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Contributions from
the Column
Focus
Soccer enthusiasts in Latin America
Soccer World Cup: Togo’s top athletes
Why African museums struggle
„Mosambicans love plays“
Visual media and sports in India
06/2006
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San Futbol
In the deeply-divided societies of Latin America, football symbolises a faint hope of equal opportunity. Identifying as fans with a team provides many rootless people with a sense of belonging. Soccer fever can go along with a spirit of rebellion, but it can also be abused by authoritarian regimes.
[ By Sheila Mysorekar ]
The ground is vibrating. Because of the cheers, the drumming and the excitement throbbing in the air. Boca is playing River – the poor club of Boca against the elitists from River Plate. Both clubs are from Buenos Aires, but they might as well come from different planets.
The match takes place in the Bombonera, the stadium in the dockland area of Boca. Houses here are old, mostly patched together from timber and corrugated iron and painted in bright colours. The stadium soars up out of the maze of streets. Its narrow structure and steeply-curved walls have earned it its nickname: “bombonera” means “chocolate box”. The spectators on the terraces are virtually piled up on top of each other, with a buffer zone separating the rival fans. The stadium is also known as the “Temple of Maradona”. Here on this patch of turf, God played football in his incarnation as a small man from the slums.
Inside, the noise is unbelievable. The shouts of the fans reverberate around the stadium. Thousands are waving flags – blue and yellow for Boca, red and white for River. People are setting off firecrackers and yelling at the top of their voices. Football chants also resound through the streets surrounding the stadium, bouncing off the corrugated walls. A huge flood of men with drums is in the streets. They don’t have tickets for the match, but they want to support their team nonetheless. Long before kick-off there is a state of collective euphoria: futbol.
Historical roots
The modern game of football admittedly came from England, but ball games were already popular in pre-Columbian America. Some 3,500 years ago the Olmecs of Mexico and Central America played with a rubber ball. The Aztecs called the game Ulama, a sacred ritual in honour of the Sun God. The two opposing teams had to shoot a large rubber ball through a stone ring, fixed high on a side wall of the pitch. Only the knees, elbows and hips of players were allowed to come into contact with the ball, and they were not permitted to let it fall on the ground.
Presumably the athletes’ motivation was higher than that of soccer pros today. The coach of the losing team, and sometimes even the whole team, would be sacrificed to the sun. According to other reports, it was the winners who paid with their blood – but this theory seems improbable, because of its negative impact on the quality of the game. It is far more likely that it was the losing coach who was decapitated. Jürgen Klinsmann, currently Germany’s coach, should consider himself fortunate for not being an Aztec.
Football may have originated in England, but it only really blossomed in Latin America:
– The first World Cup was held in Uruguay in 1930. This country hosted the event, because it had won the gold medals for football at the Olympic Games of both 1924 and 1928. Not a single team from Europe even made it into the final.
– Out of seventeen World Cup competitions, Latin American nations have won nine, Europeans only eight.
– Many exciting features of the game originated in Latin America. For example, the “bicycle kick” – with players kicking the ball in mid-air and then flipping over backwards – was first seen in Chile in the 1920s, and it is still known as “la chilena” in Spanish today.
– It is said that the Uruguay team pioneered zone
defence, while training on deck during an Atlantic crossing in 1928.
The rise of the stars
The most successful footballer in Brazil’s history was an Afro-German. Artur Friedensreich was the son of a German emigré and an Afro-Brazilian washerwoman. In his day, blacks were not welcome on the pitch. He played in the premier league for 26 years, scoring more goals than any other player either before or after him, including Pelé. Thanks to his goals, Brazil became South American champion in 1919.
Friedensreich was the first black player in Brazil’s national team. Before each match, he had to comb his hair as straight as possible, to avoid standing out as a black. His membership of the team was considered an affront to the upper classes. At the time, football was a pastime for the sons of the elite, who styled themselves on Europe and therefore found an English sport sophisticated. Slowly but surely, football slipped away from them, rolling inexorably into the suburbs, the slums, towards the blacks and the Indios. These people had no money to afford tennis courts or swimming pools, but a ball and a patch of wasteland could always be found.
