Porque nada tenemos, todo lo haremos

;La Roja, in a commemorative LP released after Chile’62: national pride

Color images of the World Cup of 1962, by the National Chile Television: heroic reconstruction

After the cyclopean tragedy in Haiti, earthquakes come to South America . Drama takes place, now, in Chile.

***

Tragic not only because the earthquake was felt in Brazil – even in Paulista avenue, in São Paulo. But, above all, because that after the Haitian purgatory, earthquakes are now in another Latin American country. In casualties, the figures in Chile are (still) quite less than Haiti: only (?) 300 people (in the Caribbean country, there are statistics showing 300 thousand dead). With the detail that, in the Richter scale, the earthquake of one month ago had the intensity of 7 points – the another one, yesterday night, in Concepción, close to Santiago, was 8,8. The fifth ever.

The biggest ever, since Richter scale was adopted, occurred also in Chile, in 1960. A detail: a little more than two years before the World Cup the country was preparing to host. Concepción (then, too) and Talca, that would be headquarters of the tournament, were stricken. The Chilean Cup, briefly, had its viability in doubt. Carlos Ditborn, president of the Chilean Football Federation, told an epoch phase: “porque nada tenemos, todo lo haremos” (“because we have nothing, we'll do all”).

In 1962, predictably (and unlike many of the prognoses), a rebuilt Chile organized one of the most beautiful World Cups until then. The Nacional Stadium, in Santiago, was the stage of memorable encounters. The Chilean Team was the 4th, but after a tough match against Brazil, played until the end. La Roja narrowly didn’t won the Cup (if it had defeated Brazil, would hardly lose the final match against Czechoslovakia, in a packed Nacional Stadium).

***

In september 1985, Mexico City suffered, also, a mega-earthquake: 8.1 in the Richter scale, with about 10 thousand dead. In the following year, just like Chile in 62, Mexico organized a beautiful World Cup. Latin America resists.

The memory of the heroic reconstruction of 1962 remains – and the unfailing chant of the hinchas de la Selección: “Chi-Chi-Chi, le-le-le, ¡viva Chile!"

.

The "Seleção", Twist and Shout and Yellow Submarine

.

Eleanor Rigby, in the movie Yellow Submarine:

England in cultural and sport booming in 1966

While the World Cup of 1966 was being played, The Beatles were closed at the Abbey Road Studios, finishing one of their greatest chefs d'œuvre, Revolver.

Despite the name, the disc doesn't advertises violence. Conversely, it's the first Fab Four's work to shift towards the nascent hippie strand - songs like Tomorrow Never Knows clearly show this: "turn off your mind".

***

The Seleção worship, sometimes, is enough to remember the (irreproducible) Beatlemania. It's curious that 1966, in this sense, is a rite of passage for the Liverpool quartet and also for the Canarinho Team.

Revolver is a disc that contains, still, elements of the first phase of the band, with platonic love songs, like Here, There and Everywhere, but already shows what, in the future, would become reality in Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Abbey Road and Let it Be: the maturity and the swan song of the greatest pop band ever.

The Seleção played, then, close to the Abbey Road Studios, in London. And that World Cup was, also, a transition moment in its "work": many players of the "Twist and Shout" phase were still there - like Pelé, Garrincha and Bellini -, but also were present those of the "Yellow Submarine" phase - Tostão and Jairzinho -, that would be enshrined in the Azteca Stadium, four years later.

And that would spread their fame Across the Universe.
.

The Eighteenth Brumaire

.Tostão and Pelé, in 1970, Maradona in 1986, both in the Azteca Stadium:

if it depended solely on the uniforms, a memorable South Africa'10

Hardly any team will emerge in this World Cup like Brazil in 1970. And it's also unlikely, at Johannesburg's Soccer City, to see a genious like Diego Maradona.

But, for all (visual) purposes, Argentina will play with a t-shirt that's almost a replica of its 86's - and Brazil, like announced yesterday, will be wearing an uniform quite similar to that of 1970.

***

Talking about Napoleon III's military coup against the French Parliament, in 1851, Marx wrote that "history repeats itself - first as tragedy, second as farce". That's it.
.

Catharsis

.
Nada Além
Mário Lago/Custódio Mesquita

Nada além,
nada além de uma ilusão,
chega bem,
é demais para o meu coração.

Acreditando em tudo
que o amor mentindo sempre diz,
eu vou vivendo assim feliz,
na ilusão de ser feliz.

