Neutrals always support Brazil in football, or at least that’s how it seems to me. Even when Brazil is up against a clear underdog, the neutrals almost always want to see Brazil win, and do a few magical things along the way. And even though Brazil has amassed five World Cup wins, more than any other nation, people still want to see them win more. This in itself is unusual, as neutrals don’t often support the sporting top dogs. As an ultimate litmus test, I would also guess that if your country had to lose a World Cup Final you would probably choose Brazil as your conquerors.
Brazil's World Cup winning teams
Why Brazil?
Applying logic to the phenomenon of Brazilian related infatuation is difficult, but one has to ask the question – why does everyone love Brazil?
Perhaps
the support for Brazil is something to do with their long history of beautiful
and attacking football. But teams from e.g. Argentina, Holland and Spain have
produced beautiful and attacking football over the years, yet they don’t have
anything like the neutral support of Brazil.
Or
maybe neutrals do just like to support a winning team, but then Germany and
Italy have claims to being there or thereabouts with Brazil in terms of World
Cup wins (four each) and Germany have appeared in more finals than any other
nation. Yet most neutrals have little interest in either Germany or Italy.
And
then maybe it’s something to do with the instinctive way in which individual
Brazilian players play, traditionally players who were often raised in poverty, learning their trade in street football and able to turn and change
games with moments of genius while doing things with the ball that players from most other footballing
nationalities wouldn’t even consider doing. But then the same can be said for players from their South American neighbours in e.g. Argentina and Uruguay.
And
perhaps the support for Brazil is something to do with the beauty and diversity
of the country itself, a place that most people will never visit and can only
dream about. Such dreams are based on ludicrously romantic images such as the
Christ the Redeemer statue towering over Rio de Janeiro or the deep sun-soaked
Amazonian jungle and river, not to mention the Amazonian beauties frequently
lingered on by lascivious cameramen when panning over the crowds of fun-loving,
high-on-life, samba-dancing Brazilian football supporters.
Christ the Redeemer statue, Rio de Janeiro
Brazilian fans
And whatever about the pulling power of their fun-loving fans, you can never underestimate the pulling power of a good football kit and surely Brazil’s kit is among the most iconic in all of world sport, not just football. Incidentally, the kit was designed by then 19 year old writer and illustrator Aldyr Schlee in 1953 and it replaced the previous strip of all white with blue trim that had one of its last and certainly most infamous outings in the last game (and effectively the final) of the 1950 World Cup in the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, where Brazil had a surprise loss to Uruguay. Such was the national heartbreak after the so called Maracanaço (translates as ‘the Agony of Maracanã) that a new more ‘patriotic’ kit was called for, incorporating the colours of the Brazilian flag and Schlee’s winning entry came to be known as the camisa canarinho, with reference to that canary yellow jersey.
The
first World Cup that I was old enough to really get into was Mexico 1986 and even though Brazil had
not won a World Cup since 1970, most of my school friends and I supported them, without question. Along with the reasons for Brazilian fandom already
outlined, they had a team of particularly gifted players in 1986, with the
usual cool single-word names such as Zico, Josimar and, the coolest of the
cool, Socrates.
Socrates - Brazilian midfielder, medical doctor and, possibly, the coolest man who ever lived
And, unconsciously at least, we may have had another very specific reason for our Brazilian fandom that related to our beloved and then chronically underachieving Tipperary hurling team. Brazil’s World Cup success of 1970 (also in Mexico) had come just a year before Tipperary’s last All-Ireland success in 1971, and a few years before any of us had been born. So while our parents and grandparents had almost come to take for granted the dominance of Tipperary hurling in the 1950s and 1960s, we had yet to see an All-Ireland win. And we were reared on tales of hurling legends such as Jimmy Doyle, Donie Nealon, John 'Mackey' McKenna and Babs Keating. But we had never seen Tipperary success and those legends were as distant to us as were the tales of Pelé's three World Cup winning Brazilian teams in 1958, 1962 and 1970. So maybe we were drawn to Brazil because in 1986 they were sleeping giants of the game, just like the Tipperary hurlers, not to mention the colour comparisons between the camiso canarinho kit and Tipperary’s blue and gold.
