Bela Vista (Brazil) 1958 European Tour

[Pete’s Picture Palace]

I recently acquired a lovely pair of press photos featuring our then Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, attending a friendly match at St Andrews between Birmingham City and the visiting Brazilian side, Bela Vista. I was aware of this fixture as I used to have the programme back in the day, but had no idea of the circumstances that caused the tour to happen, or the subterfuge behind Bela Vista.

Firstly, these are the teams they played on the English leg of their European visit:-

29.9.58 Birmingham City
1.10.58 Newcastle United
6.10.58 Middlesbrough
8.10.58 Sheffield United
13.10.58 Luton Town
14.10.58 Tottenham Hotspur

The only result I know is on that website - they lost 1-12 at Newcastle. But the reasons for that become clear when you read that article. Before that, here are the 2 photos:-

PM Harold Macmillan (centre) takes the field at St Andrews presumably with two BCFC officials -


Macmillan meets the Bela Vista manager and their players -



Here's the website, it's well worth a read particularly if you have one of the programmes for this tour or if you were at one of the games (unlikely I know!):-

https://brazilian.report/sports/2021/01/02/the-part-time-brazilian-team-that-sold-out-the-santiago-bernabeu/

Enjoy!

[Flaming Pie]

I remember buying a set of Bela Vista F C ( sounds like that exotic do -it - yourself curry dish that was crap from the 1970s) ) autographs from this tour , thinking there might be some Brazil 1958 World Cup stars in the signed photo. Couldn’t spot any when l checked it! Didn’t log into the story Pete. So l take they were a part-time team from Brazil, who toured Europe and fans thought they were going to watch a top team and they got hammered everywhere they played? I quite like that idea, must have been entertaining to watch . They must have thought they were going to see the next Pele and it was lower League level instead. Someone is selling a set of autographs from that tour on eBay at the moment. Cantona1966. Here it is

[mustard68]

www.10footballs.com/bela-vista-fc-tour-of-europe-1958/

[Tynie Topics]

The story is behind a paywall unfortunately.
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[Pete’s Picture Palace]

The "paywall" was free for a 7-day trial, at least that's what I signed up for.

No matter, basically Flaming Pie got most of it right. This is my summation of the story.

After the 1958 World Cup a shady German agent (Herr Fauszlinger) chanced on this club from the south east of Brazil (Sete Lagoas), who had never won anything in their 32-year history, and knew that most Europeans knew nothing about Brazilian club football so to claim they were Brazilian champions was a safe bet. He fixed a 30-match tour of Europe, including a game at the Bernabeu against European champions Real Madrid, when, despite a massive inequality between the 2 sides, it took a stoppage time goal from Gento to give Real a 2-1 win. They then moved to France and lost to Olympique Marseille 3-1, but some of the Brazilian players and the coach went to the local racetrack and loved it so much they abandoned the tour party, spending their time and money on horses.

Before reaching England, they had matches in Italy, Switzerland, East & West Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands, where they played Blauw Wit of Amsterdam, and while doing so two of their forwards quit and signed for European clubs. So they arrived in England without several players and their coach. But they had given good games to Grasshoppers (1-1), Bologna (2-3) and Hamburg (0-1), among others.

After the debacle in England, where they were stuffed every time, including 1-12 at Newcastle, the Brazil Foreign Minister told them all to go home so as not to blacken the name of Brazilian football still further.

Their record on the tour was: PL 24, W 3, D 2, L 19, F 29, A 74.

The following season they were to compete in the regional Minas Gerais state championship again, but on arrival back home they were given a parade about town, with hundreds of fans lining the streets, and a banner proclaiming "They can talk bad about us, but at least they are talking about Bela Vista".

No such thing as bad publicity, as someone said.

[Tynie Topics]

Cheers Pete, interesting!

The current club of that nae only founded in 1977, so the chancers must have folded at some point.
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