2 qualified Final phase: 16-team playoffs with home and draw advantage to better season record. Second division: 48 teams 1st phase: 6 groups of 8 teams. Round robin. Top 2 qualified 2nd phase: 4 groups of 3 teams. Single round robin. Top team promoted to first-division second phase. Runners-up proceeded to final phase Final phase: 16-team (including 12 teams relegated from first-division first phase) play-offs with home and draw advantage according to season record. 1983 Taça de Ouro The 1983 edition repeated the previous-year cross internal promotion and relegation. The format was almost identical except that a round-robin third phase was added in the first division, instead of 1/8 finals play-offs. Also another innovation was the introduction of reserved spots for teams failing to qualify from state league performance, based on historical ranking. This was the direct result of Palmeiras humiliation from previous year. Santos was the first benefited from it. Apparently there were no criteria for how many teams applied for it, but the known effect was to secure traditional teams qualifying (basically the top 12 league). Santos though managed to make it through the finals, only finish runner-up to Flamengo. First division: 40 teams 1st phase: 8 groups of 5 (see 1982). 2nd phse: 4 groups of 8 (see 1982) 3rd phase: 4 groups of 4, round robin, top 2 qualified Final phase: 8-team play-offs Second division: 48 teams (see 1982) 1984 Copa Brasil In 1984, the internal relegation system was abandoned. Also the issues regarding promotion (internal and year-to-year) led to a quicker, 32-team second-division play-off system that would allow the champion to join first-division third phase, thus allowing theoretically it to clinch also the first-division title back-to-back in the same year. Oddly enough, second-division runners-up were not awarded internal promotion to the last third-phase berth. Again the principle of qualifying through historical ranking qualifying for traditional teams with poor state league performance applied, with the added issue that this time two prestigious clubs (Vasco and Grêmio) failed to qualify. Confirming the unwritten rule of securing presence of top-12 teams in first-division, both teams were awarded a berth in first division. As in 1983, the decision proved to be somehow justified, as Vasco eventually reached the final only to lose it to Fluminense, just as Santos did in 1983 against Flamengo. Probably sacrificed in this big-dog game was Juventus, a small team from São Paulo state, which