Sócrates (soccer player)

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Sócrates
Socrates87660.jpg
Sócrates (2005)
Personnel
Surname Sócrates Brasileiro Sampaio
de Souza Vieira de Oliveira
birthday 19th February 1954
place of birth Belém ,  Brazil
date of death 4th December 2011
Place of death São Paulo ,  Brazil
size 192 cm
position midfield
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1974-1988 Botafogo FC (Ribeirão Preto) (101)
1978-1984 Corinthians São Paulo 297 (172)
1984-1985 AC Florence 25 00(6)
1985-1988 CR Flamengo 25 00(6)
1988-1989 FC Santos 23 00(7)
1989 Botafogo FC (Ribeirão Preto) ? 00(?)
2004 Garforth Town 1 00(0)
National team
Years selection Games (goals)
1979-1986 Brazil 60 0(22)
1 Only league games are given.

Sócrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira (known as Dr. Sócrates ; born February 19, 1954 in Belém ; † December 4, 2011 in São Paulo ) was a Brazilian soccer player and pediatrician .

Career

Sócrates made his debut on May 17, 1979 in the game against Paraguay and played a total of 60 times for the Brazilian national soccer team . The midfield director scored 22 goals. He was team captain at the soccer world championships in Spain in 1982 and in Mexico in 1986 .

The man with the longest name among all officially registered World Cup participants was the driving force on the offensive of the Brazilian national team in the 1980s. Together with Zico , Falcão and Toninho Cerezo, Sócrates formed the “magical midfield quartet” of Brazil, also known as the “Fantastic Four”. Although this team was highly favored in Spain before the 1982 World Cup , this team never won the world title, but is still considered the best Seleção so far in Brazil, together with the 1970 world championship team around Pelé . In 1986 Brazil took part again in the World Cup and failed again just before the semi-finals. They met European champions France in the quarter-finals and fought a duel that is considered to be one of the best in World Cup history to date. After extra time there was a penalty shoot-out in which Sócrates, who always shot a penalty from standing, missed his penalty. Platini and Júlio César also missed and France won the penalty shootout 4-3. After the World Cup, Sócrates resigned from the national team. Falcão and Zico followed suit, ending one of the great eras of the Brazilian national team.

Sócrates, who was 192 cm tall but only had shoe size 41 and was famous for his heel kicks and steep passes with the heel, was considered the enfant terrible of Brazilian football. According to his own statement, he smoked 20 cigarettes a day, exercised rather little, but celebrated all the more. At Corinthians São Paulo he implemented grassroots democratic structures (the so-called Democracia Corinthiana ), so that from then on the players determined everything, from training times to the menu. He also called on fans to stand up against the military dictatorship and for democracy . His football and political opponents included the communist and left defender Vladimir and the young player Walter Casagrande . During the two championships in 1982 and 1983, Casagrande and the Democracia Corintiana repeatedly used the football field to demonstrate their political views, for example to wear jerseys with the slogan "Democracy Now". Sócrates was a trained doctor and was therefore also Dr. Called Sócrates. Since he completed his studies parallel to his career as a professional footballer, he missed participation in the 1978 World Cup in Argentina .

After playing football, he worked as a pediatrician in a hospital in Ribeirão Preto . But like his former teammate Zico, he also excelled as a critical observer of the football scene and advocated a creative, offensive game. Again and again he campaigned for reforms of the game, for example for goal cameras and several referees. As a possible solution to make the games more attractive, he also advocated playing with only nine field players. He found today's game to be not creative enough and too determined by athletics. He also repeatedly criticized Brazilian football and called for a return to creative offensive play. He called the 1994 team "non-Brazilian" because of their more defensive style of play. In 2004, the 50-year-old Sócrates hit the headlines again when he signed a one-month contract with the amateur club Garforth Town and played in the English ninth division.

In August 2011, Sócrates was hospitalized with gastric bleeding and an inflamed liver and spent several days in intensive care. In this context, he made his alcohol problems public. On December 4, 2011, at the age of 57, he died in São Paulo of sepsis caused by an intestinal infection .

useful information

The politically very committed Sócrates (right) at a rally in 1984 as part of the democracy movement in Brazil

Sócrates' younger brother Raí was also a successful national player and temporarily captain of the Brazilian national team; Raí became world champion with Brazil in 1994 .

The title of the science satire Sokrates, published by Stephan Geiger in 2002, flankt! A short history of philosophy of football plays with the ambiguity of the name "Socrates" (on the one hand the footballer Sócrates, on the other hand the Greek philosopher Socrates ).

Éric Cantona hosted a film documentary that was broadcast on Arte in 2012 under the name “Rebels on the Ball” . This dealt with Sócrate's role within the democracy movement in Brazil. One of the topics was Sócrates and the Corinthians democracy .

A few hours after Sócrates' death, Corinthians won the Brazilian championship for the fifth time in the club's history. Before the decisive match against city rivals Palmeiras São Paulo (final score: 0-0) kicked off, the Corinthians players said goodbye to Sócrates in the center circle. In imitation of Sócrates' gesture when celebrating the goal, the players held up their fists. Sócrates' funeral in Ribeirão Preto also took place on the same day.

In 1983 Sócrates answered in an interview how he wanted to die with: "I want to die on a Sunday and Corinthians (São Paulo) should become champions". Sócrates died on a Sunday, a few hours later Corinthians won the championship.

successes

With Botafogo-SP

  • Winning the Vicente Feola tournament: 1976
  • Winning the Taça Cidade de São Paulo: 1977

With Corinthians

With Flamengo

With Brazil

Quotes about Sócrates

“Brazil lost one of its most valued sons, he was a genius on the pitch. Outside the square he was politically active, concerned about his people and his country. "

- Dilma Rousseff , President of Brazil at the time of death

"A piece of our history broke away with his death and was lost."

- Paolo Rossi , 1982 World Cup champion

Web links

Commons : Sócrates  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On the death of Sócrates. Doctor Democracy leaves the place on Spiegel Online on December 4, 2011
  2. ^ Sócrates: Of flags and liberties. In: Zero eight
  3. ↑ Sócrates gives alcohol problem to focus.de from August 29, 2011
  4. ↑ Article on the documentation "Rebels on the Ball"
  5. ^ Corinthians between grief and jubilation kicker.de
  6. ↑ http://www.rsssf.com/tablesm/mund80.html
  7. ↑ a b Brazil football legend Socrates dies at 57. bbc.com, December 4, 2011, accessed January 8, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Sócrates
ALTERNATIVE NAMES de Souza Vieira de Oliveira, Sócrates Brasileiro Sampaio (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Brazilian soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH 19th February 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Belém , Brazil
DATE OF DEATH 4th December 2011
Place of death São Paulo , Brazil