User:Cbkerr/sandbox

Image of Leônidas da Silva and Arthur Friedenreich

SpFC squad featuring Arthur Friedenreich in 1931

Biography[edit]

Friedenreich was born in São Paulo to Oscar Friedenreich, a German businessman whose father immigrated to Brazil, and Mathilde, an African Brazilian washerwoman and the daughter of freed slaves. Friedenreich was born into a family with very little money and was given very little to work with to build his carrer. Friedenreich was the first professional football player of Afro-Brazilian origin, because at that time football was dominated by Whites and Blacks were not accepted. He faced many barriers because of racism, and he could not attend the same places where white players were, such as swimming pools, tennis courts and parties.

He started his career influenced by his father, playing for SC Germânia, a Brazilian football team composed of German immigrants. After playing with a succession of São Paulo club sides from 1910 onwards, Friedenreich made his debut with the national team in 1914. He played twenty-two internationals, including wins in the 1919 and 1922 editions of the South American Championship, scoring ten goals. On Brazil's 1925 tour of Europe, he was feted as the King of Football.

He was not picked by Brazil for the 1930 FIFA World Cup because there was a serious misunderstanding between the football Leagues of the States of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo; only players from Rio travelled. São Paulo stars, like him (who was 38 years old), Filó (who would be 1934 FIFA World Cup champion with Italy) and Feitiço, did not go to Uruguay. It it also believed that he was stopped from playing fot the team by the president of FIFA himself due to the color of Friedenreichs skin.

Personal Life:

Arthur would play soccer from his early childhood and then on. His father was very supportive of his skills and really helped him on his path to the great player he would become. He at first in his career was not very good and would not hit his peak performance until 1925. At some point in his life he married a wife named Jonas and together they had a son who they named after Friedenreich's father Oscar. Both would out live Friedenreich and would be left with no money. Friedenreich would find it hard to make connections and friends in the world of Brazilian football due to the color of his skin.

Shedden suggestions: I am presuming that this is your only edits thus far. Start adding in your citations now. Also watch how things flow. You have a large amount of information here that is quite different. Some of it should probably be put in the regular biography and divided into the different points in his life. Watch for awkward passages and misspellings.

After football[edit]

In the 1930s, Brazilian football was beginning the process of professionalization, and in 1933 it became reality. Friedenreich was against the professionalization of football in the country. Outraged, he refused to continue playing football, and retired playing for Flamengo at 43 years old. His last match was against Fluminense on 21 July 1935 (the game ended in a 2–2 draw; he didn't score that day).( Citation Needed) He then started working in a liquor company and retired while there. When he retired Arthur got Parkinson's disease and the treatment took most of his money while trying to treat this disorder. Arthur would end up loosing most if not all of his money to this disease. He lived in a house ceded by São Paulo football club until his death on 6 September 1969 at 77 years old.

Posthumous tributes[edit]

There is a park in the Vila Alpina neighborhood, on the east side of São Paulo, with his name. The park, located at the beginning of Francisco Falconi avenue, is one the biggest of the region. Still on the east side of São Paulo, there is a street with his name. In Rio de Janeiro, there is a school with his name, located within the sports complex of Maracanã, near the main entrance, on the left of Bellini statue.

Controversy in the number of goals[edit]

The exact number of goals that Friedenreich has scored is unknown, due to lack of documentation. There is not a proper number of the amount of goals he scored, only a few supposed numbers that have come up over the years. The most famous supposed number of goals is 1329, that Friedenreich would have scored in 1229 matches, however this supposition is false. This was nothing more than a misunderstanding and lacking of criteria of the Brazilian sports journalist Adriano Neiva da Motta e Silva, known as De Vaney. This mess started with the father of Friedenreich, Oscar Friedenreich, who noted the goals his son scored since the beginning of his career in a little book, and in 1918 this assignment was given to the forward Mário de Andrada, a friend from Friedenreich, who followed his trajectory for more 17 years, recording details of matches until the end of Friedenreich career. In 1962, Mário de Andrada said to De Vaney that he had the files of all Friedenreich matches. He claimed that he would prove he scored 1229 goals in 1329 matches, however Andrada died before showing the files to De Vaney. Even without proving these files, De Vaney decided to published them, but he wrongly reversed the numbers. The statistic became 1329 goals scored in 1229 matches. This statistic, however, gained consistency, and ended up circulating around the world.

Some Supposed Numbers[edit]

Between 1909 and 1935

• 554 goals in 561 matches, 0,99 goal ratio per game., Alexandre da Costa, in the book O Tigre do futebol
• 558 goals in 562 matches - Orlando Duarte e Severino Filho, in the book Fried versus Pelé
• 105 goals in 125 matches - Memorial of São Paulo Futebol Clube

As the wrong statistic of the 1329 goals in 1229 matches circulated the world, Alexandre da Costa checked the files of all Friedenreich games using at least two newspapers, "Correio Paulistano" and "O Estado de S. Paulo", and ended up with two surprising numbers: 554 goals in 561 matches. In "Fried Versus Pelé"(Orlando Duarte e Severino Filho), published weeks later of "O Tigre do Futebol", the journalist Severino Filho ends up with another numbers: 558 goals in 562 matches. "There isn't statistical survey that can't be improved", writes the author of "O Tigre do Futebol", and he is right. Even today, with the resources available, the discrepancies proceed by three facts: the first one is that because many of the matches that were found did not have the score, and consequently who scored the goals. The second one is that in the clearly amateur football of the time, the matches were, sometimes, daily, with a different duration. The third one is that Friedenreich played a lot of "combined" matches of two or more teams, something common at the time, and many of those matches do not have the record of the score and who scored the goals.