Se o amor
só nos causa sofrimento e dor
é melhor,
bem melhor a ilusão do amor.

Eu não quero e nem peço,
para o meu coração,
nada além
de uma linda ilusão

Orlando Silva: sad beautiful moment

One of the most beautifully sad stories of Brazil'50 talks about one famous Mário Lago & Custódio Mesquita song. The Maracanazo is subject for one thousand histories and stories - among them, one that happened in the night of that july 16th. Few hours after the tragedy Rio, just converted in a cemetery, was still wonderful. But, that night, the city needed to forget what had happened. Some came back home, another roamed around the city. Others, of course, went to the bars, looking for spirits - "spirits" do give some relief to the soul.

***

Orlando Silva, named "singer of the crowds" by the famous speaker Oduvaldo Cozzi, was singing, that night, in one of the bars of the seafront. A group of - justly - triumphant uruguayans was drinking to celebrate the Cup, when Silva announced that would interpret Nada Além, by the double of carioca composers - The song was alusive to the score of hours before. As sang, many of the brazilians there started to cry, and the uruguayans, listening to the lirics, understood it was. Then, they would joined the Brazilian catarsis.

Nada Além don't talks about football, but about an unfulfilled love, big enough to be worth by itself. It's one song of a time when suffering didn't needed to be avoided at all costs. Maybe Brazil'50 is so huge just because it failed to become reality - nothing more than a beautiful illusion.

.

The Bachianas

.

The maestro: not Beethoven, but Bach

Yesterday, on Roda Viva, a Cultura TV program, the pianist and maestro Joã Carlos Martins talked about the ocasion when, traveling with Pelé, heard from Him the phrase "God created only one Beethoven, only one Pelé".

The maestro says that, quickly, he "corrected" the King: "so, so... Bach is Pelé... Beethoven... well... is a kind of Maradona... the second ever, but not so much...".

Detail: Martins is a disciple (and one of the greatest players) of Johann Sebastian Bach's opera.

.

Old continent, old wars

.

The italian goal, that defeated Germany,

in Dortmund: this time, Italien über alles

In the German TV, the best match of the World Cup, with two goals in the four

last minutes and, just like the last meeting in WCs (Spain'82), Italy defeats Germany

Since immemorial times we name stars. When Uhr and Uruk, in Mesopotamia, didn’t existed yet, even as projects, we enjoyed to look for the sky e name the Astros, fixed stars, mobile planets. Astronomy comes from this moments, perhaps the most ancient human science – for the Ancient Egiptians, important enough, at the pinnacle of their civilization, to attribute Nilo’s River fertility (and, thus, their own civilization) to the star we call nowadays Sirius, for them Isis. Nilo’s floods, then, were taken as a consequence of Osiris weeping, god of nature and Isis husband. When she dies, provoked his weeping, that fertilized, every year, the river’s margins.

***

Stellar cataloging... football... well...

One of the five stars (1962) in the Brazilian Team t-shirt could be called as “Elza Soares”. Still, Ruy Castro’s Garrincha, a Estrela Solitária (Garrincha, the Lonely Star), describes it well. Because of opposite reasons, one of the four stars in the Italian t-shirt could be called as… Achim Achilles.

It’s accountable. Anyone who take a look at a wristwatch, in the diurnal lecture of the hours yields, unwitting, an ode to the roman glory. Until today the roman numerals are on clocks, law numbers, Rambo movies et caetera. A certain deference to Italy (and to any country and people, sure) is fair enough.

Der Spiegel's cover: diplomatic incident

It’s not what happened with Der Spiegel. In the editorial (editorial…) of the magazine, the columnist Achim Achilles wrote the text, entitled “Eingeölt und angeschmiert”, referring, amazingly, to the Italian people. Spiegel is, in Germany, as big as Time in the U.S., and Veja in Brazil. It’s not a place to write as a teenager, with teletubbie matureness. But that’s what happened.

Those ideas are pretty suitable – for the nazi-fascism rise period.

Or, then:

“The Italian man, let's call him Luigi is a parasitic life form. It cannot live without a host animal from which it sucks all it can. Luigi, is perennially engaged in demonstrating his need for help.

His primary objective in life is the continuous ostentation of exhaustion, and his preferred host is ‘La Mama’, his big breasted wet-nurse who washes his socks and cooks him pasta every day with a nice thick sauce. He goes on to describe the Italian mama's boy who stays at home, but then he marries a pretty girl who he then transforms in another big breasted Mamma to whom he pays no attention, busy as he is polishing his Fiat and talking about cars
".

