Designer of iconic Brazil strip dies, 83
The man who designed the Brazilian football team’s famous yellow shirt when he was just 18 years old has died.
Aldyr Garcia Schlee, a designer, journalist and writer, was 83 and had been diagnosed with skin cancer.
He was just 18 when he submitted his design – later to be warnbyPele–toa national competition launched after Brazil’s traumatic home defeat in the 1950 World Cup.
Until losing in the final match to Uruguay, the Brazilian national team used to play in white.
That unexpected and traumatic defeat led to a crisis of national identity.
The only requirement was that it should have the four colours of the national flag (green, yellow, blue and white) to instil the players with a sense of pride and passion.
The competition was won by Mr Schlee, who had sketched out 100 different combinations of the colours.
“In the end I realised the shirt just had to be yellow,” Mr Schlee said.
“That went nicely with the blue and the socks could be white, with the green around the collar.”
The new kit was used for the first time in a friendly in 1954.
Brazil would win its first World Cup in Sweden four years later, with Pelé and Garrincha, and immortalise the strip designed by Mr Schlee.
Ironically, Mr Schlee was born near the border and supported the Uruguayan football team throughout his life, including in the 1950 match against Brazil.
He died on the same day the Brazilian and the Uruguayan national teams played a friendly in London.
Before the match, which Brazil won 1-0, a brief eulogy was read in the stadium and players from both sides observed a minute’s silence.