Brazil. The most complicated championship in the world… Two levels, which more or less amounts to First and Second divisions, competed for two separate trophies and were named after them: Taca de Ouro – roughly corresponding to the first division championship elsewhere, and Taca de Prata – roughly, the second division. 44 teams played in Taca de Ouro. Two of them had easily understood right to participate: the winners of the championship in the previous years – Gremio (Porto Alegre) and the winners of the second level in 1981 – Guarani (Campinas) – promoted to the first level. The rest were selected by state quotas and previous year records. May be for the first time after the Brazilian national championship was created big club was out of first level, having to play in the second division: Palmeiras, Corinthians. However, there was a bit of mystery as ever in Brazil: Sao Paulo had 6 berths – the most of any state. And here the qualified teams are, filling these berths:
Associação Atlética INTERNACIONAL (Limeira)
Associação Atlética PONTE PRETA (Campinas)
Esporte Clube XV DE NOVEMBRO (Jaú)
SANTOS Futebol Clube (Santos)
SÃO PAULO Futebol Clube (São Paulo)
SÃO JOSÉ Esporte Clube (São José dos Campos)
Corinthians is not among them – according to statistical notes on the championship. But they played in Taca de Ouro.
Rules stipulated relegation after the first group stage – the last placed in every group was relegated to continue the season in second division championship. That meant 8 teams joined Taca de Prata at the third stage of it – or 1/8 finals. Complicated, but comprehensive so far? Mm… Taca de Ouro had 8 groups of 5 teams each at the starting point: 40 teams. According to original state berths – 38 teams, plus the 1981 winners of Taca de Ouro and Taca de Prata – 2, the numbers are right: 40. The final table of the year lists 44 teams. Enjoy the mysteries of Brazilian football – what was the point of winning Taca de Prata, if one could join top level without going that far.
The winner of Taca de Prata is promoted to Taca de Ouro for the next year. Fine. 36 clubs started Taca de Prata, divided into 6 groups. The top 2 of each group moved to the second stage: 4 groups of 3 teams each. Winners of these groups moved to join Taca de Ouro’s current championship in its second phase. Those were America (Rio de Janeiro), Atletico Paranaense (Curitiba), Sao Paulo (Rio Grande), and Corinthians (Sao Paulo). Well, the winner of Taca de Prata would wait to join first level in the next year, but mere second stage winners of the same tournament moved up right away, having a very realistic chance to become champions of Brazil after starting the season in the second division. Funny. But what about the relegated teams – 8 of them went to finish the season in the lower level. Since participants in the top level were selected according to berths given to every state, relegation and final table did not make much sense: those 8 relegated teams could be eliminated quickly in the second level too and still appear in the top level the next year. The puzzle may be solved or may be not… meantime, football was played slowly, almost endlessly, meandering from stage to stage.
Just for informational sake, take a look few of the unlucky clubs not playing in the top national tournaments. In there home states, they were fairly well known and quite strong traditionally – yet, just a small sample of the fantastic number of Brazilian clubs, playing in the state championships, but not able – at least for the moment – the national championships.
Botafogo Utinga
Not to be confused with Comercial (Campo Grande), playing in the second level championship.
Standing from left: Brandão, Nino, Édson, Miro, Nezinho, Lucas.
First row: Silvio, Dorival, Daniel, Guto, Oliveira.
Uniao Sao Joao
Coritiba
Perhaps some ring a bell, perhaps not, but Coritiba (Curitiba) must be familiar name. If Palmeiras (Sao Paulo) suffered in the second level, Coritiba was entirely out of the picture. One may think Brazilian football was beginning to clean itself from favoritism, making first steps to fairness… Better be skeptical.