by Rob Smyth
Castor had a variety of tools that he would use to persuade people to come around to his way of thinking. Sergio Américo recalls how Castor’s heavies would appear in front of him, saying nothing, just as he was preparing for his daily broadcast on Radio Globo. The TV presenter José Carlos Araújo was with Castor when, after one late-night match, they arrived at a restaurant that had just closed. Five minutes later all the staff were back on duty preparing to serve the à la Castor menu.
One of his most powerful weapons was the whisper. The softer Castor’s voice, the more the listener realised the importance of doing as he was advised. ‘With the power he wielded over everything and everyone, he didn’t need to shout at anybody,’ says Kaiser. ‘Nobody thought twice about crossing Castor because it wasn’t worth it. A man like that didn’t get fooled. He was sublime.’
When Kaiser joined Bangu he told Castor and everyone else that he was recovering from a muscle injury, which then became more complicated during his stay at the club. He’d told that lie so often that he was now doing it on auto-pilot, without a sliver of guilt. Kaiser was driven by con science, not conscience; he knew that here, as at his previous clubs, medical technology was not sufficiently advanced to prove or disprove his injury. Everyone believed him anyway. ‘Kaiser was charming,’ says Sergio Américo. ‘We have a saying in Brazil: he was the kind of person who could sell a fridge to an Eskimo.’
There was only one problem for Kaiser. The closer he got to Castor, the more Castor wanted to see him play. ‘He pressured me many times,’ says Kaiser. ‘Doctor Castor liked the way I was. He wanted to see my personality on the pitch.’ As Marco António could testify, it wasn’t wise to keep the Doctor waiting.
CHAPTER 9
THE MARKETER
Kaiser became an unofficial press officer at Bangu, long before the role existed anywhere else. Castor de Andrade encouraged Kaiser to deal with any media interest, and to promote the club at every opportunity. When the players asked why Kaiser was doing all the interviews, Castor would reply: ‘Kaiser is the man.’
Kaiser was happy to promote Bangu, especially as it gave him the chance to promote himself at the same time. ‘When Dr Castor got me to speak, to hold the shirt up, kiss the shirt, I would do it better than anybody,’ he says. ‘I became the team’s marketing department. I raised Bangu’s profile in the press. If you gave me one minute to talk, I’d talk for ten.’
He was an expert at answering the question he wanted to answer, rather than the one he had been asked. There was no angle that Kaiser could not bring back to the fact that he was a couple of weeks away from full fitness, and woe betide the defenders of Botafogo, Vasco, Fluminense and Flamengo when that happened. In a culture where the spoken word was gospel, and where journalism standards fluctuated wildly, Kaiser realised he could pass off almost anything as the truth.
A year earlier, during his short spell at America, Kaiser offered a junior reporter an exclusive interview with the club’s star player Maurício – but only if he wrote a feature about Kaiser first. It was an extended interview profile that read like a press release. The first paragraph alone included a spectacular Kaiser hat-trick: that he was un-able to play, that the club owed him loads of money – and, inside the first sentence, an entirely gratuitous reference to his romantic availability: ‘Twenty-three years old and single, all Carlos Kaiser wants is to be allowed to play football.’
The article was full of gems that tiptoed perilously along the line between truth and fiction. America had rejected big offers for him from the English champions Everton and Paris Saint-Germain; during his spell at Puebla, he scored so many goals that the Mexican FA begged him to become a naturalised citizen and play for the national team. Then he complained about the impact of his treatment (‘Due to the corticoids, I was really swollen and deformed, as if I was fat’); that the president of the club was not paying the players’ wages (‘but for his nights out, he’d open the club safe’); and that he had been suspended for a year as punishment for dating a granddaughter of a board member. The article ended in rousing fashion, and capital letters.
‘BUT HOLD ON, SUPPORTERS, I’LL BE BACK. THOSE WHO HAVE SEEN ME PLAY FOOTBALL KNOW I HAVE GOT IT.’
***
In the openness and occasional honesty of his interviews, Kaiser reflected the times. ‘Footballers used to be more human, more normal,’ says Renato Maurício Prado. ‘You could call players like Zico and Júnior at home or go to their house for breakfast. Nowadays if you want to talk to a footballer you have to call about three hundred and twelve press agents and talk to the image rights guy and only then you might get a press conference interview.’
