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 The World Cup brings out much that is great about living in Brazil but also much that makes you wish you were somewhere else. There is a wonderful atmosphere in the weeks running up to the opening of the championship as shops, cafés and padarias (bakeries) start putting up flags and people sometimes even paint the pavements outside their houses with the national colors.
Bunting and streamers appear in some streets and you start seeing lots of people wearing the national colors. It is particularly nice to see women (of all ages) wearing headscarves and bandannas since football is not just a man's sport here. On the day of the Croatia game I saw more women and girls than men wearing the football shirt.* The support for the team also covers all classes and there is none of the snobbery you find between, say, football and cricket or rugby in England. Companies are also understanding of employees' needs and even the most tyrannical boss has to make arrangements for the days when games are played. Almost no-one is forced to work during games and even those who work in essential or emergency services are catered to. The metro drivers in São Paulo, for example, are kept abreast of developments through their cab radio. Those working above ground do not really need such attention since any goal scored by Brazil is immediately hailed by a tumultuous display of fireworks. Those who cannot make it home in time to watch the match or those who do not own a television can watch from gigantic screens set up in public places. You can also walk into any bar or café and watch the entire game. The excitement when a goal is scored - such as Kaká's stunning left-foot shot against Croatia - is electrifying. (Unfortunately at the time of writing this is the only goal we have seen.) Sportsmen or Salesmen? The downside comes from the commercialization which goes hand in hand with modern football. Much as I admire Ronaldinho Gaúcho, I am sick seeing his toothy grin appearing in non-stop adverts on television and in the printed media. Life-sized cardboard cut-outs of him stand outside bars and cafés advertising certain products. Ronaldo, the so-called phenomenon, Kaká, Roberto Carlos, Cafu and even coach Carlos Alberto Parreira are also cashing as much as they can, hawking everything from cellular phones to chewing gum. None of these "stars" except Kaká played at all well in the Croatia game and it was a bit galling to watch them appearing in adverts afterwards hailing them as champions. The media coverage is another minus point. Before the championship started on June 9 we had to endure two weeks coverage of the team's preparations, first in Switzerland and then in Germany. Pages and pages were devoted to trivia and tripe about the players, their injuries, their internal disagreements and their love lives. This was backed up by non-stories about supporters, Brazilian and local, the surrounding areas and even pieces on the journalists themselves. The scourge of the modern technological age, the blog, also appeared and proved a writer needs a lot more than a keyboard and a link to the Internet to be worth reading. On television we had "interviews" with the players who said nothing of any interest, followed by analysis of their inane comments by "expert" commentators on the spot or back in the studio. Fans in the street who could hardly articulate a sentence were asked their opinions. As always, in anything connected with Brazil there were pictures of mulattas - dancing in the streets, kissing supporters of other teams, grinning at the camera and wriggling their bundas (derrières). One paper showed a picture of a topless mulatta licking a goalpost which had appeared in German girlie magazine showing girls from all the competing countries. Globo Gets its Comeuppance For once justice was done in Brazil when a legal ruling was made that TV Globo would not be able to monopolize the live coverage. This means that fans no longer have to endure the commentary of Galvão Bueno and his pals, Falcão and Casagrande, but can listen to others. Not that this makes much difference since most of the other commentators are as full of wind but at least we can now choose which windbag to listen to. These commentators are generally so biased that they might as well wear Brazil shirts and wave flags. This does not mean that they are not critical of Brazil's performance at times, but it would be more professional if they were to stand back a bit and let the fans do the cheering. They are particularly unprofessional when commenting on games involving Brazil's main rival Argentina. The comments in the game against Ivory Coast game were chauvinistic whereas you could feel the fear when Argentina thrashed Serbia and Montenegro 6-0. The whole country is banking on Brazil to get its act together in the forthcoming games against Australia and Japan and make us proud. The Japanese game should be particularly interesting bearing in mind the large number of Brazilians of Japanese descent, who make up around 8% of the population of São Paulo, and the huge Brazilian community in Japan estimated at around 250,000. *Those readers who are constantly accusing me of hating Brazil might be surprised to know that I was also wearing a Brazil tee-shirt and my apartment is currently draped with a Brazilian and Scottish flag. John Fitzpatrick is a Scottish writer and consultant with long experience of Brazil. He is based in São Paulo and runs his own company Celtic Comunicações. You can read more by him at his site www.brazilpoliticalcomment.com.br. He can be contacted at
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. © John Fitzpatrick 2006
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