by Rob Smyth
Yet even in the grimmest favela there is a buoyancy and zest for life that is typical of Cariocas, the name given to residents of Rio. Cariocas are tactical and unfettered; they talk with their hands, eyes and hips as well as their mouths. Emotionally and physically they live in a permanent state of semi-nakedness. Rio is not a place for the shy or the body-conscious. When a teenage Kaiser started to discover the beaches of Rio, he was like a kid in a sweet shop – one stocked with wall-to-wall eye candy.
The inequality of Rio, and the overwhelming allure of its good side, makes it a kind of holiday destination even for those who live there. The mundane or miserable parts of life disappear at the touch of a toe on sand. At its best, Rio is the kind of place that makes you think you’ve died and gone to utopia. The endless beaches, full of blissful white sand, are surrounded by awesome granite mountains and tropical forests. Overlooking everything is Cristo Redentor – Christ the Redeemer, the 125-foot statue of Jesus with his arms outstretched that stands on top of Corcovado Mountain.
Cristo is in the eye of the beholder. To some it’s a simple symbol of Catholicism or Christianity; to others, his open arms reflect Rio’s welcoming nature. It is the high point in a city that has more iconic landmarks than some continents. The list includes Sugarloaf Mountain, the Botanical Gardens – and the Maracanã, the home of football. And there is beach weather all year round. No wonder it is known as Cidade Maravilhosa, the Marvellous City.
The environment has shaped a culture that is informal, laid back and unhurried. Promptness is as much a vice as a virtue; a rigid work ethic is almost an affront to an environment that could have been custom-designed for hedonism.
Joel Santana knows about life in Rio. As a coach he has won the Campeonato Carioca, the state championship, with the four biggest clubs: Botafogo, Flamengo, Fluminense and Vasco da Gama. ‘Rio de Janeiro is a special state,’ he says ‘Cariocas are more free, relaxed, fun. Everybody gets on with their lives. The environment is conducive to it: a lot of beach, a lot of samba, a lot of drums. A good Carioca is somebody who knows how to live life. It’s different from other states. That’s why other people end up criticising us. In Rio, you get into the groove without knowing it. People naturally turn into Cariocas. Put some Havaianas flip flops and sunglasses on and you’re sorted.’
If you are to survive in Rio, never mind thrive, you need to have a very good instinct, and also to trust it implicitly. Most Cariocas believe in instant pleasure and living exclusively in the moment – not so much mindfulness as soulfulness. Kaiser certainly didn’t worry about tomorrow. He rarely worried about later today. ‘Kaiser is a typical Carioca – a chancer,’ says his friend Júnior Negão, the beach footballer who won a record nine World Cups between 1995 and 2004. ‘He’s the kind of guy who wakes up not knowing whether he’s going to eat in the best restaurant in town or go hungry. One day he won’t have any shoes and the next he’ll be dressed up to the nines at a fancy event.’ In Rio, the default setting is hedonism, and everyone is having an all-life party.
***
Kaiser signed his first youth contract with Botafogo a few months after his goal in the Father Christmas game at the Maracanã. His mum put two and two together and made 175, planning a future for the whole family on the assumption that Kaiser would become a superstar. She was a functioning alcoholic, and for years he had been forced to deliver homemade lunchboxes to earn extra money for her. He winces as he recalls soup and beans scalding his bare legs, and his mother beating him if he returned home with any of the money missing. ‘She had suffered in life and she took it out on me,’ he says. ‘I’m not angry with her. She was just trying to get by.’
Kaiser adored his father almost as much as he feared his mother. ‘He was super cool: intelligent, educated, classy, cultured, studious. He put a lot of value on culture. My mum was the complete opposite.’ Kaiser’s dad worked long hours as the manager of an elevator company and was oblivious to the fraught relationship between his wife and son. Kaiser concluded that, if his mum beat him up over a few missing cruzeiros, it probably wasn’t safe to reveal her abuse and alcoholism.
