I imagine Brazil during the years of lead as a vast football field: the referee blows the whistle according to the wishes of the owner of the ball, the pitch is mined, and the crowd is forbidden to shout. That is how I, Horácio Guimarães, see the military dictatorship. On one side were the rivals of the democratic game: generals, ministers, business leaders, religious figures, and intellectuals who supported the regime, convinced that authoritarianism would save the country from the so-called “red threat.” On the other side were the allies of resistance: censored journalists, persecuted students, exiled artists, imprisoned workers, silenced priests, and eliminated “subversives.” An unequal match, with the outcome virtually decided before the opening whistle.

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This site was created to revisit that battlefield without nostalgia or revisionism, seeking to understand who played on which side, what strategies were used, the tricks, the own goals, and the historic dribbles. It is a human map of accomplices and resisters, military and civilians, politicians, and poets. Brazil still struggles to face its own past, repeating slogans as if history were an endless replay. But football and politics teach us that no scoreline is ever final.