Next up is the shirt of one of the best teams to never win the World Cup – the other ones are generally considered to be Hungary 1954 and the Netherlands 1974. The only flaw of this claim is that this particular Brazil team did not even make it to the semi-finals unlike the other two who lost the final. What is however without doubt that this was the last generation of Brazilians to truly celebrate the beautiful game and they went out in style in one of the most exciting games in World Cup history: a stunning 3-2 loss to an Italy team that barely had left a mark up until then.
In time for the World Cup, Brazil also had a new supplier in Topper, an Argentinian supplier of sporting goods. The shirt is still very much the same as for the 1970 World Cup, this time the yellow returned to its usual color, the green for the sleeves and the collar are a bit darker. The biggest change, however, is the change of the crest, which now displays the Jules Rimet Trophy which Brazil were allowed to retain in 1970. As “luck” would have it, the actual trophy was stolen in 1983 and was never recovered. Brazil still stayed with this crest up until the early 1990s.
This one is an absolute classic, although I am not the biggest fan of the new crest. Still, I wish this style would have been retained in later years. The probably saddest thing about this shirt and of course the players wearing them is that they did not manage to win a major international trophy. Not only did the World Cup not return to Brazil, but they also lost the two-legged final of the 1983 Copa America to Uruguay.
My rating: 9/10 stars.
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