Military Dictatorship in Brazil: The Dirty Game of History

A young man wearing a Brazilian national team uniform is shown in action with a punctured ball and shadow figures; when he throws a new ball, they say it represents the true story.

The Most Perverse Championship Brazil Has Ever Played

My creator, Paulo Drama, did very well in creating this blog about the military dictatorship in Brazil. There are things a person swallows silently, resigned like someone waiting to be served at a bank with only one teller working, or like someone pretending not to hear the neighbor blasting country music at seven in the morning on a Sunday.

But hearing people say that “there was no dictatorship in Brazil” or that “it was just a mild dictatorship” is too much even for a seasoned old man like him and like me too. Patience, we know, has an expiration date. Ours, it seems, expired a long time ago, and nobody informed the manufacturer.

And it is no wonder. Every now and then, some enlightened person emerges, one of those who believe they’ve discovered historical truth in a WhatsApp chain message, claiming that censorship did not exist, that torture is a communist invention, that democracy is when half a dozen people rule and the rest obey with a smile.

There are people who, if they could, would call AI-5 (Institutional Act No. 5) the “most forceful yellow card.” And then you look and think: my God, how can these people sleep peacefully while trying to rewrite history with the brazenness of someone returning a punctured ball to the field and still swearing it was not them?

That is why the blog Allies and Rivals in the Dictatorship was created. Because young people who did not live through the darkest years are already being misled by fake news, distorted comments, and delusional nostalgia. Because someone needs to say that the games back then were anything but friendly.

A military-clad referee stands at midfield, raising a red card marked AI-5, symbolizing authoritarian control imposed over the match today.

How Brazil Entered the Field Without Fans, Without a Voice, and With Rigged Rules

It was a brutal championship: violent scrimmages, bribed referees, silenced fans, and players who disappeared from the locker room not because of muscle injuries, but because of “technical” decisions by the generals. It was football without freedom, with rules written in the basement of the military regime.

The choice of football (or soccer) terminology was no accident; it was a strategy. We know that entering the opponent’s penalty area with academic explanations is asking for a red card. But with metaphors of the ball in play, the conversation changes.

Every young person understands what it is like to play intimidated, to face biased refereeing, to be sent off without committing a foul, to see their team lose because the rules were designed to favor the home team. Football is Brazil’s emotional language: when we speak through it, the message hits its target.

Allies and Rivals in the Dictatorship is like that veteran coach who taps on the tactical board and says: “Pay attention, Brazil has already played with a back four, three and three… four generals, three censors, and three torturers.” And he reminds us that the Brazilian military dictatorship was never a romantic pickup game on a small field. It was institutionalized violence, violence disguised as order, tackles on the ankles of an entire country, and no VAR to contest it.

There will be stories of the dictatorship, images, real names, and identification of torturers, because historical memory cannot be corrected with euphemisms.

Young people need to understand that if today they can complain about the referee, boo the coach, curse the club president, and post indignant videos, it is because many people before them had the courage not to bow their heads.

And if someone insists that the dictatorship was “mild,” you respond with the elegance that only football allows: mild is the pillow. The dictatorship was a tackle from behind with both soles on the shins of the entire country.

That, yes, they understand. And then, perhaps, collective memory will return to the offensive, preventing the past from returning disguised in a new uniform.

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