The fault lies not just with the players. The world was very different in the eighties: no saturation coverage, no clickbait, no camera phones, no culture of faux outrage. ‘Nowadays the players see the press as their enemy,’ says Júnior. ‘Back then you’d feel honoured if a journalist called you up for an exclusive interview. You’d go out for a beer and a chat with journalists and they wouldn’t write something you’d said off the record. You felt like they were on your side. I’m still really good friends with some journalists from my era.’
It was a memorable, if challenging, time for Martha Esteves, who worked for the renowned weekly sport magazine Placar. She was in her early twenties, the only woman reporting on football, and routinely went into the dressing room after matches. Misogyny was so widespread in general life, never mind football, as to be almost mundane. Political correctness was a thing of the future.
‘It was complete madness because the dressing room was really clammy and hot, and everyone would walk around naked,’ she says. ‘At first it was a bit of a shock but I was fine after that. It was full of journalists – a lot of manja rola (‘dick-glancers’) in there who just wanted to check the players’ cocks because they were all naked. It smelt of feet and sweat. Nowadays it smells of Victoria’s Secret because they’re all so metrosexual.
‘I remember one game at São Paulo in the 1990s when I went to interview Edmundo. He had a towel wrapped round him and was on this huge bench. I sat next to him, and in order to intimidate me he sat there with his dick out facing me. I kept interviewing him without looking down. I’m no dick-glancer! I always thought, “If I was a doctor I’d have to see naked men. I’m a journalist, so it’s the same.” I found it funny. I was so into that man’s world that I forgot I was a woman. I was just a journalist like everyone else.
‘The first big shock I had was when I watched a game sitting by the pitch, next to the radio journalists, and the supporters behind started chanting, “You whore! You whore! You whore!” We had things thrown at us – bags of orange peel, bags of piss. Not just me, all the journalists. I played deaf and blind. I looked straight ahead. “That’s not me. I’m not a slut. They’re not talking to me.”
‘Being a woman did open a lot of doors. Players and directors were a lot more friendly and accessible if they saw a young, keen girl. I wouldn’t say they had a sexual interest, but they had a flirting interest. They wanted to be nice to me because I was this young, good-looking girl. I knew what was happening, but I would play the fool. I would take advantage of that and play the woman card. But some of the players were a lot more sexist than they are nowadays. They weren’t very well educated. I knew that some of them were talking about me. When I arrived they were like, “Oooh look at the hot journalist, let’s try to fuck her”. It wasn’t something that offended me. There have been players who’ve tried it on with me who regretted it. One player touched my ass and I slapped him. I don’t want to mention his name. I told him to do one. He apologised and we made up afterwards. I always made my position clear from the beginning: “Listen. I’m a woman but I’m here to work. Treat me as a man, because if you do something I don’t like I’m going to hit you.” Zico and Júnior were the nicest to interview. They had a code where I would wait at the door of the dressing room and they would ensure everyone put a towel on before I came in. It’s easier to remember t
he nice guys: Renato Gaúcho, Andrade from Flamengo. The Flamengo team in the 1980s were super-approachable. It got harder in the 1990s when the bad boys emerged full of attitude. Edmundo could be a very difficult person. He was super-arrogant. Within the clubs he never had many friends, and he really hated the press. During training sessions he would pretend to shoot at goal and try to hit the journalists, then laugh his head off if he hit them. He’s a lot more accessible nowadays.’
Esteves recalls one particular row with Émerson Leão, the Palmeiras manager, who wouldn’t let her into the changing room.
‘You’re not coming in.’
‘Yes I am.’
‘I’ll call the bouncers.’
‘You can call the bouncers, the governor and the fucking president, I’m still coming in.’
‘Why do you want to come in, to see naked men?’
‘No, I have a dick at home, and none of these dicks will embarrass me, so I’m coming in. This is Rio, this is the Maracanã, I’m working in my city, and you can go fuck yourself!’
Esteves laughs as she recalls the story. ‘The whole dressing room was watching. I’m not sure I’d do that now. I was this crazy woman, I was doing my job. I walked in, I did my interview and I walked out.’
