Casagrande tells how the Democracy banner was created – 12/13/2023 – Sport

Now that the pain in his legs has passed, Casagrande only has good memories of December 14, 1983. It was on that day that Corinthians won the Campeonato Paulista, 40 years ago, in a 1-1 draw with São Paulo, and reached the pinnacle sports of the Corinthian Democracy movement with the then very important state bi.

In exchange for position with midfielder Sócrates – a strategy by Jorge Vieira in the face of individual marking on Doutor –, the attacker touched the ball a lot on Morumbi’s irregular pitch, which is terrible by today’s standards. It wasn’t easy to execute the controls, and the match had many clashes and hard fouls.

“It was a very tough game”, he summed up Sheet the former player, who suffered the hardest of these fouls. In the 32nd minute of the second half, he was kicked in the shin in an unfair move by Uruguayan defender Darío Pereyra, with whom he had been having a strange relationship. The beque was sent off by referee Dulcídio Wanderley Boschilia, and Casagrande had to be replaced, leaving on a stretcher.

The decision, at that point, was undefined, with the score zero. Defeated 1-0 in the first duel, São Paulo had to win to force a third clash. Sócrates, in extra time, received it from Zenon and defined the champion, with an invasion of the field. With the invaders removed, the rival equalized, in the last play, with a header from Marcão, but the title was already black and white.

None of these moves is as remembered as the entry onto the field of Corinthians, a team that had internal votes to decide issues such as training schedules and even the hiring of athletes. The players displayed a hastily made banner with the phrase “win or lose, but always with democracy”.

“At lunch time, it came into my head that we needed to do something stronger for democracy at night,” said Casagrande, reconstructing that Wednesday. “That’s when I looked for Adilson [Monteiro Alves, diretor de futebol], and he told me it would be difficult, it was at the last minute. So, I said: ‘Let’s make a track’. And a journalist from Sheet was next door and gave the idea for the phrase.”

Corinthians was concentrated in the old Hilton hotel, on Avenida Ipiranga, in the center of São Paulo. The team was accompanied by reporter Luiz Fernando Rodriguez, who, in the following day’s newspaper, detailed the black and white preparation for the final. He reported Leão’s complaints to journalists, coach Jorge Vieira’s tight marking against the card game. And the talk about the track.

According to the text, Casagrande initially suggested that the team play with the shirt used in previous matches, with the inscription “Democracy Corinthiana”. Replicas of the iconic model are still produced today, but the National Sports Council had banned athletes from continuing to wear them on the field.

Brazil was undergoing a process of political opening, but was still under a military dictatorship. Corinthians embraced democracy and reaped sporting results, but suffered harsh criticism in defeats, with questions being raised about the freedom offered to the players. Even the fans displayed a banner with the phrase: “Democracy yes, mess no”.

“We spent the entire year taking beatings because of defending democracy, our work principles. Now that we’ve reached the final, it’s time to show that it was because of democracy that we got to this,” said Adilson, according to Luiz’s report Fernando Rodriguez.

“What if we started with a banner talking about Christmas, Democracy, bringing the two together?”, suggested Casagrande. “It’s just that Christmas is a bit of an elitist thing, Casa. Let’s leave for democracy, without Christmas”, replied Adilson.

Rodriguez’s text, then, is written in the first person.

“‘Why not the banner saying win or lose, but always with Democracy’ – I suggest. ‘That’s it’ – agree Adilson and Casagrande.”

“Afterwards, Casagrande thinks about cutting his hair, sees that it’s raining, gives up and goes to his room to ‘watch the Jerry Lewis film’ – ‘The King of the Circus’, with Dean Martin, made in 1954.”