By contrast, The World Cup, almost halfway through its 2014 incarnation as of this writing, is far and away the biggest spectacle worldwide. It is estimated that 800 million people - or one out of every nine humans - will watch this year's final game.
It has been somewhat of a pastime to mock Americans' following of the sport, but in 2010 more than half of US households watched coverage of the World Cup. And the national team's opening game vs Ghana in this year's tournament was the most-watched soccer game ever among an American audience. A Blogger, Idiot is one of those paying attention - to the USA-Ghana game, from a sweltering living room not far from the banks of the Amazon River. I had traveled to Brazil to attend three matches and experience the craziness firsthand. I took a camera with me, and from airports I also scrawled down some notes on the games and the people.
Read on...or just skip to the video at the bottom.
BRASILIA
It's well and good to want to partake in this worldwide party, but you actually have to get there to do so. Flying from the west coast to Brazil's capital city took about a solid day's worth of flights, knocking me forward a few time zones in the process.
About Brasilia, I knew very little, other than its notability as a city-planning experiment. The major part of the map is laid out in the shape of an airplane; the locals call it the "pilot plan". The 'fuselage', if you will, is a major axis created by a linear park called the Esplanada. This is flanked by government ministry buildings. A few cultural elements are sprinkled in for effect. The 'wings' of the diagram are residential blocks, or squares. Each square has an associated commercial district. Squares are numbered sequentially, and roads are too. It is modernism theory freebased - and strangely, after a few days there, it feels as though it works, just sort of.
My lodging throughout the trip was with strangers, arranged through Airbnb. For the Brasilia leg, I was staying with a pair of middle-aged women. One worked as a graphic designer for the government's public affairs office, and the other ran political campaigns. Both described their city as a bit of an elitist bubble compared with the rest of the country. We had dinner at a sushi restaurant one night and spent much time discussing the workings of Brazilian socio-economics. Popularly there seems to have been a backlash against US-sponsored capitalism; the current regime, and the one that preceded it, is an advocate for income re-distribution programs to aid the poorest citizens. Spending on the World Cup, on the other hand - moreso that expenditure's opportunity cost - has caused much consternation among Brazilians. Everyone seemed to be hoping for a deep run by the Brazilian team, an outcome that would dull the economic reality of the event.
There are many Brazils. Areas of urbanity here, rougher frontiers elsewhere. Leticia, the campaign manager, related a story from a town near her old home in the southern part of the country. The local prison, overwhelmingly populated by men convicted of drug-related crimes, would permit one day's leave per month for family visitation. This practice led to some of the inmates spending that time recruiting their young sons into the drug crime in their stead. A local woman became aware of this situation and on these days would gather up all the children from around town and hide them, in silence, until the inmates had to return to the prison grounds. One anecdote of a people's resolve to look after the NEXT generation. The programs to aid the poor have a similar goal - improving the lot of the demographic that follows today's. "Brazil has made more progress in the last ten years than in the previous hundred," Leticia told me. "And it's beautiful."
On a Sunday I attended the first-round matchup between Switzerland and Ecuador. The game was played at newly renovated National Stadium of Brazil, which is named after soccer legend Mane Garrinche. My hosts in Brasilia told me all about Garrinche, and even DJ'ed up a YouTube playlist of his highlights. Lines into the stadium lived up to World Cup standards; it took me more than an hour to get from the parking lot to my seat (the NYT later reported that there had been a problems with the security check). The crowd was pro-Ecuador, due probably to Ecuador being a fellow South American nation. Unfortunately for all that, Switzerland spoiled the day with a late, decisive goal and won 2-1. Attendance was announced as 68,000. The crowd atmosphere and the stadium experience were somewhat a microcosm of Brasilia - high quality, but sterile in a way.
MANAUS
At more than 800 miles west of the next nearest host city, the novelty appeal of Manaus is immediately evident. This city of 2 million lies on the banks of the Rio Negro in the middle of Brazil's Amazon region, and relies heavily on tourism and its status as a jumping-off point for ecological excursions in the rainforest. A century and a half ago, it was a thriving hub for the international rubber trade, but now with those days over, Manaus has lost economic relevance and its downtown has crumbled. Calling it the Detroit of Brazil would almost be an insult to Detroit..
Far from metropolitan hubs, afflicted with a hot, sticky climate, and a part of one of only two Brazilian states without dependable municipal water, it is no wonder that life in Manaus is quite different from that in Brasilia. I figured all along that the real adventure would begin (and perhaps end) here.
Sure enough, I had an "Oh no, what am I doing?" moment when my taxi driver from the airport got lost in the Redencao neighborhood, which is about as close to a favela as I may ever experience firsthand. While the house where I stayed was modest but comfortable, the house directly adjacent did not have a front door. I went out for a walk to establish my mental map of the area and was immediately diverted by a pack of stray dogs blocking my direction. In short order I became aware that stray dogs here were not aggressive, but they were everywhere in the city, roaming aimlessly, wallowing in the merciless sun.
An older couple - Mara and Mauricim - lived in the house. Their daughter, Marilia, organized boat trips on the river and was over frequently. I spent a day on one of her tours, which was guided by her husband Marcio. Those hours included swimming with pink dolphins, watching for parrots between the trees, and getting to know a friendly sloth, but a different enduring memory for me will be riding on the back of Marcio's motorcycle through the streets of Manaus on our way to the port that morning.
