“You never forget an occasion like that. It went down in the history of football.”
Mauro Galvao appeared 24 times for the Brazil national team and was part of two World Cups with them. He won four domestic league titles during his playing career, plus the Copa America and the Copa Libertadores. But the match he remembers best wasn’t in any of those competitions.
Twenty-five years ago today, his Vasco da Gama side beat Manchester United at the iconic Maracana stadium. Sorry, not “beat”. That doesn’t quite capture the delirium of it. They absolutely kneecapped United, twisting them into a series of uncomfortable shapes in the sick heat of the Rio de Janeiro summer.
It was a surrealist masterpiece, a 90-minute blur of Edmundo-Romario-Edmundo-Romario, about as forgiving as your average earthquake — and every bit as violent. By the end of it, United were not just defeated; they looked vaguely haunted. It was such an ordeal that Gary Neville later sought the help of a psychologist to try to process it.
United goalkeeper Mark Bosnich and defender Gary Neville during the game against Vasco (Matthew Ashton/EMPICS via Getty Images)
“I think any team would have struggled to cope with us on that day,” says Galvao. Not that his assessment is likely to provide Neville too much solace at this stage.
The tale of that match has been told a few times in the quarter-century since. From the United perspective, there is the rich backstory of the decision to pull out of that season’s FA Cup to go to Brazil and the bizarre moral panic that ensued. The defeat by Vasco is usually cast as an exclamation point.
Now, though, is an appropriate moment to zoom out a little. There is the anniversary factor, sure, but also the obvious parallel between the very first Club World Championship, as it was known, and the upcoming 2025 Club World Cup, newly redesigned and pitched — cynically, you might argue — as the major tournament that previous editions have never quite managed to be.
A few obvious questions arise. The Club World Championship may have seemed like an oddity on this side of the Atlantic, but how was it viewed in the tournament’s host nation? What did the top Brazilian sides make of their European opponents? And what did winning it mean to Corinthians?
The Athletic has enlisted the help of six players who played in the competition to provide answers.
Along the way, we’ll also find out what the locals thought of United and their stars (short version: not much!), why now Tottenham Hotspur head coach Ange Postecoglou was there and why Real Madrid’s campaign might have been even worse than United’s…
If press coverage of the tournament in Britain was sniffy, it was a different story on-site in Brazil. Local newspapers covered the run-up to the opening games with excitement that bordered on the feverish, poring over Raja Casablanca team news and the intricacies of South Melbourne’s tactics.
United, the reigning European champions, were the hot ticket for fans in Rio. Supporters of Flamengo — Vasco’s big local rivals — created two temporary United supporters’ groups, selling over 8,000 promotional shirts and paying for two huge ‘Welcome Manchester’ billboards near the Maracana.
When the squad arrived at Galeao airport on January 2, they were greeted by hundreds of screaming Brazilians. A couple of them managed to place Flamengo caps on David Beckham’s head. He quickly removed them and ignored countless requests for photos, but his personal star power was clearly a draw for some.
“I came here for him,” local student Alessandra Torres told the Jornal do Brasil. “He’s gorgeous. If that Spice Girl isn’t careful, someone here in Rio is going to steal her husband.”
United, like Mexican side Necaxa, were holed up at the Intercontinental Hotel in Sao Conrado, a relatively secluded spot in a city not known for them. They hired out 31 rooms, converting one into a kitchen and another into a gym. Security was heavy, engagement minimal, even as the players stretched their legs on an evening walk on the beach in front of the hotel.
GO DEEPER
When England defied the odds at the Beach Soccer World Cup
“With typical English kindness, the team wanted to avoid any contact with supporters and the press,” ran a sarcastic report in the Jornal do Brasil.
Columnist Armando Nogueira was even more cutting. “United are aloof, distant, economical,” he wrote. “Their star player, David Beckham, looked at the swarm of fans like it was a still-life painting.”
(Shaun Botterill/Allsport)
On the other side of Rio, Vasco’s blowhard president, Eurico Miranda, was rather more forthcoming. He called the Club World Championship “historic” and insisted that his team were not there to make up the numbers. “This is the first ever Club World Championship,” he told the Jornal do Brasil. “Vasco has always been a pioneering club, so it’s natural we’re obsessed with winning it.”
