In 1950, a commission formed by the German Football Association traveled to Brazil to choose a football club to a series of friendly matches in Germany against some of the country's club sides. The recency of both the Maracanazo, a traumatic event for Brazilian football, and World War II, in which Germany and Brazil were at opposite sides, may have made clubs from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, then the footballing centres of the country, refuse participation in the friendly tour. Eventually Atlético Mineiro, then state league champion of Minas Gerais, was selected. Canor Simões, a journalist and sports director of the time, was credited as influential in the choice.