The second half of the 1960s saw a slight drop in level by Pelé, at the same time that the new stars of Brazilian football were starting to shine brighter. The top clubs of Brazil in that decade were Santos, Palmeiras, Botafogo and Cruzeiro. And they all had their star players. Santos had, of course, the biggest star in the world, which was Pelé. But he wasn’t as unquestionable in 1966, 1967, 1968 and 1969 as he had been in previous years. He even dropped out of the national team for a while after the 1966 World Cup, planning to retire from international competitions. So there is a small gap of 4-5 years there that was filled by other top players that were coming up and rising in the country. Palmeiras had Ademir da Guia, who led the club to important titles in 1965, 1966, 1967 and 1969. The only year the team didn’t win a title during that period was 1968, and even so it managed to reach the Libertadores Cup final. The team became known as “THE ACADEMY OF FOOTBALL” and it was so good that, in 1965, the full squad represented the Brazil national team in a game against Uruguay and it beat them 3-0. Palmeiras was a SUPERPOWER in the 1960s and Ademir was its leader. Botafogo in that period was also extremely strong, with Gérson taking over Didi’s spot and Jairzinho taking over Garrincha’s in the squad. They won major titles in 1964, 1966, 1967 and 1968 and were integral members of the Brazil national team all along the second half of the 60’s, when they became known as “Selefogo”. And Cruzeiro is responsible for breaking through the Rio de Janeiro-São Paulo dominance, becoming the first club based out of these 2 states to really reach top level nationally consistently. The overwhelming victory against Santos at the Taça Brasil final in 1966 catapulted them into new heights and they became the new sensation of Brazilian football. Tostão and Dirceu Lopes (as well as Piazza) became regulars in the national team and they started to go head to head with the carioca and paulista clubs ever since (Cruzeiro was also very powerful in the 1970s).
To my knowledge, the paulista-carioca dominance over the selecao was still quite an issue in 1982. Cerezo, who had to serve one match disqualification and could not be deployed for the first match, fearing being out for the first match would easily lead to being benched for the subsequent ones, expressed his sadness and disappointment to the press complaining that "they are all interested in Falcao, who has international prestige, Zico, who is from Rio, and Socrates, who is from Sao Paulo, nobody cares for a poor Mineiro boy like me". And then many have told about the tensions creeping inside the group, originating from Rio powerful newspapers strongly backing some Rio players by exerting pressure on Santana to give starter positions to the those carioca players at the expenses of other states' (particularly, they wanted Edinho to take over from Luizinho). Many years after, Serginho said that selecao was a wonder technically speaking but a failure relationship wise, and that he would have liked to hang to the wall a few of those boys. These controversies poisoned the air in the selecao locker room and likely played a significant role in unexpected defeat against Italy.
"Bairrismo" has always existed in Brazil, of course. It didn't disappear overnight, it just lost strenght over time. The paulista and carioca clubs (especially Flamengo, Corinthians, Palmeiras and São Paulo) are still above the rest, in terms of popularity, visibility, media, financial resources... But the disparity started decreasing gradually from mid-60s onwards, when Cruzeiro breaks through. And today it's not even close to what it was in the past. It is also true that there is a lot of "inferiority complex" from the ones that are outside the Rio-SP axis. It is always easier to blame the "power from the center of Brazil" than to be responsible for your own failures. So there's two sides to it.
Which is your opinion on "el robo mas grande" of the Brasileirao 1980? Mine is that referee was awful but Flamengo showed a superior game organization. Same is true in the case of Flamengo vs Atletico in 1981 Libertadores.