The internet has a habit of doing things backwards. First, someone gets called an idiot. Then, with a bit of luck, somebody bothers to find out what actually happened. That is what happened to a Louis Bever photograph of a couple wearing retro Botafogo and Cruzeiro shirts. As soon as the image began circulating, people reached a verdict. The photographer had apparently mistaken Botafogo for Atlético-MG. Others went further and decided Bever must believe in some historic feud between Botafogo and Cruzeiro. A blood-soaked classic that nobody had heard of, divides no city and was only discovered after the photo appeared online. Except the photographer never said any of that.

The real contest was on the shirts

In his “Flat 92” project, Bever recreates paintings with models wearing vintage football shirts. The Botafogo and Cruzeiro image reworks Franz Dobiaschofsky’s 1848 painting “Faust and Gretchen in the 19th Century”. The shirts are part of the visual composition. They do not suggest a rivalry between the clubs. If the image contains any competition, it is between the brands. The Botafogo shirt carries 7Up, which is linked to PepsiCo outside the United States, while the Cruzeiro shirt bears Coca-Cola. During the 1990s, the companies fought for space on television, in supermarkets and across football sponsorships. 7Up had a short run in Brazil and sponsored Botafogo during that period. Coca-Cola already dominated the national market, and its competition with Pepsi continued into the 2000s, even after 7Up disappeared from Brazilian shelves. The photograph happens to bring together two brands that stood on opposite sides of that story. It is fair to find the combination of two clubs with no meaningful rivalry unusual. The mistake was turning that surprise into certainty and then mocking Bever for a claim he never made. Looking at the other photographs in the project would have explained the choice. Plenty of people chose to correct Bever first. In the end, the error attributed to the photographer existed only in the comments.