The Battle of the South Americans is one of the most intense and noteworthy football rivalries between the two South American giants Brazil vs Argentina, Even their friendly clashes are also marked often as some controversial incidents.
FIFA has described this arch rivalry as the essence of football. According to many football pundits, they ranked this rivalry as the top rivalry between countries football and their following fan sets.
No such football fans in the world would like to miss out the superclasico between Brazil vs Argentina, these two countries are well known for their alluring football history and for their dominance in world football.
Both the South American giants have won the major Trophies like the World cup, Copa America for several times, and that’s what make their rivalry even more intense. As both the teams have that competitive mind of players in their ranks.
The origin of Brazil vs Argentina rivalry can be tracked down before this beautiful game even become popular world wide, there are rivalries in all the sports, but none comes close to this superclasico.
Both the teams first met in the year of 1914, and since then both the teams played almost 105 matches between them including both friendlies and major other tournaments organized by FIFA.
According to FIFA the match that has been played so far between Brazil vs Argentina is 105, out of which Brazil holds 41 victories and Argentina holds 38 victories with 26 draws, where Brazil scored 163 goals and Argentina has 160 goals in their name.
Where in the world cup matches Brazil is slightly ahead with their counterparts with two wins. One draw, and one loss, and on the other hand the La Albiceleste (Argentina national football team) is ahead than selecao (Brazil national football team) with 14 victories and 8 draws and 9 victories in other major tounaments.
And out of their 60 friendly matches, 25 matches won by Brazil and 20 won by Argentina and 16 were draws.
At the beginning of this rivalry Argentina got the upper hand against Brazil, they dominated their arch-rivals with more than double numbers of a win than Brazil had, even when Brazil won the crown of world champions in the year of 1958 and in 1962.
Though in the year of 1970 Brazil bound back hard against Argentina and it proved to be the dark time of Argentina, where they suffered seven defeats, four draws and only one win against their bitter rivals Brazil,
Though that one draw in 1978 against both the teams helps Argentina to go through in the world cup final and won it for the first time in their own soil.
The most Important victory matches for Argentina in this Brazil vs Argentina clashes are when they won the 1937 Copa America final, the 0-0 draw in the 1978 world cup which helps Argentina to side pass brazil and goes through to the next round and the 1-0 victory in the 1990 world cup in the round of 16, which eliminates Brazil from the world cup.
The most important victory matches for Brazil in this Brazil vs Argentina clashes are Copa America finals in 2004 where Brazil wins the Copa America from a spot-kick,
Then in the 2007 Copa America finals where they crushed Argentina in the final by 3-0 goals, and the 2005 FIFA Confederation match where they defeated Argentina by 4-1 goals.
The footballing world knows about the glittering history of both the nations and about their rich cultures in this game, these two countries have produced many great individuals in this game who dominated the football world and represent their country in much more mature way.
The debate still continues among the elite football fans about who is the Greatest ever player in this footballing world? Was it the Argentine legend Diego Maradona or the Brazilian wonder kid Pele? After these footballing geniuses,
After them,the next notable pair will be Garincha from the Selecao and Alfredo Di Stefano from the La Albicelste. And now in this current scenario, the most dominating figure of both countries are Lionel Messi and Neymar, and both Maradona and Pele have announced Messi and Neymar as their successor.
The overriding discussing who is the better player in this football galaxy is never-ending, As both of them (Pele and Maradona) have represented their country in different times, and many also considered that because of this they cannot get compared.
International Olympic Committee has given Pele with the Athlete of the century title, also Pele has been elected as the player of the century awards by the France franc’s football golden ball winner of 1999.
The Argentine legend Diego Maradona also named as the best soccer player in the world cup history by the Times magazine,
This unbeatable controversy between these two players have reached to the climax in 2000 during the FIFA century awards when Maradona got the title of the player of the century in an internet poll, getting 53.6% votes than pele’s 18.53% votes,
After the results unexpectedly FIFA comprised a committee named football family and added a second award to the Brazilian legend Pele of the best player of the century to rejuvenate the debate between the two players.
