In this post I'll explain how I applied clubelo's elo (http://clubelo.com/) system to the Paulista and Carioca to judge the level of both leagues from 1957 to 1965. How does Clubelo's system work Firstly I'll explain precisely how clubelo's elo system work, since I reproduced it to the leagues. http://clubelo.com/System on this page the system is explained but I'll clarify it here, and we'll forget about the Tilt part of the system because I didn't take it in account nor is it important for the elo. The first thing to do is to set a base elo for the teams of the league you'll analyze. I decided to have a base elo of 1600 for the teams in the Paulista and Carioca. If you find that elo high, on average (roughly) the elo of the bottom 10 teams in England 1st tier in this period is about 1600. I'm basically considering those teams to be mid-table teams or teams that would fight for maintain in England, I find that comparison fair if not even too low. Then, the win-probability for a team is given by the following equation: Where Δelo is the difference of elo between the team we're calculating the win probability and their opponents. The elo of the team that plays at home is increased by the "Home Field Advantage", which I set at 50 in my calculations. However this HFA doesn't apply to international games but I'll talk about it later. The number of points exchanged (won/lost) according to the result of the game is given by the following equation: Where R is the result of the game (1 for a win, 0.5 for a draw and 0 for a loss) and k a factor that vectors how fast will the results be accurate. Basically, a higher k factor will bring faster results but may be a bit dodgy while a low k factor takes more time to be accurate but will be more accurate overall. Clubelo uses a k factor of 20. I'll give the k factors I used in the next part. However, a win 6-0 isn't worth the same as a win 1-0, and that's why the goal difference is taken in account in the final points exchanged. The final number of points exchanged is given by the following simple equation: Where GD is the goal difference. Now that I've explained how the elo rating system works, let's move on to the next part. Applying the system to Brasil As I already explained, the base elo I chose for teams is 1600, but how do we determine the number of elo points allowed in both leagues? The answer is simple, I took games played by Brasilian teams against European teams and applied the elo rating to those games, with the real elo of the European clubs. If Brasilian clubs underperform against European clubs compared to what they're expected as their elo indicates, then they'll lose elo and overall the league will lose average elo. Therefore, I applied the system to the top 4 clubs' in both Paulista (Santos, São Paulo, Corinthians, Palmeiras) and Carioca (Flamengo, Fluminense, Botafogo, Vasco da Gama) performances against European teams since 1946. I applied a k factor of 40 to all international games to have faster results as they don't play many games. From 1955, I apply the system to every league game with a k factor of 20, just like clubelo.com. I also applied the elo rating system to Torneio Rio-São Paulo games so that the Paulista and Carioca can balance eachother themselves. Overall, more than 5 thousand games were counted by the elo rating system. The results I'll now present the results that this system gave me. For better accuracy, I removed/added the points European teams lost/won against Brasilian clubs, so that the performance against them is taken in account even in their average ranking. Here is the ranking of Paulista, Carioca, Torneio Rio-São Paulo (Rio-SP) among the best European leagues every year, according to their average elo: *I added the average elo of Paulista's top 16 clubs for the first years because that's the number of teams in the LaLiga at that time 1957 Rio-SP - 1810 Paulista (top 16 only) - 1666 Carioca - 1656 England - 1654 Paulista - 1628 Spain - 1625 Italy - 1612 France - 1623 1958 Rio-SP - 1835 Italy - 1679 Spain - 1674 Paulista-TOP16 - 1667 England - 1667 Carioca - 1646 Paulista - 1637 France - 1579 1959 Rio-SP - 1834 Paulista-TOP16 - 1690 Spain - 1689 Italy - 1655 Carioca - 1651 Paulista - 1647 England - 1636 France - 1575 1960 Rio-SP - 1851 Spain - 1720 Paulista-TOP16 - 1681 Paulista - 1668 England - 1657 Italy - 1651 Carioca - 1640 France - 1605 1961 Rio-SP - 1829 Spain - 1729 Paulista - 1683 England - 1655 Carioca - 1635 Italy - 1620 France - 1593 1962 Rio-SP - 1811 Spain - 1732 Paulista - 1691 Italy - 1664 Carioca - 1626 England - 1621 France - 1566 1963 Rio-SP - 1824 Spain - 1698 Italy - 1697 Paulista - 1695 England - 1641 Carioca - 1616 France - 1581 1964 Rio-SP - 1813 Paulista - 1697 Spain - 1688 Italy - 1686 England - 1661 Carioca - 1622 France - 1584 1965 Rio-SP - 1821 Carioca - 1727 (* Carioca reduced the number of teams in its first division) Paulista - 1702 Italy - 1696 Spain - 1695 England - 1694 France - 1561 Average Rio-SP - 1825 Spain - 1694 Paulista - 1672 Italy - 1662 England - 1654 Carioca - 1646 France - 1585 Conclusion Pelé played in the 2nd best league worldwide and Carioca wasn't far away, being 5th on average. The baseless claim that Pelé, because he played in a state league, played against amateur clubs or farmers, is simply false and inane.
The only thing this might show is Brazilian clubs performed very well in friendlies against European teams (plus a couple competitive matches). But it was Europe to pay Brazil, not the other way around. You don't pay Pelé to let him show his skills and draw the crowds to then kick him out of the pitch. The other European teams in a (visiting) tour would not like it either. Lots of stories about for example the friendship between Manchester United (Busby) and Real Madrid (Bernabeu) - I'd call that a cartel maybe, but those clubs don't like it if another team kicks all Brazilian stars in a hospital. Pelé did play again amateurs, as a matter of fact, while he himself had for that time world class facilities and preparation. That is not to downplay Pele, just see what he did at World Cups when he wasn't even at his best (even if also fortunate sometimes with a tired Italy and Havelange intervening), but it is reality. The age pyramid of even the richest Brazilian states of the time look as pure horror. It was pockets of excellence within a world of famine, severe poverty and third world standards. Argentina was already way better in this regard and how many had to live below 2 dollars a day.
And if they performed 'very well' then that must means they were atleast on par with them, with some basic common sense. Essentially worse teams cannot perform 'very well' against other clubs supposed to be stronger than them continuously over hundreds of games. There is a reason that most of the time even the biggest clubs like Real Madrid were playing almost every player in the starting XI against Brasilian clubs. What is your 2nd point even meant to prove? 'As a matter of fact', you still didn't give any evidence although I already asked for them. Paulista is a professional league since 1933 and players there became professional in 1933. Having 'world class facilities and preparation' at a time where those 2 elements weren't very present simply shows how professional, how developed and how good was football there back then. Again, wealth doesn't have anything to do with level of football. And as another user rightfully point out in another thread, São Paulo was by far the richest state in Brasil. Brasil had lower GDP per capita in 1970 than the likes of Djibouti, that absolutely doesn't mean that people could play football any better in Djibouti. Because again the most important factor is passion.