***

The unbeliaveble unhappiness of that editorial (editorial) by Achilles became a diplomatic incident, motto for debates around the world, between italian and german colonies in New York newspapers, for articles at Corriere Della Sera and La Repubblica, and for an embarrassing apology from Der Spiegel – the original page with the editorial was replaced, exactly, for this apology (in German, Italian and English), at:

http://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/0,1518,423809,00.html

The original article, that isn’t at Spiegel website anymore, is:

“Eingeölt und angeschmiert

Der italienische Mann, nennen wir in Luigi Forello, ist eine parasitäre Lebensform. Er ist nicht in der Lage, ohne fremde Hilfe zu überleben. Irgendwo saugt er sich immer fest. Und dann lässt er sich fallen. Gern auch auf dem Fußballplatz. Luigi Forello ist fortgesetzt damit beschäftigt, seine Hilflosigkeit zu zeigen. Das fängt schon beim Namen an. Wer nicht Luigi heißt, hört auf “Andrea” oder “Luca”.
Luigis vorrangiges Lebensziel ist das Vermeiden von Anstrengung. Liebstes Wirtstier ist “La Mama”, seine großbrüstige Erzeugerin, die ihm seine halbseidenen Socken wäscht und jeden Tag Nudeln kocht, mit dick Soße drauf. Wenn er ungefähr 30 Jahre alt ist, wechselt der italienische Mann die Köchin. Er heiratet, um sich fortzupflanzen. Die Folgen sind grausam. Eine ehemals strahlend schöne Italienerin verwandelt sich binnen weniger Monate in eine breithüftige Küchenmaschine - eine neue Mama. Das ist ihm aber egal, denn Luigi ist mit der Teilnahme an einem Autokorso beschäftigt, sofern sein klappriger Fiat es bis dahin schafft.

Zum Essen ist er aber wieder da.

Beim Sport ist unser Luigi besonders tückisch, wie man jedes Jahr millionenfach an den Stränden der Adria beobachten kann. Er braucht Stunden, um seinen schmächtigen Körper und das Haupthaar einzuölen, seinen Rücken von Fellresten zu befreien und sein wenig spektakuläres Gemächt in eine viel zu enge Badehose zu stopfen. Dann stolziert er stundenlang umher, um schließlich maximal fünf Minuten beim Strandfußball mitzumachen. Er springt wie ein Wahnsinniger umher, imitiert brüllend Gesten, die er im Fernsehen gesehen hat, trifft den Ball höchst selten, die Knochen der anderen dafür umso härter.

Weil er schnell erschöpft ist, genügt ihm die leiseste Berührung eines Gegners, um melodramatisch zu Boden zu gehen. Noch im Stürzen wirft er einen Blick ringsum, ob im Publikum genügend Menschen sind, insbesondere Frauen, die ihn bemitleiden und wieder aufpäppeln. Schmachtende Blicke deutscher Urlauberinnen sind die Lebensgrundlage des italienischen Mannes.

Insofern geschah gestern nicht Ungewöhnliches. Fabio Grosso fiel im Strafraum und grinste noch im Fallen. Der nicht minder ölige

Francesco Totti verwandelte dann den Elfmeter gegen Australien. Danach lutschte er am Daumen. Das ist normal bei italienischen Männern. Es war wie immer.Am Freitag werden die kickenden Holzfäller aus der Ukraine eingeölt und angeschmiert. So schlawinern sich die Italiener mal wieder bis ins Halbfinale. Dann, liebe Luigis, ist allerdings Feierabend. Wir haben da noch ein paar Rechnungen vom letzten Italien-Urlaub offen."

The discomfort caused is shown in a BBC report, at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_cup_2006/5141074.stm

Bild's front page: to make matters worse

To make matters worse, Bild released, simultaneously, a front page with the suggestive headline, “Pizza Arrivederci”: (at http://www.bild.de/BTO/sport/wm2006/aktuell/07/04/pizza-arrivederci/pizza-arrivederci.html) From Bild, well... it’s expected... but from Spiegel is, in a certain sense, one of the biggest political gafes in the post-war Europe. The way Fabio Grosso and Alessandro Del Piero celebrated their goals in the end of the extra time of the semifinal, in that july 4th against Germany, in Dortmund, shows the outburst meaning it had.