In 2002, FIFA conducts another internet pool where Maradona gets another award from FIFA, for his outstanding goal in the world cup against England which got selected as the world cup goal of the century, and Pele received the fourth award in this pool.
As we all know these two team sharing intense battles amongst each other, so there must be some historical incident which took place in between them in off the field and in on-field, so let’s have to take a look at those memorable incidents.
The 1925 Incident: Brazil vs Argentina
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In 1925 on the day of 25th December Brazil vs Argentina Copa America match took place at Sportivo Barracas Stadium, This was the historic Barraca war where Argentina crown Copa America champion after leveling the match against Brazil.
In this match, the Brazilian side was leading with 2-0 goals against Argentina in the first half, and the crowd got flabbergasted as if the Brazil lead was maintained than another game had to be played to determine the new champion.
In the first half, a dangerous counter-attack was made by Brazilian Firedenreich and it was stopped by the Argentine defender Ramon Muttis by a strong challenge, and in return, the Brazilian gave him a kick and the Argentine responded him with a punch
After the incident, some buzz spread across the players and some fans also invaded the pitch, though after the game got suspended, and it begins without any sending off, that incident change the course of the match,
For Argentina Antonio Cerrotti reduced the deficit before the end of the first half, and in the starting ten minutes of the second half Manuel Seoane scorer the equalizing goal for the Argentine national team, and won the cup for Argentine.
The 1945 and 1946 incident: Brazil vs Argentina
In 1945 in the game between Brazil vs Argentina, Brazil won the game by 6 goals to 2, where during the match the Brazilian Menezes fractured the Argentine Bataglero’s leg, and the match was played in some violent style by both the teams.
After this match against both the team met in South American Championship in 1946, and everyone presuming that it would be a tough match like the previous one, and that was exactly what happened in the match,
After 28 minutes of play the Brazilian Jair Rosa Pinto fractured the leg of Argentine captain Jose Salomon’s and after the incident players of both the teams got involved in an argument and in fighting with each other,
After that the crowd invaded the pitch and both the teams headed towards their dressing rooms, after some minutes the game restored and Argentine came out as a winner by 2-0 goals against Brazil.
1978 world cup: Brazil vs Argentina
The group B of world cup 1978 was crucial for both the South American giants, in the first round of football, Brazil defeated Peru by 3-0 goals and Argentina saw past Poland by 2-0 goals.
The match Brazil vs Argentina match ended as a draw, which battle known as the Battle of Rosario, in that World cup Argentina gets the advantage to play their match against Peru after several hours of Brazil played against Poland.
Brazil won the match against Poland by 3-1 goals, and Argentina knew that they need to defeat Peru by 4-0 goals to reach to the Semi-Finals, and in their match against Peru they own the match by 6 goals against their counterparts.
some saw this match with a suspicious degree of ease, as many believe Peru illicitly let the match to in favour of Argentina, Though noting got proven later on, and Argentina reaches the final against the Netherlands and lifts the world cup for the first time.
The 1990 world cup: Brazil vs Argentina
The Last time Brazil Vs Argentina the football fans witnessed in the world cup it was the year of 1990, in where Argentine defeated Brazil by 1-0 goals, though the end of the match if bit dramatical,
As the Brazilian Branco accusing the Argentine staff of giving him water with contains tranquillizers while those are meant for injured players.
Years later of the match the Argentine superstar Maradona accepted the fact that on the that they handed Branco the holy water, though the Argentina football federation and national team coach Carlos Bilaro denied the statement.
2005 confederation cup final: Brazil vs Argentina
In 2005 Brazil and Argentina took part in the Confederation Cup, where Brazil came in the competition as a world champion, and also previous to that they won the Copa America as well, so Copa America Runners up Argentina able to take a part in the competition.
In the Semi-Finals. Brazil eliminated the host Germany and Argentina eliminated Mexico, so the whole world was waiting for anticipated Brazil vs Argentina final, and it was the first time both the countries met against each other on that tournament.
Though Brazil has a greater side than Argentina at that time, they thrashed Argentina in the final by 4-1 goals.
Here we posted some memorable matches which the football world and envisaged so far and in the future time also this will be a never-ending rivalry between both the giants.