His players felt the same way.
“It was a big deal here in Brazil,” former Vasco midfielder Amaral tells The Athletic. “We all felt it was really cool to be a part of it.”
Galvao agrees. “We were really up for it, especially because we got to play every game in Rio,” he explains. “It felt like a massive occasion. The atmosphere in the city was fantastic. We prepared well. I don’t think anything could have been better.”
In the other host city — Sao Paulo, 350km (just over 200 miles) to the south-east — things were a little more fraught.
Real Madrid, who qualified as winners of the 1998 Intercontinental Cup (then a one-off game between the Champions League and Copa Libertadores holders, now revived by FIFA as the smaller, still-annual Club World Cup), were in a state of flux, John Toshack’s reign as coach having come to an explosive conclusion a few weeks earlier. The new man in charge, Vicente del Bosque, promised a new sense of calm and a humble mindset in Brazil, but a sense of unease persisted as they huffed and puffed to a 3-1 win over Saudi outfit Al-Nassr in the tournament opener.
Even the good news — Nicolas Anelka’s first Madrid goal since joining from Arsenal for a club-record fee five months prior — was tempered with pessimism. “There are times when he is good, and others when he just disappears,” said Del Bosque.
Nicolas Anelka (Marie Hippenmeyer/AFP via Getty Images)
Most expected Madrid’s biggest challenge in Group A to come from Corinthians, the Sao Paulo side who had just sealed their second successive Brazilian title. There was only one issue: the players were exhausted.
“The league season had only finished three days before Christmas,” former Corinthians and Brazil midfielder Ricardinho tells The Athletic. “There wasn’t time for any preparation (for the Club World Championship), let alone anything specific. We just had to turn a key in our heads and go again.”
Still, there was a feeling of anticipation in the camp, which only grew after a straightforward 2-0 win over Raja Casablanca in their first game. “We treated it like a World Cup,” says former Corinthians centre-back Adilson Batista. “It was serious business for us.”
Did United approach the tournament with that same mindset? That much is up for debate. Club captain Roy Keane, certainly, was broadly ambivalent, focusing mainly on the chance to get some winter sun.
“Brazil in January sounded great,” he wrote in Keane, The Autobiography. “Rio was hot. The hotel was on the beach. The exact status of the tournament was vague.”
It presumably did not help that the Maracana was only sparsely populated when United kicked off against Necaxa on January 6. “The renowned but distinctly shabby Maracana was empty, a vast concrete oval echoing to the sound of our own voices,” wrote Keane. “Atmosphere nil. Heat beyond belief.”
Ah yes, the heat. United had travelled to Brazil with only long-sleeved jerseys; staff had to make last-minute amendments with a pair of scissors. It helped, but not much. United toiled in the late-afternoon sun, falling behind to a superb free kick by Cristian Montecinos and then being reduced to 10 men when Beckham was dismissed for a wild kick at Necaxa left-back Jose Milian.
(Phil Noble – PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images)
“It was probably the case that the heat was getting to David,” wrote former United security chief Ned Kelly in his book, Manchester United: The Untold Story. “As I chaperoned him back to the dressing room, he seemed to lose his head completely, booting the cool-air fans in the shower area and generally going a little mad.”
The game ended 1-1. United complained bitterly about the Beckham incident — “It was pathetic from the Mexican player,” their goalkeeper Mark Bosnich told the BBC — but they would have been hard-pressed to claim they deserved more than a point.
As for the Beckham-industrial complex, the impression left on the Brazilian audience was summed up nicely by a headline in the Jornal do Brasil the following morning.
“Handsome,” it read, “but ordinary.”
Historically fairly balanced, the Intercontinental Cup had swayed decisively in the direction of Europe in the final stretch of the 20th century. Between 1995 and 1999, no South American team had come out on top. Five of the losing sides were Brazilian, a fact not lost on former Brazil star Tostao, by that point a respected newspaper columnist.
“Brazilian football needs to recover the confidence lost over the last decade,” he wrote in the Jornal do Brasil. “This is a big chance to do that.”
He meant the tournament as a whole, but there were clearly two tentpole games, the results of which would go a long way to determining who made the final. The first was Real Madrid vs Corinthians in Sao Paulo.