***

Fussing a little in the geopolitical analogies... again… respect Rome. Considering that Palmeiras is the old Palestra Itália, the “Pig Goal” by Viola, in 1993, in the first match of the São Paulo Championship of that year, was the motto for the “palmeirense” reaction, embodied in the 4x0 of the second match. Viola’s post-modern “pig” is the same used in the First and Second World Wars, as (jocular) reference to the same italians (with the non-official encouragement even from Vargas).

Rome, eternal city.

***

Garrincha and the star Elza, still: the man who never falled in love for a woman in a losing mind way, read the available researches, to understand it. Search, in Psychoanalysis literature, for “sublimation”. This is it.

.

Chiliad poems

.The cover of Quando é Dia de Futebol: top Drummond pearls


There's plenty of things written, debated, gaping, about Pelé, and it's almost impossible choose the best commentary about Him. But it's possible to endeavour.

***

"É fácil fazer mil gols como Pelé.
Difícil é fazer um gol como Pelé"


("It's easy to score one thousand goals like Pelé.
Hard is scoring once as Pelé")


This is one one excerpt of the amazing Quando é Dia de Futebol (When it's Soccer Time), that joins chronicles of the gauche mineiro. By the way... it's easy writing one thousand poems like Drummond - hard is writing one like, for instance, A Máquina do Mundo (The World's Machine):

E como eu palmilhasse vagamente
uma estrada de Minas, pedregosa,
e no fecho da tarde um sino rouco


se misturasse ao som de meus sapatos
que era pausado e seco; e aves pairassem
no céu de chumbo, e suas formas pretas

lentamente se fossem diluindo
na escuridão maior, vinda dos montes
e de meu próprio ser desenganado,


a máquina do mundo se entreabriu
para quem de a romper já se esquivava
e só de o ter pensado se carpia.


In common, the Minas Gerais state (both are born there) and the fact that the city of Itabira (and Três Corações) are just portraits on the wall.
.

Big Apple, great idea

. Annie Sommers with a page of her book and a picture of the final match

of 1970, at World Cups room: publication focused on the young American public

The presence of Robinho at Pacaembu Stadium this sunday, february 14th, was foreseeable. What we didn't waited for was the visit, to the Football Museum, of someone who makes us very proud: Annie Leah Sommers. Nowadays living in New York, she's graduated in English Literature at McGill University, Montreal, with specialization in Children's Literature at the Simmons College, Boston.

Sommers is the author of Great National Soccer Teams, a book about the history of the nations and football, focused on the young American public - maybe one of the most promising for the future of football (football as soccer, huh?) in the World. Writing for these readers, maybe, is one of the next steps for the transformation of this public - and perhaps for the creation of a strong rival for the Brazilian Team. One day, maybe.
.

Lives, modus-vivendi

Saldanha in Canal 100: flawless originality

Pelé is so young, of body and soul, that sometimes doesn't even works as a reference of that football of the past, which we like to call it "rhythmic", "subtle" and "spetacular" (though it was, certainly). Pelé is the player who was born modern, that made a deal with the Sputnik, in which they would rise almost together, and would provide mutual reasons for keep on brighting, up there. Garrincha quickly became past, the cracks of 70 and 82 today rarely approach a ball, and the Simca-Chambord is gone. Only Pelé, a statistical aberration, continues (at 70) looking like a boy. At 70, the hero of 1970 almost has no white hair - the contrary of this scribe that, with less than half the age of the King, mas more than the triple, the quadruple, the quintuple, whatever. Pelé is one of the possible projections of what better youth has: the force and the provision.

***

Someteimes, however, our idyllic portion requires we keep ourselves away from the present, the enough distance to reach another temporality, with another caracthers and modus-vivendi. Like (again in this space), João Saldanha.

Trying to explain this sudden banzo for a character that doesn't dwells today's imaginaries is possible. Journalist, Saldanha seems never had embedded, totally, the DT persona. Continued to be a chronicler of good resources, even when had the task of scheduling the "Canarinho" Team (and unpleasant questions, like choosing Pelé or/and Tostão). Garrastazu, in a chiclet passage, was invited to schedule his ministery, while him, Saldanha, would schedule the Seleção. After that, with Zagallo in the helm (of the ship), the team, in a certain way, would be "scheduled" by Médici: Dadá, that wasn't better than Eto'o, was there.