Tipperary senior hurling captain Seamus Callanan, wearing the camiso Tipperary
1965 All-Ireland hurling final programme - Tipperary would win their 4th final in 5 years
Ultimately, Tipperary would not win their first All-Ireland title in my lifetime until a few years after that 1986 World Cup, in 1989. And Brazil crashed out of the 1986 World Cup after a penalty shootout defeat to France in the quarter final and they would not win their first World Cup in my lifetime until a full eight years later, in 1994. But by then, there was something different about Brazil. They didn’t seem to play with the same flair and nonchalance of the 1986 team (that nonchalance summed up perfectly by the two step penalty technique of Socrates, too cool to take a proper run up to the ball and ultimately costing Brazil in that penalty shootout). So to me there was very little linking the team and style of play that we saw in 1994 in comparison to the very ‘Brazilian’ team of 1986. And that Brazilian team of 1986 was perhaps the last true Brazilian team, because they had a definite connection in terms of style with the 1970 team, who had won the last World Cup to be held in Mexico.
The Panini sticker album for the 1986 World Cup
And the highly valuable Panini sticker of the Brazilian crest
Why everyone loves Brazil - the 47 second answer
And after
all that earlier theorizing, I will leave you with a 47 second clip that, in my
opinion, encapsulates the beauty of Brazilian football and why so many neutral
football fans actually support them.
This move has been and continues to be replicated endlessly (and mainly badly) by children and adults on playgrounds, streets, backyards and football pitches all over the world, now a half century since its inception.
The
clip shows Brazil’s 4th goal in their 4-1 hammering of Italy in the 1970
World Cup final, in a match played exactly half a century ago today.
There are so many words that can be spoken and written about this brief clip, in terms of the actual football and in terms of the time and place. The world often seems a more innocent, peaceful and happy place when we look at events from a few years before our birth. For example, work had just started on building the ill-fated Twin Towers in New York in 1970 and the moon landing of the previous July was still fresh in everyone's mind.
And on Friday I spoke to an older friend of mine about the game. Now retired after (according to himself) an exemplary career as one of Ireland's leading Psychiatrists, the excitement in his voice was evident as he recalled watching the 1970 World Cup final as a teenager on television in his parents' home.
Played at altitude and bang in the middle of summer, many of the players look tired in these latter minutes of the game. A few of them have their socks down, something that football health and safety would not now allow. And while every player on the field was a highly talented professional, they seem to play with the spontaneity and abandon of a group of children intent on just having a go.
The move...
Pelé makes an early appearance in the move in the Brazilian half, and then we see the socks-down Clodaldo beating four tired Italians and effectively starting the attack. Then there’s the long and perfect pass from Rivelino down the wing to Jairzinho who takes the ball and almost reluctantly injects some pace to move across the pitch and find Pelé again, who has ghosted forward to the edge of the Italian penalty area. And then there’s Pelé's second contribution, the fulcrum of the whole move. You will note that he takes the ball and touches it four times, the fourth touch being a lazy-looking but telepathically choreographed stroke out to Carlos Alberto and arguably the coolest pass in the history of football.
And then Pelé walks on slowly, not bothering to do what all young forwards are told to do and look alert for a save or rebound. Instead, he just looks like he knows exactly what’s going to happen. Carlos Alberto connects with Pelé's rolled pass and unleashes a perfectly struck bullet into the net, followed by the ear-splitting crackling of an ecstatic crowd. In all, eight Brazilian players were involved in the move. There was a subsequent pitch invasion at the final whistle and Brazil, having won the World Cup for the third time, was given to Jules Rimet World Cup to keep forever.
Carlos Alberto gets the Jules Rimet Trophy for Brazil, for keeps
And finally, the clip...
Such is its mesmeric quality, I doubt you will be able to watch this clip just once, and I suspect you will hit the repeat button more than a few times, because this is peak Brazil - and it’s why I love them.
Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5HbmeNKino
Great read 86 was the best year for soccer world cup. Some great teams .
ReplyDeleteGreat read