Football became the game of the people. In 1915 a commentator wrote in the Brazilian magazine Sports: “We, who have a position in society, are forced to play with a worker, or a chauffeur... gradually it is becoming an ordeal, a sacrifice, to play this sport, and it is no longer a pleasure.”
In Brazil futebol (pronounced “futjibol”) is more than just a sport – it is an art form, and has produced superstars such as Pelé, Garrincha, Leonidas, Kaká, Romario and Ronaldo. Brazil is known all over the world for its elegant national style of play. It is said that black players invented dribbling here, in order to avoid immediate body contact with white opponents, who were constantly prone to fouls.
Brazil has been world champion no less than five times. Germany and Italy have each managed it only three times. No other country produces so much young talent as Brazil, nowhere else does this sport have such a symbolic significance. Not every village has a church, but even the smallest and most remote one has a football pitch. The greatest stars came from such communal pitches – Pelé, for example.
Édson Arantes do Nascimento was born in 1940. For incomprehensible reasons he has always been known as Pelé. In his career, he scored more than 1,300 goals. More than anyone else, he represents the “rags to riches” dream of small boys. However, he was neither the first nor the last sportsperson to inspire his people with an idea of equal opportunity.
Pelé, a scrawny, impoverished black kid from a small town, used to earn his money as a shoe-polisher. He became a professional footballer at the age of 15, and it was not long before he attracted worldwide attention. As member of the Brazilian team, he won the World Cup in 1958, at the age of 17. Four years later his team won again, and yet again in 1970. On the pitch, he had an imaginative, inspired and attacking style. But off the pitch, his life was always scandal-free. He never became a figure of controversy.
According to sociologists, football clubs as well
as the national team are the central sources of identity for Brazilian society. Political parties are short-lived, politics and the police are corrupt, and religion is not helpful in all situations. But football is democratic and performance-related. In this discipline, anyone can
become someone, regardless of background or skin-colour.
And, to top it all, football is fun – even if not always, unfortunately. The “football war” between Honduras and El Salvador in 1969 is considered the bloodiest and most bizarre episode in the history of Latin American sports. It lasted four days and claimed 3,000 lives. However, it was not – as often claimed – the result of Honduras’ defeat at the 1970 World Cup qualifications. The fans certainly did fight each other, but that was not why diplomatic relations broke down. The real cause was the mass expulsion of Salvadoran farm workers from Honduras, along with a long-standing border dispute. Even for fanatic Latino fans, it would be going a bit far to wage real war because of a soccer defeat. The “football war” was invented by European sports commentators, who used the clichés of a chaotic Latin America.
Decades later the murder of a Colombian player, Andrés Escobar, was similarly misinterpreted. Escobar caused an own-goal against the USA at the World Cup in 1994. A short time later, he was shot to death. But the culprits were not disappointed fans, as reported in the European press. Most likely, they were acting on behalf of the Medellin cartel. The Colombian drug mafia profited handsomely from betting shops in the 1980s and 1990s. Business was compromised by Colombia’s elimination from the World Cup. That is why Escobar had to go.
Maradona, the anti-Pelé
Crowds of people at Florida populate the main shopping precinct of Buenos Aires. A large group of passers-by is staring spellbound at a TV-screen in the window of a shop for household goods. Replays of goals scored by Diego Armando Maradona are being shown in a never-ending video-loop. The crowd marvels at his genius.
The God from the poor slums of Villa Fiorito on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, is the direct opposite of Pelé. Today the squat little man with the dark curls is 45 years old. His half-Indio father worked at the slaughterhouse. Diego and his family lived in a single room. When he was only eight years old, a football club recognised his exceptional talent and took him into the junior team. At 15 he was already playing in the first division.
The brilliant goal-scorer is on friendly terms with Presidents Fidel Castro of Cuba and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. He has a Che Guevara tattoo on his arm and diamonds in his ears. The superstar, drug addict and braggart is perhaps the greatest footballer Latin America has ever produced. He is certainly one of the most controversial.
Maradona is no stranger to scandal and controversy. He has tested positive for cocaine and ephedrine-use. Neither drug, however, actually increases performance. He played well despite the drugs, rather than because of them. Played well? He played brilliantly. He was captain of Argentina through several World Cups, and led the team to victory in 1986. A year later, after joining Naples, he took this previously second-rate team to its first-ever Italian championship. At long last, the poor Southern city triumphed over the Northern metropolises of Milan and Turin, and the local people loved him for it. Maradona’s picture could often be seen side-by-side with that of the Madonna in Naples. In Buenos Aires, Maradona played for Boca, of course. It was here that he won his first championship.
