Fluminense"s return to the top
[photo=time.jpg id=152 align=right]Fluminense was founded on July 21, 1902 by a group of football fans including Cox Oscar. Cox was responsible for introducing football to Rio. He had played it in Switzerland, during his studies at College La Ville, in Lausanne. When he returned to Rio, aged 22, he gathered a group of men who also wanted to play this relatively unknown sport.
After playing some matches in Rio and in São Paulo, they decided to found a club. The foundation meeting took place on July 21, 1902, at Horácio da Costa Santos" home, at Rua Marques de Abrantes, and was attended by Horácio da Costa Santos, Mario Rocha, Walter Schuback, Felix Ignacio Frias, Mario Frias, Heraclito de Vasconcellos, Oscar Cox, Joao Carlos de Mello, Domingos Moutinho, Louis da Nobrega Junior, Arthur Gibbons, Virgilio Leite, Manoel Rios, Americo da Silva Couto, Eurico de Moraes, Victor Francois Etchegaray, Anselmo C. Mascarenhas, Alvaro Drolhe da Costa, Julio de Moraes and A. H. Roberts. Oscar Cox was elected the club’s first president.
The first match was on October 19, 1902, against Paysandu "Cricket Club". Fluminense won 8-0 and the first goal was scored by Horácio da Costa Santos. The team won the first championship they played, in 1906, Rio Championship. They also won the next three, in 1907, 1908 and 1909.
In 1911, they were again champions, and won all matches in Rio Championship. However, a huge crisis took place that year, when 9 players from the main team quit the club after fighting over who should coach the team and decided to play for Flamengo, previously a rowing club. By founding the football section of Flamengo, they started one of the most famous rivalries in Brazilian football: the Fla-Flu (Flamengo versus Fluminense). The first Fla-Flu happened on July 7, 1912. Although Flamengo had nearly all the players who had won the championship the previous year, Fluminense, with only two survivors from the champion team (Oswaldo Gomes and James Calvert), won the game 3-2.
Fluminense’s anthem was composed by Lamartine Babo in it he reflects with wonder, on the size of the club and “the 3 colours which symbolize the tradition of the club".
[photo=treino.JPG id=152 align=left]One of football history’s more unusual stories involves the player Carlos Alberto. The mulatto (mixed race) was the son of a photographer (who took university graduation portraits), was playing at the second team for the America Futebol Clube, where he was friendly with a number of university student players. In 1916 he was called up to the Fluminense starting team. Before entering the field, when the players posed along the sidelines to greet the select public in the stands, Alberto was reported to have been seen in the dressing room spreading rice powder on his face to lighten his complexion. In a game against America, the group of supporters from his former home team standing in the cheapest area of the stadium refused to forgive their former star athlete and shouted out, “po de arroz!" Alberto paid no heed to their heckling but the stigma of pretentiousness and whitening endured-quite appropriately not only for the team"s players but for the aristocratic club as a whole.
During the 1920’s and 30’, Fluminense produced one of their biggest stars in the history of the club, João Coelho Neto better know as “Preguinho". He scored 184 goals for his club winning numerous titles. It should be noted that at the time, the athletes did not practise only one sport at their clubs. Preguinho played tennis, volley ball and was a sprint runner on the tracks, while also every weekend defending the colours of Flu on the football pitch.
Fluminense triumphed on all fronts in the second half of the 1930’s with five Rio Championship titles in 6 years. The team’s attack was extraordinary: Pedro Amorim, Romeu Pellicciari, Russo, Tim
and Hércules. The coach of the time, Elba de Pádua had assembled a great team around Romeu.
At the beginning of the Fifties, the club won its first title at the recently built Maracanã. Called at that time “Timinho" – the small team – in reference to its status when compared with the other Rio sides. But coach Zezé Moreira, liked to be the under dog and formed a team who would beat the largest club in Rio, Vasco. Fluminense went on to win its first national title in 1970 by gaining the “Taça de Prata" (Silver Cup) which joined together the same teams who one year later played in the first Brazilian championship. The following year, the team won a new Rio Championship title after a memorable victory against Botafogo.
[photo=torcida.jpg id=152 align=right]In the middle of the Seventies began the era of Francisco Horta, one of most prolific times at the carioca club. The first player brought to the club was Roberto Rivelino from Corinthians. Rivelino went on to win almost everything with Fluminense including the love of the supporters.
The Brazilian international scored for the first time in the final of the Copa Guanabara in 1975 against América giving victory to his club.
Bi-campeão Carioca in 1975 and 1976, the club boasted a number of stars
Stars like Carlos Alberto, Edinho, Paulo César Lima, Marinho Chagas,
Dirceu or Gil. However the eventual departure of Horta and Rivelino, caused a serious crisis at the club. Which lasted until 1980 when a
Reorganized team beat Vasco to win the Rio Championship.
After elimination in the quarterfinals of the Brazilian championship against Grêmio in 1982, the leaders decided to put faith in their younger players like the winger Branco, central defender Ricardo Gomes, and Roberto Assis, big brother of Ronaldinho. The gamble paid off as the team won the Rio Championship 83, 84 and 85 and won the only Brazilian championship in its history in 1984 thanks to rising star Romerito.
But the club would have to wait ten years to find its next success lifting the Rio Championship in 1995 under Joel Santana’s guidance.
The decisive match took place against Flamengo with Romario who needed only one victory to celebrate their centenaire year. But Flamengo didn’t count on Flu’s star striker Renato Gaucho, who ran the defence ragged (final score 3-2). The Rio champions went on to the semi-final’s of the national championship losing to Santos 5-2 after being beaten 4-1 in Maracanã in the first match.
The departure of coach Joel Santana to Flamengo caused a new crisis which took Fluminense to the second division in 1996. Two years
later, the club dropped again to an all time low in the third division! Slowly working their way backup through the leagues. In 2002, the club won the Rio Championship and regrew its fan base. Abel Braga’s team managed to repeat the feat this year.
This season Fluminense finished the Brazilian national championship in 5th position. The painful defeat against Palmeiras 3-2 on the last day of the championship meant they have to wait another year to experience Copa Libertadores football. But Fluminense can take pride from the fact they finished top of all the Rio team’s in a very difficult tournament.
Recommended links:
All about Fluminense
Pictures taken at the time of our our travel to Brazil
Fluminense"s oficial site
