Sócrates: The Doctor Who Captained Brazil

Sócrates was a Brazilian attacking midfielder and qualified doctor who captained Brazil at the 1982 World Cup, won 60 caps and scored 22 goals for his country, and led the Corinthians Democracy movement against Brazil's military regime. Born in Belém on 19 February 1954, he scored 172 goals in 297 games for Corinthians, played at two World Cups and died in São Paulo on 4 December 2011, aged 57.

He is remembered for three things at once: a style of play built on the back-heel and the unhurried pass, a captaincy of one of the most admired sides never to win the World Cup, and a political life that made a football club an argument for democracy.

At a glance

Full name	Sócrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira
Born	19 February 1954, Belém, Pará
Died	4 December 2011, São Paulo (aged 57)
Height	1.91m (6ft 3in)
Position	Attacking midfielder (began as a centre-forward)
Nicknames	Doctor Sócrates, Magrão ("Big Skinny")
Main club	Corinthians, 1978-84: 297 games, 172 goals
Brazil	60 caps, 22 goals (1979-86)
World Cups	1982 (captain), 1986
Family	Younger brother Raí was in Brazil's 1994 World Cup-winning squad

Career timeline

Years	Club or event	What happened
1974-78	Botafogo (Ribeirão Preto)	Turns professional while studying medicine at the University of São Paulo
1977	—	Completes his medical degree
1978-84	Corinthians	172 goals in 297 games; São Paulo state titles in 1979, 1982 and 1983
1979	Brazil	First of 60 caps
1982	World Cup, Spain	Captains Brazil; scores against the Soviet Union and Italy
1984	Diretas Já rally	Promises to stay in Brazil if direct elections are restored; the amendment fails
1984-85	Fiorentina	One season in Serie A: six goals in 25 games
1986	World Cup, Mexico	Scores against Spain and Poland; Brazil go out to France on penalties
1986-87	Flamengo	Returns to Brazil
1988-89	Santos	Then a last spell at Botafogo before retiring in 1989
2004	Garforth Town	A brief cameo for the English amateur club, aged 50
2011	—	Dies on 4 December, the day Corinthians win the Brazilian title

The doctor

Sócrates was the son of a self-educated father who named three of his sons after Greek philosophers. At 16 he began playing for the youth side of Botafogo, the club in Ribeirão Preto, in São Paulo state.

He entered the University of São Paulo's medical programme about a year later and spent four years combining lectures and football. According to Jornal de Brasília, his father would only accept a football career once the degree was finished, which it was in 1977. A year later Corinthians signed him, and he made his debut for them on 20 August 1978.

The nickname Doctor Sócrates followed him for the rest of his life. He did not fit the athlete's mould and never pretended to. "I am an anti-athlete," he said, according to the Mail & Guardian. "I cannot deny myself certain lapses from the strict regime of a sportsman." He drank and smoked heavily throughout his career.

How he played

At 1.91m, bearded and lanky, he looked nothing like a typical Brazilian playmaker. He started as a centre-forward and moved back into central midfield, where his height and leap, a hard right-footed shot and his passing made him one of the leading players of his generation alongside Zico.

His signature was the back-heel, often played without looking. Pelé said he played "better backward than most players going forward". His penalties were just as distinctive: no run-up, a single step and the ball lifted towards goal, a technique Reuters described in its obituary of him. Brian Glanville, writing about him at the 1986 World Cup in an obituary reprinted by Gulf Times, described him "strolling about the field in samba rhythm - never hurried, always inventive, occasionally breaking into a brisk trot".

The way the role of a creative midfielder has changed since, from the classic Brazilian No.10 to the modern shapes, is set out in the No.10, the enganche and the trequartista.

Corinthians Democracy

Sócrates joined Corinthians in 1978 and became one of the best players in the club's history: 172 goals in 297 games and São Paulo state championships in 1979, 1982 and 1983. What made his time there unique, though, happened off the pitch.

With team-mates Wladimir and, later, Casagrande, he co-founded what became known as Corinthians Democracy (Democracia Corinthiana). Players and staff voted on how the team was run, down to lunch, training times and whether the squad should be confined together before matches, the concentração that Brazilian clubs imposed as routine. Everyone's vote counted, from players to cleaning staff.

The movement was always about more than the club. Brazil had been under military rule since the 1964 coup, and Corinthians used their shirts to say so:

• "Democracia" was printed on the back of the shirts.
• Before the elections of 15 November 1982, Brazil's first multi-party vote under military rule, the players wore shirts reading "Dia 15 Vote" ("Vote on the 15th").
• Before the 1983 state final they walked out behind a banner reading "Ganhar ou perder, mas sempre com democracia" ("Win or lose, but always with democracy"). They won the title.

