Cândido de Oliveira

notes for a political biography

Abstract

Cândido de Oliveira went down in history as the greatest Portuguese football coach of the 1930s to 1950s. He coached two of Portugal's biggest clubs, Futebol Clube do Porto and Sporting, and directed the National Team for several years. In his short football career, he was captain of the teams he represented, Casa Pia and Benfica, and also of the first Portuguese national team, in 1921. As a sports journalist he was an innovator of chronicles and features, which he used to criticize the Estado Novo’s sports policy. In 1945 he founded the newspaper A Bola. His status as a football personality led Portugal’s League of Clubs to name the Portuguese Super Cup after him.

Based on bibliographical research, this article highlights a little-known facet of Cândido de Oliveira, that of an antifascist, which led him to cooperate with English espionage to avoid a possible invasion of Portugal by Germany in World War II. Detained by the State Surveillance and Defence Police (PVDE) in 1942, he was tortured and deported to Tarrafal Concentration Camp in Cape Verde, where he remained for 18 months. On his return, he was dismissed from the upper grade functions he performed at the Portuguese postal service (CTT). This article focuses particularly on the clandestine activities that preceded his arrest, and on the periods he spent in the political prisons of the Estado Novo.