Towards the 1970 World Cup

The expectation for the 1970 World Cup was high: three teams were already two-time champions and the dispute to stay definitively with the Jules Rimet cup had everything to be fierce. Brazil was on par with Uruguay and Italy, with a team of excellent players.

Two friends from São Paulo decided to go to the party at any cost, avoiding the lack of money with a drastic decision: they would make the trip to Mexico in a Beetle.

This exhibition tells the story of Ivan Charoux and Fael Sawaya - a story of friendship, passion for football and a testimony to the recent history of Latin America.

The Beetle project was developed by the self-taught engineer Ferdinand Porsche at the request of Adolf Hitler. The nazi dictator wanted a German car to compete with the American Ford T. Porsche started designing it in 1934.

Spurred on by a £ 40,000 prize and the chance of world fame, 96 teams signed up. One of them headed by former english captain Jimmy Greaves with a Ford Escort. Still at the height of his football career, he was not called up for the english national team at the 1970 World Cup and decided to try another sport.

Female doubles also participated in the competition. Among them the team of Irish Rosemary Smith, with an Austin Maxi.
While female emancipation was gaining ground in the world, in Brazil women would remain prohibited by law from playing football until 1979.

The first stage covered 11 European countries and ended in Lisbon, Portugal, where the competitors embarked by ship to Rio de Janeiro. The second would begin on May 8, in front of the Hotel Glória. Of the 96 cars that left Wembley, only 71 completed the European stage.

With the great repercussion that the Rally had been having, Ivan and Fael saw the opportunity that they needed to accelerate their own trip: they dressed up the whole Beetle as if they were also competitors. The name of the fictional team: "Filhos da Pista", with the number 15. To guide them, common road route maps.

It worked. Until Guayaquil, in Ecuador, they stayed ahead of the Rally, covering 1,500 km a day with the advantage of using the paved roads. When they were entering Bolivia, they heard on the AM radio: “...y llega el rally y siempre hay un Volkswagen adelante” - they were already being confused with the competitors! The stamps on passports show the crossing of borders at an accelerated pace.

Several of the countries in the region produced fruit for export in large estates owned by American companies, exploiting cheap labor. Eduardo Galeano made a long criticism about the inequalities promoted by this dynamic - but not only him. In the novel “One hundred years of solitude”, Gabriel García Márquez transformed into fiction a true episode that became known as “Massacre das Bananeiras”: in 1928, an unknown number of workers was killed by the Colombian army during a strike for better job conditions.

Both countries were experiencing a long period of political tension caused by structural reasons that included land and migration issues. El Salvador was one of the most industrialized countries in Central America, but also one of the most densely populated; Honduras, in turn, had a mostly agricultural economy and was the third largest banana producer in the world. Many Salvadorans illegally emigrated to Honduras in search of land, and the country responded by persecuting immigrants.

Tensions peaked in 1969 during qualifying for the Mexico World Cup. The three matches between the national teams of Honduras and El Salvador were marked by violence outside the field, with persecutions and murders. El Salvador secured the spot for the competition and, two weeks later, bombed several cities in the neighboring country, including facilities in the Honduran air force in the capital Tegucigalpa. The ceasefire came only after intervention by the Organization of American States (OAS).

Used by the press to attract attention at the beginning of the conflict, the term “Football War” soon became problematized when the bombings became serious.

The two friends only had tickets for the first game of the Brazilian team, but they won invitations to the other games from the Mexicans. That was how they managed to see the final against Italy at the Azteca stadium in Mexico City, and were able to witness the historic achievement of the third championship.

Back to Brazil, Ivan and Fael had plans to take their brave beetle to the Volkswagen factory in São Bernardo do Campo, to celebrate the feat together with the manufacturer. But the blue print suffered a major fire on December 18, leaving the wing where the vehicles were painted completely destroyed. The factory was quickly recovered.

The Beetle united Brazil to Mexico as much as the 1970 World Cup. There, the car also gained a nickname - Vocho - and was also a best seller. Mexico was the last country in the world to end production of the model. In 2003, the last Vocho to leave the assembly line deserved a farewell party animated by mariachis.

In memory of Fael Sewaya (left), director Leon Serment and producer Adriana Rosique.