Sócrates celebrated goals with a raised, clenched fist, a gesture that became his trademark. "My political victories are more important than my victories as a professional player," he later said.

The 1984 promise

By 1984 the campaign for direct presidential elections, Diretas Já, was filling the streets, and Sócrates spoke from the stage at a rally in São Paulo. He promised the crowd that if Congress passed the constitutional amendment restoring direct elections, he would turn down an offer from Italy and stay in Brazil. The amendment was defeated. Sócrates, who had repeatedly turned down offers from abroad, joined Fiorentina within two months.

His single season in Florence brought six goals in 25 games, and he struggled with the climate, the language and the training. He returned to Brazil with Flamengo in 1986. Brazil itself returned to democracy in 1985.

Brazil and the 1982 World Cup

Sócrates won 60 caps for Brazil between 1979 and 1986 and scored 22 goals. Telê Santana made him captain, and in Spain in 1982 he led a side featuring Zico, Falcão, Toninho Cerezo and Júnior that scored 15 goals in five games.

Date	Opponent	Result	Brazil scorers
14 Jun 1982	Soviet Union	W 2-1	Sócrates, Éder
18 Jun 1982	Scotland	W 4-1	Zico, Oscar, Éder, Falcão
23 Jun 1982	New Zealand	W 4-0	Zico 2, Falcão, Serginho
2 Jul 1982	Argentina	W 3-1	Zico, Serginho, Júnior
5 Jul 1982	Italy	L 2-3	Sócrates, Falcão

His first goal of the tournament, a right-footed shot after 75 minutes in Seville, equalised against the Soviet Union, and Éder won the game late on. Against Scotland he set up Falcão's goal in a 4-1 win.

The tournament ended at the Sarrià in Barcelona. Brazil needed only a draw against Italy to reach the semi-finals. Sócrates scored from a Zico pass to beat Dino Zoff and make it 1-1, Falcão equalised again in the second half, but Paolo Rossi's hat-trick won it 3-2 for Italy. The Brazil side remains the standard example of a great team that did not win, and the defeat is a large part of why, as Reuters noted, Sócrates never received the adulation in Brazil given to World Cup winners such as Romário and Ronaldo.

1986: the last World Cup

Four years later in Mexico, with a squad troubled by injuries and fatigue in midfield, Sócrates scored twice. The first was the only goal of the opening game against Spain in Guadalajara, eight minutes from time, after Careca had hit the bar. The second was a penalty, taken in his usual no-run-up style, in the 4-0 last-16 win over Poland.

The quarter-final against France went to a penalty shootout. Sócrates' kick was saved by Joël Bats, and Brazil went out. It was his last World Cup match. How shootouts like that one are run, and how they decide knockout ties, is explained in extra time and penalty shootouts.

After football

After Santos and a final spell at Botafogo he retired in 1989, then practised medicine, worked as a television pundit and wrote about politics, economics and sport. In 2004, aged 50, he made a brief cameo for Garforth Town, an amateur club in northern England, against Tadcaster Albion.

His health declined in his final years. In August 2011 he spent nine days in hospital with a digestive haemorrhage linked to heavy drinking, and in September he told Globo, in words reported by Reuters: "I was an alcoholic... whoever uses alcohol every day is an alcoholic. I was dependent on alcohol."

He was admitted to São Paulo's Albert Einstein Israeli hospital on 1 December 2011 with food poisoning that developed into septic shock, and died on 4 December, his third stay in hospital since August. He had been recommended for a liver transplant, Inside World Football reported. He left six children.

That afternoon Corinthians played Palmeiras at the Pacaembu needing a result to win the Brazilian championship. Before kick-off the players stood and raised clenched fists in his salute, and by full time the club had won its fifth national title, as When Saturday Comes recorded. Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, said: "On the field, with his talent and sophisticated touches, he was a genius."

Why he still matters

Sócrates never won a World Cup, and his trophies were São Paulo state titles with Corinthians, so his standing does not rest on silverware. It rests on a 1982 team that people still name first when they talk about how football should be played, on a technique that made the back-heel a weapon rather than a flourish, and on the fact that, at the height of his fame and under a military government, he used his position to argue for votes. As he put it, quoted in Tribune: "While I was a footballer, my legs amplified my voice."

For another side whose reputation outlived a single season, see Arsenal's Invincibles; for how today's World Cup is organised, see the 2026 World Cup format.