Like many in those days, Kaiser’s mother was uneducated; in 1970, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, a third of Brazilians aged fifteen and over were classified as illiterate. Her constant nagging wore Kaiser down and started to drain his love of football. At one stage she demanded to know why he hadn’t made it into the first team. He was eleven years old.
There was another reason for Kaiser’s increasing apathy towards football: he had discovered girls.
***
Kaiser was getting impatient. Most of his classmates had lost their virginity, and they wouldn’t shut up about it. Kaiser was content that his reciprocal lies were convincing – nobody queried his stories after the Jairzinho picture – but he was still desperate to have sex. After all, he was nearly twelve years old.
The opportunity came during a party at a neighbouring favela. The girl who first made a man of Carlos Kaiser was a fifteen-year-old called Elisa, the niece of a family friend. The setting was not the stuff of Hollywood: it was ten o’clock in the morning when Kaiser and Elisa sneaked outside to find somewhere more intimate. Elisa led Kaiser by the hand until they found an alcove that was partially covered by a large sheet of corrugated metal. It would suffice.
For most of his first sexual experience, Kaiser was distracted by the cold kiss of concrete on his bare backside. It was initially an unwelcome intrusion – and then actually quite helpful, because it delayed the inevitable. At that stage Kaiser was, by his own admission, a workmanlike lover. ‘The experience was practical and objective,’ he says. ‘I wanted to lose my virginity and move on to the next one. It’s not something I’m particularly proud of. This all comes from the culture in which I was raised. When you come from a poor background in Brazil, you start trying to display your masculinity very early.’
***
Even before he was a teenager Kaiser reached the conclusion that there were two types of people in this world: him and everybody else. Kaiser’s circumstances made him self-sufficient and resourceful. Before he joined Botafogo, he earned pocket money by selling flowers at the gates of local cemeteries. Kaiser’s angelic face and enterprising spirit pierced those undertaking a solemn ritual, and they were usually happy to pay a bit extra for a bunch of flowers. Kaiser even had a decent variety and could cater for different tastes.
There was a reason for that: he’d lifted them all from around the cemetery at the crack of dawn.
The scam was an early example of Kaiser’s unusual initiative – and his love of sacanagem, a Portuguese word that broadly means mischief but can refer to anything from mickey-taking to depraved orgies. When Kaiser was younger, it often referred to his behaviour at school. He enjoyed some classes and had a particular interest in reading about health and fitness. But if the subject didn’t interest him, he could be monumentally lazy.
In December 1975, Kaiser’s mum gave him a backhanded incentive. If he didn’t pass all his end-of-year exams his Christmas would be cancelled. No presents, no turkey, not even a cracker.
The thought of hours of extra studying revolted Kaiser on a practical and philosophical level. He did his exams but knew he had probably failed a couple. On the morning of the last day of term, when the results were due, Kaiser enlisted his friend Gustavo for a bit of the old sacanagem. They broke into the school at 5 a.m. and left a letter in the headmaster’s office saying a bomb would go off at lunchtime. A few hours later, on the way to school, Kaiser found an orelhão, the name given to the outdoor public telephones that looked like gigantic motorcycle helmets. He called the local police station, dropped his voice as much as pre-puberty would allow, and calmly asserted that a bomb would go off at Pingo Guimaraes school later that day.
Kaiser walked to school as normal, and faked shock when he was told why everyone was being sent home. By the time the results came through in January, Kaiser had already had his Christmas and
eaten it.
Later that year Kaiser was struggling in physics. He had a poor relationship with his teacher, Mr Fernandes, and could not have cared less about how to measure liquid density or the difference between diffraction and refraction. The long game – studying hard, sucking up to his teacher – had its drawbacks, so Kaiser devised a shortcut. He asked around and found out that Mr Fernandes was rumoured to be sleeping with one of his students. A few days later, Kaiser arranged a meeting after class.
‘Carlos,’ the teacher began, ‘thanks for coming to see me. I really admire your initiative and I’m glad you’ve recognised the need to improve your grades. I’m sure we can sort somethi—’
‘Shut up.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I said shut up. Listen, I know what subjects you’ve been teaching Isabel after school and the last time I checked they weren’t on the syllabus. If my grades don’t improve straight away – and stay at a high level – you are going to lose your wife, your house and your job.’