Saldanha, quickly,returned to his natural habitat, the press cabinet, and due to this was in Mexico'70 - and in all other following World Cups, until 1990. Saldanha's finitude was accomplished in the Eternal City, days after watching, in the Olympic Stadium, the Final Match of one of the one of the most boring tournaments ever.

We have, almost, 20 years without Saldanha. We'll miss him for ever. On the other hand, he is not exactly a man of these times - Saldanha is a man of a time when the Berlin Wall was still standing, with all the good and bad meanings this has. Ideas desert wasn't, certainly, the case.

.

From the holds of Dunguism... Saldanha

.

Saldanha being interviewed as the

Seleção's coach, in 1969: few material resources... material...

Chico Buarque says, reaffirms and undersigns that the military regime of 1964 did nothing to the cultural effervescence of that time - it would be more a spirit of the age, a zeitgeist, than a reflex of the political moment.

Ok. Chico, sure, knows a lot what he talks about. But some events rumble in memory on the other hand. As when we parallelize the marketing paraphernalia of today's Technical Committee of the Seleção, and the frugality of the "chats" with DT's in João Saldanha's time. His constant originality during the AI-5 (the dictatorship's Institutional Act Number 5, released on december 1968, that restricted civil rights) contrasts with nowaday's ditty. For both, in common, only the origin, in Rio Grande do Sul state.

Nowadays, it's pressing "play" and, literally, let the tape roll.
.

Time, time...

.

Compositor de destinos,

tambor de todos os ritmos,

tempo tempo tempo tempo.

Entro num acordo contigo,

tempo tempo tempo tempo...

Orlando, comforting a "58's Neymar", and in a recent photo: another dimension

Almost at the same time that Neymar leaves the egg, looming himself to his first World Cup when he just got his legal majority, one more of the superb cracks of the Tricampeonato leaves this dimension.

This time, this wednesday, it was Orlando, titular defender of the 1958 Team. It's true that the strong point of those three Seleções was attacking, it's true. But the defense - Gilmar above all - when called, didn't disappoint. The defense, composed by Bellini and Orlando, shone a lot in Vasco da Gama.

***

It's impressive time's pace. Still yesterday, Cafu appeared as a promise of versatility for Brazilian football. And still yesterday (literally, yesterday as tuesday), Cafu was in the Football Museum Hearer, to talk as an ex-player. Time flew, and we didn't realize. Ronaldo Nazário, in his turn, still carries a nick that usually is linked to teenagers: "Phenomenom". Only the nick remains, however. The braces and the spines are gone, aren't in his layout anymore. It's impressive how time flies in life, in a general way, and how football is emblematic of that. The Brazilian players of the 1950'World Cup no longer belong to this dimension, none. Those from 58, though many still alive, are mostly with age health troubles (Pelé is out of this equation; "supernaturals", like he was called by L'Equipe that time, don't count on that).

Orlando, at 74, is gone. Perhaps, also, to remember us that they, super-athletes, in the end are caught by the death's sickle, too. What to say about us, mere (and sedentary) mortals? Even Neymar, one day, will have to talk to her (though it's a very strange idea, definitely).
.

If Muhammad won't go to the Rushmore Mount...

.Washington and Lincoln: their glories come from the past

With the arriving of Lincoln at Palmeiras, begins for the first time a very suggestive classic, in poll's year: Washington against Lincoln (or São Paulo x Palmeiras).

We hope this will be a meeting at democracy strictu sensu; due to this logic, perhaps the next arriving players in São Paulo state's football will be Roosevelt and Jefferson. And God bless America (from the city of São José do Rio Preto, state of São Paulo).
.

Everyone has a good story to tell

. The educator Marcelo Continelli, acting in the Elderly Day: stories

Everyone has a good story to tell. It may be tales, thrillers and even fisher stories

Thinking about this oral memory, in the Elderly Day, october 1st, we made special activities with two groups - the Convivence Nucleus for Elderly Dom Hélder Câmara and Convivence Nucleus for Elderly Felicidade Não Tem Idade/Gotas de Prata. The members of the groups made us emotioned with beautiful stories.

***

In Brazil, the Elderly Day was celebrated on september 27th since 1999, but, since national law 11.433 of december 28th, 2006, it was changed into october 1st. A date created by the UN to celebrate the International Elderly Day, due to a World Comitee about the third age in Austria in 1982.

“Não sei se a vida é curta ou longa demais para nós,

mas sei que nada do que vivemos

tem sentido, se não tocarmos o coração das pessoas”

Cora Coralina, that released her 1st book at 75.

.