Now that the excitement of the world cup is over, I'm going
to write a bit about football (no, not soccer.)
For anyone who's been living in a cave for the past 60 or so
years, Brazilians tend to really like (love? obsessed by?) football and are
usually fairly good at it. There has to
be some talent to win the World Cup five times; more than any other
country. Of course not everyone likes
football (I've met two, maybe three people that don't particularly like it) but
there are enough fans to support a broad generalisation or two.
Now, if whilst in that cave you have been hiding under a big
rock for the past couple of months, you might have missed the 2014 World Cup,
which was hosted by Brazil for the second time.
I have already written about the mixed feelings I had to the World Cup
and why my wife and I didn't go (http://maried-a-brazilian-support-group.blogspot.com/2014/05/why-were-not-going-to-world-cup.html)
so I won't go into that here, but of course we got into the spirit and watched
as many games as possible. I'm going to
just gloss over England's performance
(AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!) and move onto Brazil. Some people picked out Argentina as
favourites to win, some Spain, some Germany... I fancied Brazil's chances: a
young team on home soil, fresh from a Confederations Cup victory in 2013, it was theirs to
lose. And they managed that spectacularly.
I was in England for the semi-final against Germany, so I
watched the game with beer in hand. With
no Neymar and no Tiago Silva, it was never going to be easy but it takes 11 men
to form a team, surely these 11 could do it?
When the first goal went in, I thought "never mind, there's still time." The second was a shock, but I've seen teams
recover from worse. Once the third went
in, I had no idea what I was watching, they were disintegrating. By five nil, the result was a foregone
conclusion.
The media had a field day. 7-1 was everywhere - triumphant Germans,
distraught Brazilians, tears streaming down their faces, the entire nation was
devastated...
Or were they?
While everyone I spoke to was certainly disappointed (what
football fan wouldn't be?) the truth is they had lost a match and exited from
the World Cup - never mind, you can't win them all, better to lose to a good
team. Practically every Brit or American
I've spoken to has asked how my wife felt about the result and my answer was
always the same. I show them this short
video that was sent to me by three different Brazilians halfway through the
second half...
No matter how you look at it, that is NOT uncontrollable
grief! That is seeing the funny side and
having a laugh about it and that is what I love about Brazil and its
people. The next day, a friend re-tweeted
a comment about predictions for the Netherlands vs Argentina match:
"somehow, Germany wins!"
 |
| Old Brazilian gives his replica World Cup to some German fans |
Then in the final between Germany and Argentina; of course
everyone was watching the match. Were they
supporting their South American hermanos of Argentina? Hoping for some revenge
and the cup at least remaining in the continent? Were they hell! The semi-final was one game, but the
footballing rivalry with Argentina runs deep!
So this may have been a post about football, but maybe it
was a post about the spirit and sense of humour of the Brazilian people.