His grades improved accordingly. Long before Kaiser graduated from school, he had a PhD in street life. ‘In Rio, you had to be streetwise,’ says Kaiser. ‘You have to deal with so many things that you either become a scammer or a sucker. You eat or get eaten. I became very cunning and survived through guile and willpower. I had to fend for myself. You either become what I became or you become a loser.’
Kaiser grew up in a world where the end justified most means. Jeitinho Brasileiro, the little Brazilian way, has become a guiding principle for the disadvantaged majority in particular. It is a form of social vigilantism, which involves circumnavigating obstacles – poverty, bureaucracy, values – and finding a way of getting things done. The little Brazilian way ranges from the ingeniously creative to the indefensibly criminal. In a country of contradictions, it is usually a source of both pride and shame.
***
When the Brazilian Ronaldo joined Internazionale of Milan from Barcelona for a world-record fee in 1997, it was inevitable he would take the symbolic No. 9 shirt. It had previously belonged to the Chilean striker Iván Zamorano, who found a way to maintain some ownership of his old shirt. He took the No. 18 shirt, but placed a small plus sign between the 1 and the 8. In his head, he was still No. 9.
Kaiser, who wore No. 9 for much of his career, might have employed a similar trick by having 1+7+1 on his back. One-seven-one is the number in the Brazilian penal code for forgers and scammers and has become part of the language: the full spectrum of conmen and rogues are known as 171s. And as with cops and bacteria, there are good 171s and bad 171s.
The endless philosophical debate over the line between good and bad was accidentally symbolised by the footballer Gerson. He famously smoked sixty cigarettes a day, a lifestyle that did not impinge upon his ability to score a belter in the later stages of the 1970 World Cup final. Later he became known for promoting Vila Rica cigarettes. Gerson celebrated the fact that they were cheaper than other brands and, in an advert that all but sent rancid smoke coming out of the TV, uttered a phrase that would become notorious: ‘I like to get an advantage in everything.’
This became known as Gerson’s Law, and was soon used to advocate and celebrate unethical behaviour. ‘Gerson hates this story,’ says the football journalist Martha Esteves, who had the dubious honour of being the only woman to write about the game during the 1980s. ‘He doesn’t like talking about this because it had a negative impact on his career and his life. Gerson – a nice, honest guy – had his name associated with misdemeanours and craftiness. The vast majority of us skip queues, jump red lights, give the policeman a little bribe, but I’m talking about the bad craftiness of Brazilians.’
The character of the loveable rogue has been entrenched in Brazilian folklore since the eighteenth century, when the indigenous peoples of the south passed round the story about Saci Pererê. Saci is a one-legged black man who smokes a pipe and wears a magic red cap that allows him to disappear whenever he wants – usually after wreaking all kinds of havoc. Saci drops flies in soup, turns loose nails so that they face upwards, sets animals loose and burns all the food. Though he can be seen as anything from mischievous to malicious, Saci is generally perceived as an adorable prankster. In the 1960s he was the lead character in a famous comic called Turma do Pererê. He even has his own annual celebration: 31 October is Saci Day.
Saci Pererê is a personification of malandragem, an extension of Jeitinho Brasileiro. The malandro is the anti-hero of Brazilian culture: he is work-shy, lazy, thinks only of instant pleasure, has little interest in long-term relationships and is an expert in deception. Without realising, Kaiser was being drawn towards the life of the malandro. Especially when, at the age of thirteen, both his parents died.
CHAPTER 4
THE ORPHAN
Kaiser’s mother died from cirrhosis of the liver, the result of decades of alcoholism. Three months later, his father suffered a fatal heart attack. These days, Kaiser talks about the experience of losing both parents at the age of thirteen as if it was just another rite of passage. ‘It was very painful for me, the death of my dad.’
He lived at the Botafogo training camp for a while before moving in with a couple of aunts. They worked as maids; the humble economy of their existence hardened Kaiser’s resolve to build a better life. ‘I wanted to be a footballer to make money,’ he says, ‘and eventually to get out of the dump that I lived in.’
