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.