The latter did not view themselves as underdogs. “We weren’t scared of anyone,” says Batista. “We had a side full of international players: Freddy Rincon, Ricardinho, Vampeta, Edilson, Dida. We had a great team. It was just a case of playing our game.”
Corinthians were perhaps slightly lucky to escape with a point — Anelka missed a late penalty that would have both secured a 3-2 win for Madrid and completed a fine hat-trick — but there was no trace of an inferiority complex. “The match was a celebration of football and its beauty,” says Ricardinho. “The quality of both teams shone through. We showed we were able to face the European greats on an equal footing.”
The following day, in Rio, Vasco lay in wait for United.
“We had all watched them play on TV, in big games and finals,” recalls Galvao. “We knew their players. They were the team that everyone wanted to play against and beat. And we did that.”
Galvao believes that United underestimated Vasco. “I’m not sure they knew that much about us,” he says. “We tried to capitalise on that. It was a very, very good performance.
“We did not dominate the game, but we defended well and managed to neutralise Manchester’s main threats. At the other end, we imposed our technical quality, individually and at set pieces. Things just clicked for us. We were better, and the result was a natural consequence of the performance.”
(Shaun Botterill /Allsport)
Mainly, of course, there were Edmundo and Romario, United’s tormentors-in-chief. Among those with a box seat for the bullfight was Danny Higginbotham, one of the United substitutes.
“They were poetry in motion,” Higginbotham tells The Athletic. “The goal when Edmundo flicked it past Mikael Silvestre and ran around the other side… oh my God. Incredible skill.”
The ironic thing here is that Romario and Edmundo — picture-perfect partners on the pitch — were, at the time, actually something like mortal enemies off it.
The feud had started a year earlier, when Romario opened a bar on the Rio beachfront. Its toilet doors were decorated with unflattering caricatures of all sorts of people, including former Brazil coach Mario Zagallo, who had left Romario out of his 1998 World Cup squad. One of the caricatures was of the model Cristina Mortagua, the mother of one of Edmundo’s children. “I was upset at the picture,” Edmundo explained. “A friend should be considerate and he wasn’t.”
The friction would return after what was, in effect, a ceasefire at the Club World Championship. The image of them celebrating together against United, then, was actually something of a rarity, a little curiosity preserved in amber.
(Shaun Botterill/Allsport)
That did not matter to United, of course. Gary Neville, who was at fault for two of Vasco’s goals, took the defeat particularly hard.
“It was probably the worst performance of my whole United career,” Neville wrote in Red: My Autobiography. “I was all over the place, and just to improve my mood I came off the pitch to find a text message from (Paul Scholes), who was back in England recovering from injury. He’d been watching on the telly. His message: ‘Fiasco da Gama’.”
The result was front-page news in Brazil. Miranda, never one to miss an opportunity to blow his own trumpet, declared it a victory for the whole of Brazil.
“We’re No 1 in football,” Vasco’s president said. “They could learn a lot from us. No Manchester United player would get into our team. You think the defender that Edmundo dribbled past could play here? If I wanted to impress the fans, do you think I would pay $50million for Dwight Yorke? I have Romario and Edmundo; that’s a serious strike partnership.
“Brazilian players are the best in the world. United were on their hands and knees. Everyone was going on about this club, the richest in the world, but they’ll never have a team like Vasco’s.”
(Shaun Botterill /Allsport)
Years later, Vasco’s head coach at the time, Antonio Lopes, would be asked about the claim, from Sir Alex Ferguson, that United had been the best team at the tournament.
“I see that as the tears of a loser,” Lopes said. “We gave them a whipping.”
Madrid needed to beat Raja Casablanca in their final group game to have a chance of finishing first and so reaching the final. Confidence was not in short supply. “With all my respect for Raja, we’ll score five or six,” said Roberto Carlos.
It didn’t happen. Madrid finished the game with eight men and although they had managed to grind out a 3-2 win, it was not enough: Corinthians dispatched Al Nassr of Saudi Arabia 2-0 a few hours later to win Group A on goal difference.
