Mauricio Neves de Jesus

Flamengo hasn't beaten Santos at Vila Belmiro since 1976, the taboo went, repeated in the press year after year. Since 1976, but no one said Santos hadn't played Flamengo at Urbano Caldeira for years.

It was unknown in the taboo history that we beat Santos in the 1980 Brazilian championship opener, with a goal by Zico, in a packed Morumbi stadium. And also at Morumbi, in the 1984 Libertadores, we thrashed 5-0. That same year, at the same Morumbi stadium, in the national championship, we won 1-0, with a goal by Tita from the middle of the street. In 1996, in São José do Rio Preto, we won 2-1, with a goal by Aloísio Chulapa.

But the taboo was about games at Vila, and each year the litany was renewed, recalling a victory in an obscure friendly with an unusual goal by Vanderlei, even then, without a W and without Luxemburgo in his name. So obscure that there is no archive footage, that Luxemburgo himself doesn't remember the goal, and that today, in the television broadcast, the commentator said the game was in 1973 and asked Júnior if he had participated. And Júnior replied no, that he only moved up to the starting lineup in 1974.

Júnior didn't actually participate, but that was because he was with the Brazilian national team competing in the Montreal Olympics. Flamengo's victory over Santos in 1976 was a game no one saw, and it needed to be buried in its insignificance by winning a real game at Vila Belmiro.

When Santos opened the scoring this afternoon, and Wanderley, the same man who doesn't remember Vanderlei's goal, cheered intensely, I began to doubt we could put an end to this boring taboo. It wasn't that Santos was any better on the field, but they would have to close up defensively, and our limited chances lay in a flash of Adriano's effort or a fortuitous chance.

Both happened, and the late afternoon that was lost in the melancholy of defeat took on red and black colors, because as much as burying the 1976 game, we needed to win in our thousandth game in the Brazilian championships, for Andrade to be moved and offer the victory to Zé Carlos, thus moving thirty-five million people.

Let's not talk about Vanderlei's goal anymore. What will go down in history is that, in the 1000th game of the Brazilian championship, we silenced Vila Belmiro with a firecracker from Adriano and an impersonal goal, the work of the Sacred Mantle in honor of Andrade, Zé Carlos, and our victorious history as five-time champions of the country of football.

Mauricio Neves de Jesus is a lawyer and university professor in Lages. He is 36 years old and is one of the people responsible for the website www.flamantosagrado.com. He has published texts in the book 'Ser Flamengo' (Editora Folha Seca, 2006). He contributed to the Flamengo hotsites 'Rei do Rio' (www.flamengo.com.br/reidorio) and 'Força, Zé Carlos' (http://mkt.flamengo.com.br/hotsite/zecarlos/).