Later, when he had put on weight and no longer swept across the pitch like the wind, he delivered passes to his team-mates with millimetre-precision. Regardless of which team he was playing for, his fellow members regarded him as a true team player. Today he hosts a television show.
Maradona is not a man to quietly toe the line, and FIFA, the World Football Association, has never forgiven him. He wanted to found a footballers’ union, and he also protested against TV marketing, because of which matches are played at times that ensure high viewer numbers, but are inconvenient for the athletes. Whenever he sees a microphone, Maradona will share his views. Undiplomatically, spontaneously and bluntly. And that is exactly why Argentinians love him so much – especially those at the bottom of society. He has never denied his roots, and often returns to the slums where he came from. In the Argentinian city of Rosario, fans have even set up a church dedicated to their idol – the Iglesia Maradona – which has about 25,000 followers. This number seems ridiculously small, there are 20 million people in the country, after all.
Dictatorial propaganda
In Argentina’s history, however, football not only stands for a spirit of rebellion. The 1978 World Cup was held here under the auspices of a brutal military junta, which exploited the event for its own propaganda purposes. The regime had come to power in a coup in 1976. In the following seven years, the regime tortured and murdered some 30,000 people – merely on suspicion of being leftists.
In 1978 the generals used the World Cup to show the world a “pacified” country. Some stadiums were situated in the immediate vicinity of detention centres. Surviving inmates report that they could hear the roars of the crowds as the game was being played. Most of the centres were in secret locations. Unlike during the dictatorship in Chile, people were not openly arrested, but were secretly rounded up from their homes at night. The regime did not want repression to be seen and simply let opponents vanish without a trace. The 30,000 victims are still known as the desaparecidos (“the disappeared”).
The military’s plan in 1978 was largely successful. The international media did not concern themselves with the political situation, but rather showed a tournament which was completely friction-free. The propaganda machine ran smoothly inside the country itself, too. Never was the junta’s approval rating higher than during the World Cup. Argentina even won the cup, with Holland coming second.
However, there were some isolated gestures of protest to be seen at the celebrations which followed the title win. The Dutch players refused to shake the hands of the host country’s military, but the rulers were able to shrug that off as the reaction of poor losers. Less easy to dismiss was the refusal of their national coach, César Luis Menotti, to shake dictator Jorge Videla’s hand – in front of millions of TV viewers. This charismatic chain-smoker also made use of his popularity to criticise the dictatorship on other occasions.
Not all the sportspeople from Europe were prepared to show their opinion openly. The German coach, Helmut Schön, simply said: “We didn’t see any obvious signs of a dictatorship.”
Only games, no bread
“Why is football like God?” asks Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan author and football fan. “Both are held in reverence by many believers, and both are mistrusted by many intellectuals.”
The masses in impoverished South America do not enjoy the luxury of bread and games – they get soccer matches, but not bread. The matches, however, provide them with a sense of identity. To be a follower of Boca, is to make a statement about one’s view on class issues. Followers stay true to their club throughout their lives, regardless of where it stands in the championship league – that is no different in Cologne, London or Rome. Unlike in Europe, however, many people have nothing but the club to which they belong. This is particularly true of the thousands of laid-off workers following the neoliberal reforms of the past twenty years in Latin America. Factories have been shut down, shops closed, and social security systems are but a distant memory.
But people still have their clubs. And there are still one or two heroes in the selección, the national team. The hope of becoming campeón mundial and, for once, being able to carry heads up high never fades. San Futbol, have mercy on us. One more World Cup title, only one – and life could be so good.
Sheila Mysorekar
is a freelance journalist. She lived in Buenos Aires from 1992 to 2003.
shmysore@aol.com
Literature:
Eduardo Galeano: Der Ball ist rund. Unionsverlag, Zürich 2006
Dario Azzellini/Stefan Thimmel (Eds): Futbolistas. Fußball und Lateinamerika. Assoziation A, Berlin 2006
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