The Matuto and the Football
The Matuto has noticed an increase in football enthusiasm. Here, in Brazil, a country that so generously welcomed the Matuto in its bosom, the burnings for football, are passions that burn with viewed eyes. There are no half measurements. There are no precautions, no chicken broths. It is passion without brake. No filters.
In the « House of Pontes » there is no talk in another thing. « I think Ancelotti did well to set aside Neymar. This guy only knows how to roll on the lawn, » says Belinha, the conservative visit of the ‘bridges’. Marcello, the reactionary visit of the ‘bridges’, adds: “But the Italian is a gentleman. Called the boy warning that he was not going to summon him to the selection. ”The admiration for all Italian, here in Brazil, is infinite and blind. One day, the Matuto fell into the blunder of saying that Italy was the » sewage of Europe. » Finished in « ADO ».
« Okay, but it was not always like this, » he cautiously Mr. Rocha, former mechanical engineer made an expert in Anglophone wanderings. Mr. Rocha is the visit in the “House of Pontes” that always puts water in boiling. It is verbalized wisdom. The guy who takes the neck and pokes his soul. “In a 1921 chronicle, Graciliano Ramos, the author of Dry lives argued that football was a passing fashion that would never take in Brazil. He thought the sport did not match the ‘scolding’ personality of the Brazilian ” – concludes Mr. Rocha. Matuto did a quick research and in fact the writer of the state of Alagoas wrote: “But why football? Wouldn’t it be better to exercise youth in national games, with no mix of foreignness, the punch, the club, the tip knife, for example? It is not that it is disgusted the introduction of exotic things between us. But I like to ask whether they will be assimilable or not. In the affirmative case, the institution is very welcome, we fertilize it, let us arrange in it a hybrid son who can live at home. Otherwise, we resign ourselves to the scolding traditions of the country and the matutos. Now it seems to us that football does not adapt to these good stops of the cangaço. It is loan clothing that does not serve us. ”*The patriot writer even asked young people to forget the football and rescue, in the name of Brazilian culture, national activities that were forgotten: “Rehabilitate the regional sports that are abandoned there: the club, the cachação, the arm wrestling, the running run, so useful to a citizen who is dedicated to risky chickens, the oxen, the jump, the ride and, better than anything, the slim! This is the national sport par excellence”!* The Matuto found this reference to the ‘creepy’ as the “national sport ”. Revealing at least. The Oscar, the resident lizard of the “House of Bridges”, stretching on the wall, throws the paws to the heavens: “I am not me, and I don’t say so much barbarity”!
However, the Club World Cup began and Brazil has 4 worthy representatives in competition: Palmeiras, Botafogo, Fluminense and Flamengo. The latter, the Flamengo Regatta Club, is responsible for the glorification of exercise, for the health of the body and soul of thousands of cariocas. Young people formerly bails and rackets, suddenly beaten pectorals (“PECS” to the English, informs Mr. Rocha), a thin waist, the nervous leg and a herculum muscles with his arms. It was the delirium of ‘Rowing’ – The Remo -The Passion of ‘Sports’. On rabidity days the city of Rio was choked on an urban Gentile. But a club that started with race quickly became drunk on football. The ‘lead‘ – Games Field – From Flamengo was colossal. “In the stands the patricians sat like in a Roman circus,” said Mr. Rocha. « And women watched »? Asked Belinha. “Yes”-Guaranteed Mr. Rocha-“The girls of that time were pale of emotion shouting the names of the players. footballOf course, they were models of elongated and pointed skull, kicking with the lower limbs that very much remembered certain ancestors of the man. ”The Matuto was attacked with this description of Mr. Rocha – which fascinating should be to watch a game of ‘ball.’ From low and low vocabulary (other time the creeping!), From Palm to Caps, they competed with the time of time. ”“ Give an example ” – begs the Belinha.“ Only if it is in Chinese ” – fires Marcello, abeped with the course of the conversation. Relief: “Afff”!
The Matuto was thoughtful. Graciliano well tried to rescue the club and the arm wrestling… but it was won by twenty -two matters behind a ball. In the background, the football This is really: a well given creep in the prediction of intellectuals. Mr. Rocha still tried to explain the etymological origins of the term “Corner Kick”, But he was silent on the cry for Belinha: « kicks this ball, miserable! » Matuto thinks that Brazil has assimilated the football « But in your own way: with emotion, exaggeration, superstition, and three somersaults per second. » Because football for the Brazilian is not just passion. It’s theater, it’s circus, it’s soap opera, it’s religion. One thing is certain: there is no sport (sport in Brazil, please) more democratic – even the Oscar, who is not even though, is already training low on the garden doves. Go that is still summoned!
* (In, Milton Pedrosa, LETTER GOL: FOOTBALL IN BRAZILIAN LITERATUREGlobal Publisher, 1967, page 167)
