Numero Uno of the Cartolas : This time Vasco's Eurico Miranda may have gone too far.(football team Vasco da Gama's vice president)(Brief Article)

Eurico Mirandais not the sort of man who goes unnoticed in a crowd. Big and burly, with a frown that could curdle milk, Miranda is the longtime vice president of Vasco da Gama, the famed Rio football team. But don't call him "No. 2." For as long as anyone can remember, he has been the gruff voice behind the venerated club, recruiting or sacking coaches, trading players, upbraiding referees, battling the press and leading Vasco to three national championships.

But even the volcanic Miranda outdid himself at Rio's So Januario stadium on Dec. 30, where Vasco was hosting So Caetano in the finals of the national tournament. At the 23-minute mark, with no score, the referee stopped the game after a fight in the stands nearly ended in tragedy. Spectators fleeing the fracas toppled a fence, sending hundreds of fans tumbling onto the field. Nearly 170 fans were injured and 100 hospitalized.

As ambulances howled and civil-defense helicopters hovered overhead, rescue teams scrambled to treat victims lying on the field. But Miranda had the trophy on his mind. He charged onto the body-strewn pitch yelling at officials to restart the game. "Clean up the field," he bellowed to paramedics. When he learned that the game had been suspended after a phone call from Rio Gov. Anthony Garotinho, he was livid. The governor, an evangelical Christian, was, in his words, "incompetent", "weak-kneed," and "a faggot," who "sat there offering false prayers to Jesus."

Strong stuff but vintage Miranda--only the most outrageous member of a clubby coterie of men who run Brazilian football. Known as cartolas, or big hats--the kind once favored by the sharp-dressing sports elite-- they make the game happen. Ironically, they are now seen as perhaps the biggest threat to it, steeped in the arrogance and avarice that have put ...