Special football is bar’s centrepiece
24/06/2008
A ball used during the final of the FIFA World Cup in Argentina in 1978 has found its way north to Brazil and has recently gone on display in a new football-themed bar in São Paulo.
The leather ball, of the Tango model that sports brand adidas introduced for the tournament, carries the signatures of the 22 players that started the game for the two finalists, Argentina and the Netherlands.
Argentina won the match 3-1 after extra time and at the end of the game, FIFA director (now president) Sepp Blatter, gave it to a Brazilian journalist, who gave it to a colleague, Toninho Neves. It spent decades in a cupboard in Mr Neves's house before he gave it as a gift to a nephew who was opening a bar.
It now sits proudly in a glass case in the new café, the Bar Boleiros, and has undergone a special protective treatment to save the leather from falling off.
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