FOOTBALL IS COMING HOME » Brazil

Socrates of Brazil is Gone

Peter Alegi — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:30:19 +0000

Barcelona, 5 July 1982: Paolo Rossi had just headed in an Antonio Cabrini cross to put us up 1-0 against Brazil in the last game of the second group stage of the 1982 World Cup. My friend Fabio and I, football-obsessed youngsters, sat wide-eyed on the floor of an impossibly crowded living room in a relative’s home outside Pesaro, in the hills of the Marche region of Italy. A few days before we had been part of a spontaneous street carnival with tens of thousands of fellow Romans celebrating our victory against Maradona’s Argentina. Rossi’s goal suddenly made a miracle possible: beat Brazil and earn a place in the semifinals.

Five minutes later, a Brazilian Doctor made an incision that surgically removed the optimism of hope. Socrates, we knew from watching Corinthians games on Teleroma 56 (a local station), had a penchant for embarrassing defenders with graceful pivots on the ball and elegant heel passes. To say nothing of goalkeepers humiliated by his swerving free kicks and shots from impossible angles.

That hot July afternoon on the pitch of Español’s Sarria Stadium, Socrates received the ball in midfield, carried, dished it off to Zico and continued his run forward. With the outside of his right foot, Zico quickly sliced a delightful pass to a streaking Socrates in the box. Socrates took a simple touch and appeared to be running out of room on the right side of the 6-yard box. Where most players would square the ball back into the middle of the box for a teammate to run on and strike at goal, Socrates instead took a precise near-post shot that faked Dino Zoff out of his shorts: 1-1. No! He didn’t just do that?! Watch it here. (Italy went on to win the game 3-2 and the World Cup.)

After the 1982 tournament, Corinthians traded Socrates to Fiorentina so we got to appreciate the fullness of this grandiose footballer for many years. Even Juve fans like me, whose contempt for La Viola is unrestrained, became fond of “Tacco d’Oro” — the Golden Heel — the tall, lanky, bearded midfielder with the long curly hair who added so much spectacle to Serie A in the age of Maradona, Platini, and Falcao.

A decade later, I found myself still learning from Socrates but in a completely different context. While teaching one of the first undergraduate courses on soccer ever taught in an American university, my students and I discussed Socrates’s role in Corinthians Democracy, a movement that helped propel democratic change in Brazil in the early 1980s. How many professional athletes would threaten to retire, as Socrates did in 1982, if a conservative businessman were to take the reins of a popular team?

So it was with profound sadness that I learned of Socrates’s passing at the age of 57. The official cause of death was “septic shock from an intestinal infection” according to a São Paulo hospital statement. Like Garrincha, Brazil’s most loved footballer, Socrates was an alcoholic. The rum-like cachaça had become his vital fluid. As Socrates candidly put it in an interview: “This country drinks more cachaça than any other in the world, and it seems like I myself drink it all.” We all battle our demons.

As the South Africans say, “Hamba kahle” brother Socrates. Your love of the game and commitment to social justice will never be forgotten.

Suggested reading:

Matthew Shirts, “Socrates, Corinthians, and Questions of Democracy and Citizenship,” in Joseph Arbena, ed., Sport and Society in Latin America: Diffusion, Dependency, and the Rise of Mass Culture (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), pp. 97-112.

Simon Romero’s poignant obituary of Socrates in the New York Times is here.

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Fred’s Golazo

Peter Alegi — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:31:41 +0000

Fluminense’s Fred makes a diagonal run into the box, traps the high vertical cross with his chest, and executes a bicycle kick that sends the ball past the stunned Coritiba keeper and into the back of the net. Pure magic!

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2014 World Cup Draw: Fans Protest in Rio

Peter Alegi — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 18:00:01 +0000

The 2014 World Cup officially got underway today with the qualifying draw in Rio de Janeiro. Simultaneously, the Associação Nacional dos Torcedores de futebol (ANT, the National Association of Football Supporters) organized a demonstration against the World Cup (and the 2016 Olympics). ANT’s call to protest read thusly:

Do you think that the World Cup belongs to us?

Our government continually says that the World Cup and Olympics will bring benefits to Rio de Janeiro and Brazil. But who will benefit? The cost of living and rent are continually on the rise, families are forcibly removed from their homes and street vendors are prevented from working.