That, coupled with a serious injury for Anelka, put Madrid back on the brink of crisis mode. Defeat against Necaxa on penalties in the third-place play-off — a game that began in 40C (104F) heat and ended beneath biblical rainfall — shoved them all the way into it. The sight of Raul rowing with Del Bosque (“Am I supposed to come deep or stay up top? Which is it?”) during that match summed up a miserable fortnight for the Spanish giants.
United, by contrast, eased into relaxation mode. “The travelling English journalists tried hard to create the impression that we were enjoying a holiday,” wrote Keane. “We were. Secretly.”
(Phil Noble – PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images)
Many of the players passed the hours next to the hotel pool. Some visited Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf Mountain. A few got even more adventurous.
“I was with Fergie when he put his hand over his eyes, visor-like, and stared into the sun,” wrote Kelly, the security chief. “I could see his attention was drawn to a group on a hilltop overlooking the hotel, who were engaged in a spot of hang-gliding. ‘F***ing dangerous that, eh Ned?,’ he commented.
“I went red but didn’t disagree. I didn’t dare tell him he was watching Roy Keane, Teddy Sheringham and Nicky Butt flying about over Rio on six bits of balsa wood and two metres of canvas.”
There was just one appointment left for United: their final group match, against reigning Oceanian champions South Melbourne. The Australians were already out, having lost their first two games, but were determined to drain every last drop of enjoyment from what was a fairytale excursion.
“It was a very exciting time for us,” says former South Melbourne forward Vaughan Coveny. “We were semi-professional and a lot of us worked as well as playing football. It was all sorts: bank tellers, tradesmen, accountants. I was working in a distribution warehouse.
“It was all a step into the unknown. We didn’t know what to expect, really, but we definitely didn’t want to let ourselves or our country down.”
The Australians lost 2-0 against Vasco. Then 3-1 to Necaxa. Against United, though, they produced their best display of the tournament. The game ended 2-0 to Ferguson’s men, but Coveny struck the post twice after coming off the bench. “Everyone was a bit starstruck, I guess, but we weren’t totally outclassed,” he says. “I still get the odd reminder from an old team-mate about one of the chances I had.”
Twenty-five years on, the match is probably most famous — in contemporary social media circles at least — for pitting a young Ange Postecoglou against Premier League opposition for the first time. “It was his first major tournament as a head coach,” says Coveny of today’s Spurs boss. “The principles were the same (as the ones you see today): that attacking mentality, pressing high. Nothing seemed to faze him.”
(Matthew Ashton/EMPICS via Getty Images)
For United, beating South Melbourne meant next to nothing. “I’m not sure the boss was too fussed,” midfielder Jonathan Greening told The Athletic in 2000. For South Melbourne, though, the game was the ideal way to round off a trip few of their players could ever have dreamt of.
“Nobody can take those memories away,” says Coveny.
The final, between Vasco and Corinthians, was no thriller. Absorbing, yes, but nuggety and attritional. After 120 goalless minutes, it went to penalties. Edmundo, Vasco’s fifth taker, sent his kick wide, handing the title to Corinthians.
“It was a shame,” says Galvao, reflecting on the defeat. “It was an even game. Fortune favoured them in the shootout.”
Batista, who quelled the threat of Edmundo and Romario, echoes that assessment. “It was a special game against worthy opponents. That gave it even more weight, more grandeur. It was a really tough, tense match — a proper final.”
(Matthew Ashton/EMPICS via Getty Images)
For Corinthians, it was a moment to savour. Santos, Flamengo and Gremio had all previously won Intercontinental Cups for Brazil. More significantly, so had Sao Paulo, their city rivals. This was a balancing of the books. Little wonder that the date of the final, January 14, is embedded in the memory of every Corinthians fan.
“We wrote the club’s name into world football history,” says Ricardinho. “It was a historic achievement, something that marked a generation. We celebrated a lot and I think we deserved to.”
As for the parallel between 2000 and what will happen when 32 teams from across the globe convene in the United States this summer, Batista sees the expanded Club World Cup as a positive development — for the South American teams, at least.
“This tournament will help,” he concludes. “We need to test ourselves more often and at a higher level. That exchange of knowledge and experience helped a lot in the past. If you don’t challenge yourself against the best, you won’t grow.”
(Additional reporting: Daniel Taylor, Dermot Corrigan)
(Top photos: Getty; design: Dan Goldfarb)
