Brazilian Soccer

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Brazilian Soccer Madness

Brazilian Soccer.

The soccer madness that has never relaxed its hold on Brazil began at the turn of the century, caused the entire nation to plunge into depression in 1950, later lifted it to peaks of euphoria between 1958 and 1970, contributed to the malaise caused by the political, social, and economic difficulties afflicting the country in the 1980s, and in 1994 gave Brazil's collective self-esteem a badly needed boost.

Global and Brazilian Soccer 2006

Sport is almost a secular religion with its myths, rules and revered heroes, often competing with religion when games are played at the same time as church services, say two Brazilian researchers.

"Football and politics, the construction of a national identity".

Their conclusion that soccer is like a secular religion is one of the findings in the book dealing with class, race and geography in sport.

Left: Robinho 2008

And Kaka wants to Play in the Olympic Games.

Brazil is the only nation that has participated in every World Cup since the inception of the tournament in 1930.

Bulletin 2006

Dunga, who was the captain of Brazil's 1994 World Cup-winning team, replaces Carlos Alberto Parreira, who quit after Brazil was eliminated by France in the quarterfinals of this year's World Cup in Germany.

"The choice of Dunga will fully satisfy the desires of Brazilian fans who want an enthusiastic coach on the national team," CBF president Ricardo Teixeira said on the confederation's Web site.

Dunga made his debut when Brazil faced Norway in an exhibition Aug. 16, 2006 in Oslo. The match ended in a tie, 1-1.

History of soccer

After Brazil became a republic in 1889, the sport was the first time that poor, black and mixed-race people were integrated in social institutions like clubs, street teams and schools, and even into a national team.

Maybe soccer has not won elections or helped overcome social injustice, still the game has been used in Brazil by the State in the pursuit of its own interests and to consolidate its support.

President Vargas used the soccer sport as a tool to build national identity in Brazil, much as was done in Germany in the 1930’s promoting national pride in physical education.

The World Cup tournament can be seen as an example of the largest number of people on the planet paying attention to an event of global reach. Nowhere was the enthusiasm greater than in Brazil.

The soccer World Cup is an event where national identities are upheld, presented and celebrated.

Above: Still World's Largest Soccer Stadium

The national passion for futebol (soccer)

draws crowds to Rio's 180,000-seat Maracana stadium.

Brazilian Soccer

The oft-used expression "Soccer Country" defines Brazil as accurately as the descriptive "Carnival Country."

Indeed, the game "Brazilian Soccer" has managed to captivate Brazilians in every comer of the land, from Amazonia to the deep south, with an equal measure of devotion; in fact, it has sustained a degree of popularity that even Carnival has never been able to match.

The Boys From Brazil (Soccer Documentary - The Story of the Celebrated Brazlian Soccer Team)

The sport "brazilian soccer" has played a major role in unifying both nation and community. In Brazilian Soccer everyone follows the national team and takes great pride in its successes. Newcomers, whether from abroad or from another part of the country, are able to integrate themselves into the social life of a city or town by becoming fans of a local Brazilian soccer team or by participating in the game themselves.

Sailors from Great Britain, where the game of soccer originated, were the first to play soccer on Brazilian soil, but it was a teenager named Charles Miller who receives credit for introducing the sport to Brazilians and make the term Brazilian Socceer possible.

In 1894 this native-born son of British parents brought back with him from a trip to England two soccer balls and a rule book. He had played soccer during his trip abroad, and upon returning helped organize several teams in Sao Paulo. Brazilian Soccer was on its way.

At first soccer players were mostly British employees of British owned firms. Then Mackenzie University organized a squad composed primarily of Brazilians, the first such Brazilian Soccer club.

Enthusiasm for the game spread among young Brazilians from the upper class, many of whom had been exposed to soccer during visits to Europe, and they began to organize teams of their own.

Soccer 2008 Wall Calendar

The formation of a league in Sdo Paulo inspired sportsmen in Rio de Janeiro to follow suit.

Many of the early soccer teams in Sao Paulo and Rio were sponsored by societies that catered to the wealthy, and games were played on fields provided by exclusive clubs. This atmosphere made it respectable as well as fashionable for young women of good breeding to don their Parisian finery and attend matches.

