Fifa World Cup: Brazil's iconic yellow jersey, the birth of a symbol

Chennai: Brazil’s unexpected loss at the hands of Uruguay in 1950 which cost them the World Cup caused an outpouring of grief. The football-mad country couldn’t deal with the disastrous result with any sense of closure. However, every cloud has a silver lining and a symbol that would forever define Brazilian football rose from the ashes of the morale-sapping defeat. The iconic yellow jersey of Brazil’s football team owes its existence to the country’s fall at the final hurdle.

Brazil wore white jerseys and blue shorts at the 1950 World Cup. The colours assumed funereal connotations after the Uruguay loss. According to Alex Bellos, author of the seminal book Futebol: the Brazilian Way of Life, a Rio de Janeiro newspaper in association with the country’s football federation announced a competition in 1953 to design a new jersey. The only condition was the strip should use all four colours that feature on the Brazilian flag - blue, white, yellow and green.

The design that got the nod of the newspaper from nearly 300 entries was sketched by 19-year-old Aldyr Garcia Schlee. The professional illustrator from the rural south of Brazil was a keen follower of football and designed four kits before finalising one, taking an element from each of his works.  Aldyr’s entry featured a yellow jersey with a green collar and trim. He chose blue for shorts and white for socks. The teenager wouldn’t have imagined that his brainchild would become Brazil’s identity one day.

Aldyr, who was born in a village close to Uruguayan borders, knew that he had made the cut when the newspaper published his design without mentioning the person who conceived it. The next day the name was out. Though ecstatic, Aldyr also felt weird because he always had a close bond with Uruguay despite being born Brazilian. “I was at a movie theatre in Uruguay during the Brazil—Uruguay match. The news of Uruguay’s success was broken midway through the movie,” he told Fifa’s website recently. Aldyr, now 77, makes no bones about his love for Brazil’s neighbours.

Brazil started wearing Aldyr’s design from 1954 but they couldn’t use them in the final of the 1958 World Cup in which they beat Sweden 5-2. Sweden also used yellow, so the South American country had to buy blue jerseys at the eleventh hour for the final.

After winning the contest, Aldyr was invited to Rio de Janeiro. He also got a chance to move closely with the members of the Brazilian national team. But he went back to his native place after getting disillusioned with the players’ debauchery.

Aldyr’s baby gained evocative meaning as years rolled by. Nothing is a greater advertisement for Brazilian football than its famous yellow jersey. It produces a mélange of thoughts in the beholder’s mind. According to Bellos, when a Brazilian wants to cheer a compatriot in another sport he wears the yellow jersey because football gives Brazilians a national identity than anything else.

Aldyr, the creator of the enduring symbol of Brazilian nationalism, isn’t jubilant over his work 59 years ago as his country is getting ready to stage the World Cup for the second time from June 12. How does Aldyr feel when he sees the national team wearing his shirt? “Nothing,” he told Bellos a decade ago. “In fact I feel guilty. The shirt has been hijacked by the Brazilian federation who sold it to Nike. The shirt isn’t a symbol of Brazilian nationalism. It’s a symbol of corruption and the status quo.”