More: they are wasting public money on all of these projects and have put forward a law that will hide how much they have spent. To make things worse, the organizers of the World Cup, FIFA and Ricardo Teixeira (the president of the Brazilian Football Federation), are being accused of corruption by multiple sources.

Everything indicates that the World Cup and Olympics are going to repeat, on a larger scale, the history of the 2007 Pan American Games: misappropriation of public funds, unnecessarily large construction projects that become useless after the competition, benefits only for large businesses whose owners are friends of those in power and the violation of the human rights of millions of Brazilians.

The forced removal of families affected by these projects is happening in an arbitrary and violent manner. This situation has already been denounced by the United Nations. Mega-events are being used to install a State of Exception, with the systematic violation of the rule of law.

In this vein, what will be the legacy of the mega-events? The privatization of the city, of health and education? The gentrification of football culture and its stadiums? That private companies will reap profit and benefits with exemptions from taxation and subsidized loans? The profits from the World Cup will be for entrepreneurs, and the debt will be ours. Are we going to allow the mega-event histories of Athens 2004 and South Africa 2010 to repeat themselves?

Join us! Together we will change this trajectory, come and fight! Come kick a ball around with us at the Largo do Machado, the 30th of July beginning at 10am.

Zero evictions!

The city is not merchandise to be bought and sold!

No to the privatization of land and public resources, airports, education and health care!

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Futebol tedioso

Peter Alegi — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 07:48:33 +0000

Brazil and Portugal delivered the letdown of the tournament at Mabhida Stadium in Durban. This was the ticket everyone wanted.

What we (62,000+) got instead was a dull, uninspired yet utterly practical 0-0 draw. Players dished off lazy passes sideways and backwards under the stern gaze of ultra-defensive coaches Dunga and Queiroz. Instead of magical Robinho we got useless Julio Baptista.

With such tedious football on display, we, the fans, provided the entertainment and fun. When the final whistle blew, disgruntled fans booed the lackluster effort of both sides, while the players traded jerseys and knowing winks. In the round of 16 Brazil will take on Chile while Portugal will clash with Spain.

Now that we are in the knockout stages, the dictatorship of results might suffocate the joyful spirit that stubbornly breathes life into our beautiful game.
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Pot Observations

David Patrick Lane — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:38:38 +0000

TEN POT OBSERVATIONS.

1. FIFA got the seedings right. Pot 1 seeds earned their ranking. France did not. France’s final appearance was four years ago.

2. Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay have come out of the pot alignment better than most. Each of the smaller South American nations will avoid the big five African qualifiers in the 1st Round.

3. Argentina and Brazil cannot avoid the African qualifiers from Pot 3. The seeds for two potential Groups of Death have now been sown. Has FIFA put Brazil at risk for an early bath?

4. The most frightening Group of Death would be: Brazil, Mexico, Côte d’Ivoire and Portugal.

5. The dark horse of Pot 2 is Honduras.

6. The tournament’s top scorer will probably find his country drawn against New Zealand in the 1st Round.

7. Slovenia will not be the dark horse of Pot 4. Slovakia might be.

8. South Africa need the luck of the draw more than most. The hosts will hope to be grouped with both New Zealand and Slovenia. So will every other team from Pots 1 and 3, for that matter.

9. Algeria could draw both France and Germany. The Desert Foxes will appreciate the luck of being thrown into that particular garlic and beer feed chicken coop.

10. Italy could renew some old acquaintances. North Korea can beat Italy, again. And Chile can beat Italy up, again.
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When the Boot was on the Other Foot

David Patrick Lane — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:16:38 +0000

Argentina losing at home to Brazil was not so extraordinary. It had happened before. It was actually more noteworthy when several months earlier Uruguay lost a World Cup qualifier at home to Brazil. That had never happened before.

South American World Cup qualifiers are ultimately predictable affairs, the current Argentine drama notwithstanding. Earlier in the qualifiers, bigger questions hung over Brazil.

After 8 qualifiers more than a few Brazilians feared this would be the year Brazil failed to qualify. Four draws, three of them 0-0, including an embarrassing night in Rio de Janeiro, when Bolivia secured their first ever World Cup point in Brazil. It was more humbling than Brazil’s earlier defeat in Asunción

Somehow Dunga survived.

If Brazil had not beaten Venezuela in San Cristóbal last October, I doubt Dunga would have found himself shaking Maradona’s hand in Rosario last Sunday night.

