Raimundo Nonato Tavares da Silva, born November 28, 1962, Senhor do Bonfim, Brazil.
PART ONE
Born and growing up in Senhor do Bonfim, a municipality in the state of Bahia in the North-East region of Brazil, Bobô was first discovered by Catuense head coach João Correia while playing for for local amateur outfit Bahia Jovem. Correia immediately spotted something that convinced him that the youngster belonged in a proper footballing environment, and so the talented midfield prospect from Bonfim was brought into the youth setup at Catuense where he was given the opportunity to develop.
In 1982, Bobô stepped up from the youth ranks into the professional game with Catuense, a club which had been founded on New Year´s Day 1974 as Associação Desportiva Catuense, and embarked on a career that would run for the best part of fifteen years and take him from the relative obscurity of the Bahian regional football scene to the very summit of the Brazilian game. He would stay at Catuense through 1984, learning his trade, sharpening the instincts that Correia had seen in him, and establishing himself as a player of genuine promise. But Catuense, for all that the club had done for him, was never going to be the final destination for a talent of his level, and in 1985 he made the move that would define the first great chapter of his playing life.
Joining Bahia in 1985 was the moment when Bobô’s story truly began to gather pace, and the years that followed were extraordinary in their richness and achievement. The club was competing in the Campeonato Baiano, the state championship of Bahia, and Bobô became a central figure in a team that went on to dominate that competition during the second half of the decade. In 1986, Bahia won the Campeonato Baiano. They won it again in 1987. And then they won it a third consecutive time in 1988, three titles in a row that established both the club and several of its key players as the dominant force in north-eastern Brazilian football.
Achievements of that magnitude tend to attract attention from clubs with deeper pockets and when his time at Bahia drew to a close in 1989, the interest came from the absolute top of Brazilian football. São Paulo — one of the great clubs of the country, based in the commercial capital, backed by resources that Bahia could not match — signed him for one million US dollars. In 1989, that was a significant sum of money for a player in the Brazilian domestic game, and it underlined exactly how highly he was regarded at that moment.
He did not disappoint. Playing 18 games in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A for his new club, Bobô scored three goals and contributed to a side that won the Campeonato Paulista, São Paulo state’s own championship, that same year. Beyond that, and in a detail that speaks to the consistency of his level over a sustained period, Placar magazine awarded him the Bola de Prata for 1989 as well — making it back-to-back Silver Balls, two consecutive years of being recognised as among the very best in Brazil at his position. It was an achievement that very few players could point to, and Bobô had done it while adapting to a new set of demands.
After leaving São Paulo during the 1990 season, Bobô entered a period of his career characterised by movement, by new challenges, and by at least one more major trophy to add to an already impressive collection. He joined Flamengo, the great club of Rio de Janeiro, the club with perhaps the most passionate and numerous support base in all of Brazil, and in that 1990 season he won the Copa do Brasil with them — another national title, another piece of silverware, another line in a record that was becoming genuinely distinguished.
What made the next chapter particularly interesting was where Bobô went next. In 1991, he crossed the great Rio divide and joined Fluminense, Flamengo’s fiercest rivals. Football rivalries in Brazil are not taken lightly, and the Fla-Flu rivalry in Rio is among the most intense in the world, so the switch from one club to the other was not without its complications or its significance. But Bobô was a professional, a man by now in his late twenties with multiple national titles and individual awards behind him, and he played for Fluminense through 1992 before moving on again. 1993 brought stints at two of the giants of Brazilian football: Corinthians and Internacional, two clubs with their own proud traditions and fierce support bases, and Bobô added his experience and quality to both during what was becoming a nomadic final stretch of his top-level career.
Then came a year that was lost entirely. In 1994, a lengthy judicial dispute with Corinthians meant that Bobô went the entire year without playing a single competitive match. It was a frustrating, deflating experience for any footballer, particularly one who had spent his entire professional life at or near the very top of the game, but the midfield man handled it with the resilience that had characterised his whole approach and came back the following year determined to finish on his own terms.
PART TWO
There is something deeply satisfying about a story that comes full circle, and Bobô’s return to Catuense in 1995 — the club where Correia had first given him a chance all those years ago — was exactly that. It was a return to roots, a reminder of where everything had started, and from there he made one final move that brought the narrative to its proper conclusion. He returned to Bahia, the club of his greatest triumphs, the club where he had won three state titles and a national championship and scored twice in a final. He stayed until 1997.
On July 1, 1997, Bobô made his final appearance. It was a friendly tournament match between Bahia and Palmeiras, and even though friendlies are rarely the stuff of football legend, there was a certain fittingness about marking the end of a long footballing career with a match for the club that you love the most, in front of the supporters who knew you best and celebrated you longest. That was how Bobô waved goodbye to playing, and it was a goodbye with dignity.
In between all of this club football, there was also the matter of representing his country, and Bobô did so on three occasions in 1989, all of them in a concentrated window that reflected the form he was in at that particular point in his life. The first cap came on April 12, against Paraguay, and Brazil won 2–0. The second followed on May 10, against Peru, and the Brazilians emerged 4–1 winners — a comprehensive, convincing victory. The third and final game came on May 24, again against Peru, and this time it finished 1–1. Three games, two wins, one draw, and the experience of wearing the yellow and green of the Seleção — it may not have been the prolonged international career that some expected given his club form, but it was the highest honour the game in his country could bestow, and Bobô earned it honestly.
Retirement from playing did not mean retirement from football, and in the years that followed Bobô remained embedded in the game through a variety of roles that showed both his love for the sport and his willingness to contribute to it in new ways. He moved into sports commentary work for Rede Bandeirantes, one of Brazil’s major broadcasters, bringing his knowledge and experience to the television audience and finding a voice that reached beyond the dressing room.
Then came coaching. In 2000, he took charge of Bahia’s youth squad, working with the next generation of players coming through the club where he had experienced his greatest moments, and two years later he was promoted to head coach of the main team. In 2002, he led Bahia to the Campeonato do Nordeste — the northeastern regional championship — adding a title as a manager to the titles he had won as a player and confirming that his understanding of the game had translated from the pitch to the touchline.
His tenure as head coach ended in April 2003, following a 3–1 defeat to Paraná that left Bahia in the penultimate position in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A table — a result and a standing that made his position untenable, and Bobô resigned. It was a hard ending to a coaching stint that had produced real achievement, but the top of football management is an unforgiving place, and the table does not account for context or history. He returned to Bahia in an administrative capacity in March 2005, appointed as the club’s director of football, though that role also proved short-lived, ending with his resignation in July of the same year.
In 2006, Bobô was back in front of the camera, hosting a sports news programme called Esporte Total Bahia for Rede Bandeirantes, and later that year the Governor of Bahia state, Jaques Wagner, appointed him general director of the Superintendência dos Desportos do Estado da Bahia, the body responsible for overseeing sport across the entire state. It was a recognition that went beyond football, a confirmation that the boy from Senhor do Bonfim had become a significant figure in the sporting life of his region.