES) 6 7 2 2 3 4 5 -1
8. JOINVILLE Esporte Clube (Joinville-SC) 4 7 1 2 4 6 10 -4
Tie-braking match for 1st place: Guarani 0-2 Atletico-PR. Atletico-PR qualified to the finals.
GROUP B
TEAM Pts P W D L GF GA DIF
1. SPORT Club do Recife (Recife-PE) 13 8 5 3 0 13 2 11 Qualified
2. Esporte Clube VITÓRIA (Salvador-BA) 9 8 3 3 2 8 6 2
3. BANGU Atlético Clube (Rio de Janeiro-RJ) 8 8 3 2 3 5 5 0
4. Clube NÁUTICO Capibaribe (Recife-PE) 6 8 3 0 5 8 13 -5
5. TREZE Futebol Clube (Campina Grande-PB) 6 8 2 2 4 8 10 -2
6. CEARÁ Sporting Club (Fortaleza-CE) 6 8 2 2 4 5 7 -2
7. Centro Sportivo Alagoano – CSA (Maceió-AL) 5 8 2 1 5 7 15 -8

FINAL TABLE – 2nd Stage

GROUP A
TEAM Pts P W D L GF GA DIF
1-Guarani 10 7 4 2 1 9 3 6 Qualified
2-Criciúma 9 7 3 3 1 8 3 5
3-Atlético-PR 8 7 2 4 1 8 5 3
4-Portuguesa 7 7 3 1 3 3 4 -1
5-Internacional 7 7 1 5 1 2 2 0
6-Rio Branco 6 7 2 2 3 4 7 -3
7-Joinville 5 7 1 3 3 2 6 -4
8-Atlético-GO 4 7 1 2 4 1 7 -6

GROUP B
TEAM Pts P W D L GF GA DIF
1-Sport 6 9 4 1 1 6 4 2
2-Bangu 6 8 3 2 1 8 3 5 Qualified
3-Vitória 6 8 2 4 0 7 4 3
4-Treze 6 6 2 2 2 7 6 1
5-Náutico 6 4 1 2 3 5 9 -4
6-Ceará 6 4 2 0 4 4 7 -3
7-CSA 6 3 0 3 3 2 6 -4
Tie-braking match for 2nd place: Bangu 1 – 1 Vitoria 0-0 overtime, 4-3 penalty shoot-out.
Since Sport had already won the first stage, the second stage runner-up,
Bangu, qualified for the semifinal. For winning both stages, Sport earned an
extra point in the semifinals. And that was another confusion – what ‘extra point’ since the next stage was direct elimination?
Semi-finals:
Atletico-PR – Guarani 0-0 0-0 1-0 in extra time
Bangu – Sport 3-2 1-3
Final:
Guarani – Sport 2-0 0-3. Goals scored did not count, so it was a win vs a win – the second leg went into extra time, which ended 0-0. Penalty shoot-out – and now the the big drama, or the big laugh, but in any case affecting the championship in weird way: when the penalty shoot-out reached result of 11-11, the management of the teams got together and decided to end the penalties and split the title… once again, the clubs had the upper hand over CBF. At first – no big deal: there were still finals to be played against the 2 best from the Green Module and Guarani and Sport already qualified to that grand phase. When the Green teams (Flameng and Internacional Porto Alegre) refused to participate, the question of who should be the 1987 champion in the eyes of CBF loomed again – and hastily another final between Guarani and Sport was scheduled. Again 2 legs, but somehow this final remains a mystery to this very day: apparently, Sport won by aggregate 1-0 – and speculatively, it is considered that ‘probably’ the first leg hosted by Guarani ended 0-0 and the second Sport at home 1-0. Probably. May be.
And on the strength of those last games Sport (Recife) was considered both champions of the Yellow Module and Brazil.
But then promotions had to arranged and that led to a ‘final table’.
FINAL TABLE (doesn’t include the tie-breaking games)
TEAM Pts P W D L GF GA DIF

1-Sport Recife 26 18 11 4 3 27 12 15 Promoted

2-Guarani 24 18 10 4 4 21 12 9 Promoted
3-Bangu 18 16 7 4 5 17 13 4 Promoted
4-Atlético-PR 18 16 5 8 3 16 11 5 Promoted
5-Criciúma 17 14 7 3 4 17 12 5 Promoted
6-Vitória 17 14 5 7 2 15 10 5 Promoted
7-Portuguesa 15 14 6 3 5 13 10 3 Promoted
8-Internacional 14 14 4 6 4 7 9 -2
9-Treze 12 14 4 4 6 15 16 -1
10-Rio Branco 12 14 4 4 6 8 12 -4
11-Atlético-GO 12 14 4 4 6 8 13 -5
12-Ceará 10 14 4 2 8 9 14 -5
13-Náutico 10 14 4 2 8 13 22 -9
14-Joinville 9 14 2 5 7 8 16 -8
15-CSA 8 14 2 4 8 9 21 -12
The next bitter pill to swallow…
America (Rio de Janeiro), which refused to play in the Yellow Module, protesting such ‘diminishing’, was the 8th promoted club. Inyternacional (Limeira) protested in vain… by right, they should have been promoted, but CBF chose otherwise. Again, it was weird – the run-aways did not invite America to their own championship, yet, America blamed the CBF for ‘diminishing’ them by inclusion in the Yellow Module. As a result, they were promoted without playing even a single match – more, they refused to participate, abandoned an official championship. Their position won somewhat, at the expense of innocent Internacional Limeira. The wrong were right and the right were wrong…
And somewhat Brazil had a national champion – or may be two? Since both Sport and Guarani agreed on their own to split the Yellow Module title and that was at the end the only CBF completed championship, perhaps they should have been national champions together… but no. Not in the eyes of the big clubs, playing their own Green Module championship, not in the eyes of CBF, which had to recognize the crooked ‘finals’ as a national title finals…

Consider Sport (Recife) national champions of Brazil in 1987. As you can see by the wording on the picture, for many they were not Second level winners, but champions of First level. Then again… for many they were not and for statisticians the season remains one huge mess.