Brazilian kids have always been desperate to reshape their life through football. Gonçalves, a tall, gregarious centre-back who played for Brazil in the 1998 World Cup, founded a football school in Rio during his playing days. ‘It’s tough to become a professional footballer in Brazil because there’s so much competition,’ he says. ‘The disadvantaged classes view football as a way to change their whole family’s life for the better. At the school I take in a lot of lads from the local favelas. The parents bring them along when they’re seven or eight, already planning a career for these kids. The reality is that only twenty per cent of all professional players earn over double the minimum wage. But the media shows the luxury lifestyle of Neymar and the national team players and everyone falls for that.’
The journalist Martha Esteves estimates around 2 per cent of Brazilian footballers come from a middle-class background. The majority grow up in poverty, a list that includes all-time greats like Pelé, Ronaldo and Romário. Sometimes the route from poverty to stardom can be particularly circuitous. Dadá Maravilha, who was part of Brazil’s 1970 World Cup-winning squad, had never played in an eleven-a-side match until he went to prison, where an officer persuaded him to use his prodigious leap – hitherto reserved for scaling walls – on the field. When he was released Dadá committed one last crime, robbing somebody so that he could buy a football, and went clean. He scored almost 600 goals in his career.
Dadá was one of thousands who changed their life through football. Bebeto grew up in Salvador with nine siblings; the first thing he did when he joined Flamengo was to buy a house for his mother. Not everyone deals with the change so well. Brazilian football is full of tragic stories of players who come from poverty and return there as soon as their careers are over. The most poignant tale is of the great Garrincha, who died a penniless alcoholic at the age of forty-nine.
‘A lot of those players don’t have anywhere to go in life nowadays,’ says Kaiser. ‘Football is different from the NBA where they have great players who also have degrees. Why can’t it be the same in football? Where the players have another vocation? No. They think they’re going to be footballers forever.’
Gonçalves nags those at his football school to study off the field. ‘Many athletes reach a high social status during their careers,’ he says. ‘But they don’t prepare for after their careers. And because most of the players don’t progress very far academically they end up falling a long way in terms of the social status that they’d reached. They attain a certain standard of living which they’re gradually forced to diminish because they have no ac
ademic qualifications or the possibility of finding another well-paid job which would allow them to maintain their current lifestyle. That’s a philosophy that the clubs should instil right from the under-10s.’
***
Kaiser was released by Botafogo at sixteen. He was forced out by the club president Charles Bole, who was gunning for him after a fallout earlier in the year. Macalezinho, the star player of the youth team and Kaiser’s best friend at the club apart from Jairzinho, had been released because of personal problems. Kaiser told Bole what he thought of the decision, using language that did not entirely demonstrate the traditional deference shown by youth team players towards the club president. From that moment, his card was marked.
Kaiser was surprised by his reaction to the rejection. For reasons he couldn’t entirely fathom, he’d been finding football increasingly unstimulating. His main concern was not about the damage to his football career but to his earning power. Football was still preferable to – and more lucrative than – real life.
At school he was friends with the sons of Dida, the youth team coach at Flamengo. Kaiser asked if they could arrange a trial for him. Flamengo were the biggest club in South America, perhaps the world. Like any self-respecting Botafogo fan, Kaiser hated them, but he wasn’t going to go hungry for his principles.
***
Flamengo was founded in 1895, originally as a rowing club, with a view to attracting well-to-do females. It was not until 1911 that they branched out into football, when a number of unhappy players broke away from Fluminense. They won their first Campeonato Carioca three years later and eventually became recognised as the people’s club, with huge fanbases all over Brazil.
Those who have played for Flamengo talk about the experience with a reverence that is almost eerie. ‘The only way to get a real idea of what Flamengo represents is to experience it,’ says Júnior, the great full-back and midfielder who has played more games for the club than anybody. ‘It’s an institution that raised me as a man and a professional. As a player and coach I spent almost half my life in it.’