Mauro Cabeçâo

Mauro Campos Junior, known in football as Mauro Cabeção or simply Mauro, began his career with the Guarani club in the city of Campinas, São Paulo state. A right sided defender, he was a member of the Brazilian under 20 team that won the South American Under 20 Championships in 1974 and the Brazilian team that shared the gold medal with Mexico at the 1975 Pan American Games. He was not chosen for Brazil’s first two Games at the Pan-Ams but made the team for the 14-0 defeat of Nicaragua and kept his place for the rest of the tournament.

At club level his finest hour came in 1978 when he helped Guarani win the Brazilian championship for the first (and to date only) time in their history. The following year they reached the semi-final stage of the Copa Libertadores. Mauro left Guarani in 1980 to join Grêmio but soon left and played for a succession of teams until his retirement in 1987.

He later returned to Guarani where he helped to coach junior teams whilst also organizing his own soccer camp. On 6 May 2004 Mauro was drinking in his hometown of Nova Odesa when a man came into the bar and shot him five times at point blank range. Painter Felipe Delgado later confessed to the murder and claimed he had been paid 4000 Reais by the female lover of Mauro’s wife who was reported to have ordered his death out of jealousy. Both Delgado and Professor Gislene Ribeiro Giroldi, who paid for the assassination, were given 13-year sentences.