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Brazil: A Fever Called Corinthians Part 3
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By Joe Lopes
We continue with part 3 of Joe‘s article on the famous São Paulo football club. To read the previous parts click the relevant link at the bottom of the article.
Another of my father's friends, Nelsinho, who I had also made the personal acquaintance of, was an ex-member of the 1955 Corinthians championship team. He worked as an athletic trainer at the club, and remained a recognized mainstay there for many years once his playing days were over.
In fact, it was largely due to the generosity of people like my cousin Frede and the other club officials that kept many former players out of the streets and on the company payroll when nothing else was available to them. One sensed the profound gratitude these proud men felt for Corinthians, and the total allegiance they swore to the club, due to this extra degree of compassion shown them by the powers above. And not many people knew about this, save for a select few.
"But for the grace of God and Corinthians go I," dad once told me, as another of his impoverished pals passed by to greet him.
The Long & Winding Soccer Road
While my father had lived in São Paulo, he was able to associate freely with others of the original club champions who were still in permanent residence there, including the ever-popular Baltazar, another best buddy from the Golden Age of fifties futebol. But all that pretty much changed once he moved to the soccer-less streets of 1960s America.
Because of our fundamentally Brazilian sports background, however, it can be stated, with complete conviction, that my family and I were fortunate eyewitnesses to the incredible growth and spread of soccer here in the United States. On the flip side, I can also testify to the agonizingly slow and painful deterioration of the same sport in my native land at the hands of incompetent coaches, unscrupulous club owners, and overly avaricious players.
My own childhood memories of the game were filled with scenes of long, hot summers on weed-covered playing fields, learning to play soccer with my dad and younger brother, always competing for attention and space with the other popular outdoor activities of sandlot baseball, schoolyard stickball, and cement-court basketball.
I can recall one Sunday afternoon in the mid-sixties, when dad took us to see our first exhibition match at Downing Stadium on Randall's Island, where we thrilled to the once-in-a-lifetime pairing of Santos' star scorer, O Rei (The King) Pelé, with Europe's two-time Athlete of the Year, Eusébio, the Lion of Angola, who, despite his ferocious-sounding epithet, was actually born in Mozambique.
I can remember viewing the 1970 World Cup matches from Mexico on the giant closed-circuit screens at Madison Square Garden, and dancing in the aisles there with my family and our compatriots when the imperturbable Brazilian team trounced Italy's Forza Azzuri by a score of 4-1, to retire the coveted Jules Rimet trophy with an historic third world title.
I closely followed the late-seventies phase of Pelé's American career with the New York Cosmos, and even went to many of their home games at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, to watch world-class players of the caliber of ex-Lazio striker Giorgio Chinaglia, the German "Kaiser" Franz Beckenbauer, the Portuguese Seninho, the Brazilian Carlos Alberto, the Dutchman Johan Neeskens, the Croatian Vladislav Bogicevic, and many others, attempt to transform the fledgling North American Soccer League into one of international repute and competitiveness.
I looked back fondly on a nervy conversation my father had in the early eighties with Professor Júlio Mazzei, the well known soccer coach, teacher, and mentor to Pelé, as dad asked him over lunch why more Brazilians weren't hired by the Cosmos as starters; to which, the loquacious Professor Mazzei responded that the owners of the team had demanded more players from the Continent because of the higher proportion of European immigrants living in the U.S. In other words, it was strictly a marketing ploy, but he felt sympathy for my father's frustration in wanting to see more of his fellow countrymen play here, and, quite naturally, commiserated with him over it.
I empathized with the league's later monetary misfortunes, as it inevitably folded in 1984 due to serious lack of funding and interest, as well as television ratings. Many (but not all) of the overpaid international stars who came here were on their last soccer legs anyway, and went on to finish up their field careers as spent war veterans with very little left to thrill testy North American audiences.
Overall, I managed to observe the slow and steady buildup of the sport throughout the remainder of the eighties and nineties, up to its present participative level.
And, during the time of my residency in São Paulo, I had withstood the steady onslaught of constantly televised jogos (games), the endlessly confusing soccer tournaments, the incomprehensible club playing schedules, the scandalous Wanderley Luxemburgo corruption investigations, the shocking revelations they ultimately disclosed, and, worst of all, the pathetic and self-serving press conference given by coach Mário Zagallo, after Brazil lost 3-0 to the French, at the 1998 World Cup finals in Paris.
Surely, I surmised, with a deep sense of saudade (longing) for the glory days of soccer, the final reckoning for futebol was close at hand. But then, in Japan, in the year 2002 AD, the Brazilians won their fifth world championship-and all previous soccer transgressions were dutifully absolved.
Part 4 next week...
Copyright © 2006 by Josmar F. Lopes
A naturalized American citizen born in Brazil, Joe Lopes was raised and educated in New York City, where he worked for many years in the financial sector. In 1996, he moved to Brazil with his wife and daughters. In 2001, he returned to the U.S. and now resides in North Carolina with his family. You can email your comments to JosmarLopes@msn.com.
To read previous articles by Joe Lopes click below:
Brazilian World Cup Debacle: Just Wait Till 2010! Part 2
Brazilian World Cup Debacle: Just Wait Till 2010! Part 1
Brazil: Taking Flight on Florencia's Fragile Wings Part 3
Brazil: A Fever Called Corinthians Part 2
Brazil: Taking Flight on Florencia‘s Fragile Wings Part 2
Brazil: A Fever Called Corinthians Part 1
Brazil: Taking Flight on Florencia's Fragile Wings Part 1
Teaching English In Brazil Part 8
Teaching English In Brazil Part 7
Teaching English In Brazil Part 6
Teaching English In Brazil Part 5
Teaching English In Brazil Part 4
Teaching English In Brazil Part 3
Teaching English In Brazil Part 2
A German Ring in the Brazilian Rainforest Part 4
A German Ring in the Brazilian Rainforest Part 3
Teaching English In Brazil - Part I
A German Ring in the Brazilian Rainforest Part 2
A German Ring in the Brazilian Rainforest Part 1
"Down in Brazil," with Michael Franks Part 3
"Down in Brazil," with Michael Franks Part 2
"Down in Brazil," with Michael Franks Part 1
Brazil: A Candid Talk with Gerald Thomas
Getting to the "bottom" of Brazil's Gerald Thomas
A Brazilian Diva Torn Between Europe and Brazil
The Enraged Genius of Brazil‘s Maestro Neschling
A German Ring in the Brazilian Rainforest
Brazil's Musical Polyglots: What Was That You Were Singing?
Did Bossa Nova Kill Opera in Brazil?
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7/11/2006
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