In the second decade of the twentieth century, soccer received a further boost with the influx of European immigrants who began to form teams of their own.

Many of the employers for whom the newcomers worked encouraged them to play the game, since it diverted them from involvement in trade-union militancy, which was beginning to disrupt labor relations in Brazil.

At the same time, the sport was spreading rapidly throughout the country. Leagues in Pernambuco, Bahia, Minas Gerais, Parang, and Rio Grande do Sul were established, and soccer clubs were organized even in faraway Amazonia.

For a long time soccer in Brazil remained very British. Beginning with the name of the game, "football" (later evolving into the Portuguese word "futebol"), the terminology generally used was English. Players who committed fouls that injured an opponent customarily apologized by saying, "I'm sorry."

Teams exchanged the 'Hip, hip, hooray" salute after a match.

Lower-class Brazilians soon developed their own fascination with soccer. For the poor it was an ideal sport, requiring only a ball and some empty space. They would stand on walls surrounding playing areas or on the fringes of unfenced fields to watch games in progress. Before long they too were practicing the sport.

However, with very few exceptions, nonwhites found themselves excluded from high-level competition. Those who were permitted to play were either fair-skinned or used rice powder to lighten their complexions.

The color line was not really breached until 1923, when Vasco da Gama, a club founded by Portuguese immigrants, fielded a squad composed primarily of black and mulatto workers, and the team won the Rio championship.

Initially there was much resistance to integration on the soccer fields, but by the 1930s it receded.

By this time the face of soccer in Brazil had changed dramatically. Brazilian soccer was no longer a pastime for aristocrats. The elegant young ladies who once graced the sidelines withdrew to more genteel surroundings.

Ordinary people took the game to their hearts and shaped it accordingly.

Soccer swept Brazil in large part because there was no other sport to compete with it. In the United States, baseball was already the national pastime, so immigrants and their children found it prudent to embrace the sport as a means of asserting their Americanness.

Brazil, on the other hand, had lacked a sport to call its own. Soccer filled that void. Indeed, it became as much a monoculture as the production of sugar or coffee.

These explanations alone, of course, do not adequately explain why soccer ignited the passions of Brazilians throughout the country.

The game proved ideally suited to the Brazilian temperament and became a consummate mechanism for both individual and collective self-expression. It seemed as though soccer had been invented just for Brazilians. They adopted it as their own, identified with it, and went about transforming it.

What Brazilians imprinted on the game was their strong reliance on individuality and improvisation, a faith in magic (exemplified by the conviction that in the relationship between the human body and the soccer ball, anything was possible), the slyness of Pedro Malasartes (a legendary folk hero who survived by outwitting his social superiors), and, above all, the sense of overwhelming joy shared by players and spectators alike.

Betty Milan has aptly described the improvisational style of Brazilian soccer as deriving from the Brazilian way of overcoming poverty. "The Brazilian player invents in every possible way, for ... he has been schooled in invention. If we have no money, then we'll make a tambourine out of an old tin can. We haven't got a hat for a fancy dress? An old cheese box will serve the purpose."

Soccer seemed to merge sport and samba. During games fans often beat drums from start to finish, and in so doing they reinforced the rhythms of the players, who converted dribbling into a form of dance. Their moves always exuded spontaneity, one of the characteristics of the samba.

Brazilian Soccer. Anthropologist Roberto da Matta and others have advanced another explanation for soccer's popularity. They regard the existence of fixed, universally respected rules as the key to the sport's hold over the Brazilian masses. In a society where laws that inconvenience the rich and powerful are either ignored or easily changed, soccer stands apart as an enterprise governed by norms with which everyone is familiar, and which guarantee that talent, rather than money or personal ties, will prevail.

The Beautiful Team: In Search of Pele and the 1970 Brazilians

Ronaldo (Champion Sport Biographies) The soccer sport thus demonstrates to the common people of Brazil that the social justice they do not see in their everyday lives is possible, and their love for the game represents their embrace of that possibility.

Read the whole chapter on Brazilian Soccer in: "The Brazilians"

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