Brazil still haunted by trauma of the 'Maracanazo'

Brazil great Pele was 9 years old when his country suffered the "Maracanazo" trauma as Uruguay came from behind to win 2-1 in Rio de Janeiro to claim the 1950 World Cup.

Pele's father burst into tears when the winning goal was scored by Alcides Ghiggia. The young Pele promised his father he would win a World Cup to make up for the disappointment.

The shock of defeat was palpable in and out of the stadium.

"It was the first time in my life that I heard something that wasn't noise," Uruguay's Juan Alberto Schiaffino, who scored his country's first goal, said years later.

Brazil's trauma over the defeat can be explained by the fact the country was looking for its place in the world while trying to consolidate itself as a nation state, says Ronaldo George Helal, a sociologist and professor at Rio de Janeiro State University.

The result of the match was viewed as "the victory or defeat of the Brazilian nation project", based on the idea of a racially harmonious country united by soccer.

"Until the 1930s, there was no concept in Brazil about what the Brazilian nation was," Helal told AFP.

By 1950 the country was heralded by UNESCO as the "exemplary situation" of "harmony" with soccer at its core.

The reality was a little different and black goalkeeper Moacir Barbosa was deemed the culprit by many.

"The maximum (prison) sentence (in Brazil) is 30 years, but I've already done 40 years," Barbosa said in the 1990s.