It’s Venezuela, Brazil’s opposition that night, that now promises to be the story of the South American qualifiers.
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Diego Maradona and the decline of Argentina

Editor — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 22:53:40 +0000

Yesterday Brazil beat Argentina 3-1 in Rosario, Argentina. Brazil qualified, but Argentina is just about holding onto the fourth automatic qualifying place for South Africa 2010. (The fifth placed Conmebol or South American team will face CONCACAF’s 4th placed side in a home-and-away play-off. The Americas could provide a tasty appetizer for South Africa: Argentina vs. Mexico anyone? Or get the popcorn out for the USA against Venezuela!)

Argentina has some tough qualifying games ahead (particularly Paraguay, and a trip to the Centenario in Montevideo). This could be the first time they fail to qualify since 1970. They are coached by one Diego Maradona, God to some Argentinian (and all Scottish) fans. And some observers and the country’s fans (this is sacrilege of course) think he (gasp) is the problem.

A Test of Faith in Argentina.

Dios Mio! Argentina in Trouble.

Critics round on Diego Maradona after Brazil twist knife against Argentina
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Fruity Finals

David Patrick Lane — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 13:59:30 +0000

[Charged with breaking down the European qualifiers, David Patrick Lane takes a moment to tell us what he really thinks. Next Group 7. Serbia, France, and yes, our Austrian friends will soon make an appearance.]

The 1970 World Cup was a watershed moment for the modern game, if for no other reason than it was broadcast in color. Color TV sets were a newfangled invention then, though many folks have continued to watch World Cups as if they were taking place in snowstorms.

There have been 10 World Cups since 1970. That’s 40 different semi finalists. Yet only four have come from outside Europe.

Argentina, Brazil, South Korea and Uruguay.

The beautiful game. The global game. Call it what you will. It is all of the above. But World Cup finals do tend to be very European affairs. They may be not as white as the World Swimming Championships, but they could certainly do with a little more fruitiness.

Nine African and South American places at the 2010 World Cup is not fair and balanced.

Such limited access has not stopped black or mongrel nations from winning or producing the greatest players. Brazil has won more World Cups in this period than any other nation. And who can imagine football without Maradona? Yet the B Roll continues to be dominated by Europe.

I am not looking to discount the great achievements of perennial powerhouses like Italy and Germany, the marvelous contributions of the Dutch or French or the plucky performances of the likes of Poland and Sweden, but I fear I would rather watch paint dry than most of the likely 13 UEFA qualifiers in this World Cup. Spain do have the promise of an Almadovar script. And England, for once, also look like they’ll be an exception. You won’t find anyone anywhere more Mongrel than Wayne Rooney!

Let’s hope the switch from Analog to Digital that seems to be cascading around the world will herald some real color from South Africa in 2010. I am close to being bored of brutal looking European center halves hoofing long balls forward while being blankly cheered on by their fellow country folk with their crucified face-painted national symbols. It’s time we had millions of Algerians, Hondurans and Zambians pixilated across our screens cheering as their teams tackle the commanding heights of the football world. It’s time we had some fruity finals.
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Goal of the Week

Editor — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:30:49 +0000

Futsal player, Falcao, scores for Brazil in a match against Romania (which Brazil eventually won by 12-0) in Futsal Grand Prix International Tournament held in Brazil. The Spanish newspaper, MARCA, anointed it the greatest indoor football goal ever. Some bloggers, like The Spoiler (who we read religiously), got so carried away that they decided it must be Falcao, who starred for Brazil at the 1982 World Cup in Spain. That would make this guy in the video 55 years old.
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The mind of Jose Mourinho

Editor — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:11:26 +0000

Reuters Football Blog reports on Inter Milan manager, Jose Mourinho (who has a gift for the soundbyte), discussing the ‘discipline” of footballers from various backgrounds:

“The Brazilians are the most difficult and ill-disciplined. If you organise a meeting for 10, they don’t care if you let them enter or not. The English arrive at 9.55, the Italian, even if he comes at 10.01, arrives in a hurry and is fed up.

The Portuguese are there at 10 or 9.59. A Frenchman, who is always right, comes at 10 but thinks there was no actual reason to be punctual. Russians arrive at 10, not a minute before and not a minute after. They need to be guided.”

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