Taca de Ouro. 40 teams started the marathon and after the first phase they were reduced to 32 – 12 teams were out, continuing in Taca de Prata and 4 teams joined the tournament, qualifying from Taca de Prata, 8 groups of 4 teams each, the top two qualifying to the next round and the lower two done with competition for this season. Out were:
Cruzeiro, Comercial (Campo Grande), Ponte Preta,
Internacional, Uberaba,
Vila Nova,
Campo Grande,
Bahia, Americano,
Tiradentes,
Sergipe,
Botafogo (Rio de Janeiro), America (Natal), Botafogo (Ribeirao Preto), Rio Negro.
Fluminense.
Third phase – same structure: 4 groups of 4 teams each, the top two qualifying to the ¼ finals. Eliminated at this stage were:
Palmeiras, Nautico, Colorado, America (Rio de Janeiro),
Gremio,
Ferroviaria, Guarani, and
Corinthians.
Quarter-finals. Here the messy rules played a role… away goals did not count, but earlier record qualified one team at this stage:
Sao Paulo was eliminated by Atletico Paranaense after 1-2 and 1-0. What made Atletico the winner is simply a mystery…
Goias was out on ‘earlier record’ – their clash with Santos resulted in two ties: 0-0 and 2-2. Goias scored 2 away goals – and was out. Santos had better record in the previous phase. No controversy in the other two quarter-finals.
Vasco da Gama was out after 1-2 and 1-1 against Flamengo, and
Sport was most clearly outplayed by Atletico Mineiro – 0-0 and 1-4.
Semi-finals and rules again… combined goal-difference was not decisive factor in case the opponents won one leg each and tie-breaker had to be played. Sometimes… at least, that was the case in the final of Taca de Prata – but not here.
Atletico Paranaense lost the first leg against Flamengo 0-3, but won 2-0 at home. And was out – which is easily understood, but since they reached this stage thanks to some other rule and generally combined goal-difference did not matter… why at this stage and, seemingly, at this stage only? At least the other semi-final was plain.
Atletico Mineiro lost the first leg to Santos 1-2 and was unable to win at home – 0-0.
Thus, Santos and Flamengo reached the final of the championship. Weird rules to the end… two-legged final, but here combined goal-difference counted. Did not count in Taca de Prata, but here it did. As for the finalists, one can wonder too – Santos participated in the tournament only because of ‘historic ranking’. By administrative fiat, not on merit. They qualified to the semi-finals thanks on ‘better record in the previous stage’. Again, not on merit. Flamengo reached the final on combined goal-difference, which did not always apply as a tie-breaker, but even so, Flamengo reached the final fairly. Fair, but since a final table was made after each tournament, there was still something strange: Santos accumulated more points than Flamengo during the season. Flamengo had a chance to get ahead, of course – Santos had only 1 point more – but did not.
Santos won the home leg 2-1 – Pita and Serginho scored for them and Baltazar for Flamengo. The second leg in Rio de Janeiro was all Flamengo, however – 3-0. Zico, Leandro, and Adilio scored. One victory to each finalist… which led to third match in Copa Libertadores, Taca de Prata, and sometimes in Taca de Ouro in the past. But not this year – Flamengo won on the combined goal-difference: 4-2.
Santos lost the final and remained uncrowned – so far, unable to win the national championship. Hard to judge, though… on one hand, Santos was ‘helped’ and it was good to see justice restored at last. On the other hand, they were the best team during the long weird championship – at least the most successful, finishing with most points – 36 – from 13 wins, 10 ties, and losing only 3 matches. With Paulo Isidoro, Serginho, Marcio, and Pita they had strong team – as strong as any other of the leading Brazilian teams, for none had more than 4-5 big stars in their roster. Good as any, for Corinthians with Socrates, Sao Paulo with Renato and Careca, and Gremio, currently at the top of the world, did not go very far. Overall, Santos did very well – very well, but lost the title.
Flamengo won its 3rd title. Thus, the most popular Brazilian club climbed on top, equalizing the record of Internacional (Porto Alegre). But Inter lost its edge a few year ago and now was the true time of Flamengo – they won their first Brazilian title in 1980, the second in 1982, and continued their strong spell in 1983. Most likely they had the best squad at this time – Zico, Junior, Leandro, Mozer, Raul, Baltazar. They did not need outside help like Santos, yet… Santos ended with more points than them this year. One can always doubt Brazilian football… that was the time when all talk was about Corinthians, led by Socrates. All talk, but Flamengo was winning and Corinthians was not reaching even semi-finals. Zico was true king and it was nice to see him champion. Cold statistics were in favour of the ‘White Pele’ – 3 titles. The real Pele had 0. Socrates – 0. Garrincha – 0. It was different at the bench, though – Flamego won three titles in 4 years, but with 3 different coaches. So far, the most successful coaches were not at the helm of Flamengo – Minelli was leading with three consecutive titles (1975 and 1976 with Inter and 1977 with Sao Paulo), followed by Brandao (twice with Palmeiras – 1972 and 1973) and Andrade (1979 with Inter and 1981 with Gremio). None of the Flamengo winning coaches repeated his success – neither with Flamengo, nor with any other club (Coutinho – 1980, Torres – 1982, Parreira – 1983). It looked like the players were the real driving force. Zico. Unfortunately, money was elsewhere… and the stars were going to Europe. Soon Zico was going to play for Italian Udinese. What a predicament… not worth playing for champions, better join rather lowly Italian club.