I had a hilariously clumsy conversation with Mara my first night at the house. She made me coffee and a snack called tapioca and we talked about our families and what I did for a living. I'm pretty sure that some of my statements were relevant to the matters being raised for inquiry. Then again, my general strategy with Portuguese was to assemble a chunky phrase in my head, talk myself into believing it was appropriate, blurt it out during a moment of silence, and then sit dumbstruck at the response it generated.
I wanted to ask everybody about their thoughts on hosting games in Manaus, an endeavor for which significant infrastructure, including a completely new stadium (likely lifespan: four games) was required, all while the rest of the city seemed to be in a slow, irreversible decay. The stadium is gorgeous - the only thing in the city that can pass as remotely modern. Steel for the structure was shipped thousands of miles by boat to the construction site.
On game night, Cameroon and Croatia squared off. I wanted to support the upstart Cameroon team and spent much effort, to no avail, hunting for that team's jersey in the central market before the game. Croatia won easily after a Cameroonian player was ejected, turning it into an 11-on-10 matchup.
I'd met some travelers from Seattle the previous night, and we all spent a few hours in an area of town called El Dorado Square after the game. Brazil and Mexico had played to a 0-0 tie the afternoon before; I was on the boat coming back into the harbor when the game was winding down, and operators on floating petrol stations screamed to our boat the score and time situation as we passed. Had Brazil won that game, El Dorado Square might not have been standing by the time we arrived.
Disappointing tie means Brazilian fans will only samba until 5 AM instead of 6 AM.
— Eli Terry (@EliTerry) June 17, 2014
FORTALEZA
Fortaleza is a beachy city in the northeastern state of Caera, and within hours of arriving I found myself swimming in the ocean with two beautiful Brazilian girls. I had judged the dangers in Manaus to be external; here in Fortaleza, I was the biggest danger to myself.
Near the beaches, especially along the north coast, gated apartment buildings with doormen populate the blocks. There are also yoga and Pilates studios. I tried to find the business district, to no avail. Southern Brazilians have a perception of northerners, as far as work ethic goes, that is not entirely favorable. I did not observe my host for the week, a late 20's guy who apparently sold apartments for a living, doing anything that resembled a job.
Back to the topic of danger, though: throughout the trip a heavy police present was constantly visible. Residents tended to use the descriptor "security" when addressing this, and while this was not inaccurate, it still struck me as a bit of a euphemism. In actuality this was not too far off from a military deployment, especially in areas close to the stadiums.
Germany and Ghana were playing in Fortaleza during my stay. On the day of the game, I elected to head in the direction of the stadium early, find a place to post up and watch the argentina game first, and then drift into the stadium for kickoff there. It's six miles or so from the beach area to Arena Castelao, and after about two of those miles the landscape changes significantly. No more comfortable high-rise buildings or fitness clubs. I had wanted to control my own destiny and not pay for a cab so I chose to walk, a decision that had me basically merging onto a freeway about halfway through (stupid; I took a bus back). Still, there were the military police checkpoints, automatic weapons on display.
In some ways it felt like the security force's focus was to look after westerners. As the route to the stadium got back to a normal surface road, traffic was diverted and a series of barricades erected along the sides of the street where local homes and businesses fronted. It turned the procession to the game into a sort of classist parade - strange, moneyed foreigners on the inside, and the local residents, curiously watching from behind the fences, on the outside. Something about that was unsettling to me.
I succeeded in finding a small cafe that was not barred off by veering onto an access road alongside the stadium. The constituents there were myself, the stadium grounds crew, a dozen policemen, and two more Brazilian women that attempted valiantly to make conversation with me. Midway through the afternoon, the German and Ghanian team buses both drove by, drawing everyone out onto the street. And in the Argentina game, Lionel Messi scored one of the goals of the tournament, prompting me to jump up out of my seat with a cheer...a cheer that was definitely NOT matched by anyone else there. (I quickly learned that Brazilian fans tended to root for the demise of any team they viewed as a threat later in the tournament; this especially went for the Argentines and the Germans)
Germany and Ghana played to a 2-2 tie in front of a raucous crowd. It was the most entertaining of the three games I witnessed, but unfortunately didn't really help the U.S. team, who would have preferred a German victory. The next night I watched the U.S. - Portugal game from the FIFA fan event on the beach, and then packed up my belongings and started the arduous journey back to the States.
***
Many hours in airports followed, offering me some time for reflection. Throughout my travels I was constantly impressed by the Brazilian people's kindness and warmth. It is a welcoming place, and yet also one resolute in its own ways, and its own visions of progress. Whether or not all Brazilians prefer to be hosting the Cup, there seemed to be a unanimous desperation to win it this year. In five years' time - after the Cup has cleared out, and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro are past - I think we will see a different version of Brazil, one that is perhaps slightly stronger internally, and more integrated in the world economy on its own terms. But one thing that will not change is the unifying magic of sport - a force that empties streets when the national team is playing, one that draws passersby to the sidelines of dusty playground lots, and elicits roars of anticipation in stadiums when a player breaks loose toward the goal. That is the powerful linkage between Brazil the country and the game it loves: this undying, visceral belief in possibility.
***
The Tournament -Documentary from Sam Mesikepp on Vimeo.
2 comments:
Loved reading about your trip, Sam! You painted such a clear description of what your experience was like!
Thanks, Kelly! I wish you and Mark had made it! There's always Qatar 2022 I guess.
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