The interviews were usually worth the trouble. It was a time when players had not been media trained to within an inch of their personality. ‘Football was easier and more exciting to work in, because you could get a thousand different stories,’ she says. ‘I liked to look at the characters and the human stories. The players didn’t have that professional grooming they have nowadays. They were natural, they had charisma. There was a mythology to it as well. There were legendary players who would tell stories, who would create a character out of themselves.’
It was the perfect world for Kaiser to inhabit. By the mid-eighties he was so far in character that it was hard to tell where Carlos Henrique Raposo ended and Carlos Kaiser began. He certainly had the strut of a footballer. Eri Johnson, one of Brazil’s most famous actors, will never forget when he met footballing royalty. ‘The first time I saw Kaiser,’ he says, ‘he was crossing the street with such swagger that I thought, “That guy must be one of the best footballers in the world.”’
As a big football fan, Johnson had no idea who Kaiser was. But the way Renato Gaúcho greeted Kaiser made Johnson think he was in the presence of someone different. ‘I even regret not getting up back then. I apologise to Kaiser for that. I’d already met Pelé but I thought the way Kaiser walked was more distinguished. I should have got on my knees, because those legs were incredible!’
Kaiser studied the mannerisms, vernacular and attire of every footballer he met. He was like a boffin putting together the ultimate fake footballer – except he was also the boffin’s subject. ‘Man, he was like a celebrity,’ says Maurício. ‘He’d walk on the tips of his feet looking straight ahead: “Hey, buddy. I’m Carlos Kaiser, you have to respect me …” He had a professional way of talking which was so convincing that people would be scared of him. It was as if he was Pelé or Carlos Alberto Torres.’
Kaiser’s celebrity became a self-fulfilling parody. He had other tics, like bending his legs slightly as he walked. The most common was a caress of his luscious mullet, which he would flick forward insouciantly from behind his ears. In the 1980s, the mullet was the twentysomething male’s weapon of choice. Kaiser’s was, by any standards, quite spectacular: a luscious, wavy follicular statement of intent. ‘His look was his trademark,’ says Gutiérrez, one of the few non-footballers in Kaiser’s social circle back then. Somebody else’s trademark, sure, but let’s not split hairs. And Kaiser’s mullet was so majestic that it’s a surprise he didn’t have it insured. Three decades later, he says the favourite item of clothing he has ever owned is his hair. ‘Life is marketing,’ says Kaiser. ‘I had the air of a star player. I knew how to talk and sell an image. People who saw me thought, “The guy’s played in France, he’s been at Flamengo and Fluminense, he’s friends with Bebeto and Carlos Alberto. This guy is the real thing!” It’s like Lionel Messi and David Beckham. Messi is a great player but the one who sells his image, products and everything is Beckham. Messi doesn’t sell; he doesn’t have the right way of talking. Carlos Kaiser does have it. I’ve appeared on several programmes in Brazil and I’m now attracting global attention. I don’t think it was ever to do with my quality as a player or as a lover. It’s because of my charisma.’
***
As the clock moved past 3 a.m., Renato Gaúcho decided it was probably time to head into the town. The owner of one of Búzios’s main nightclubs had invited him; although Renato did not fancy it earlier in the evening, he changed his mind as restlessness and boredom kicked in. He knew the club would not close until most people were getting up for work, and so he wandered over with a couple of friends, cutting through the queue to approach the door. Renato didn’t queue or pay to get into nightclubs, so he was confused when a bouncer stepped across his path.
‘Can I help?’
‘The owner invited me along. I’m with a couple of friends. We came to have a look around the club.’
‘But who are you?’
‘I’m Renato Gaúcho.’
At this point the bouncer’s face changed to an expression of insulted intelligence.
‘Do you think I look like an idiot?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You’re not coming in because you can’t fool me.’
‘Fair enough, you don’t have to know who I am but can you let the owner know I’m here?’
‘You’re not fooling me and I’m not calling the owner because Renato Gaúcho is already in there. I’m not an idiot.’
‘Oh really? Renato Gaúcho is already inside?’
‘Yes. He’s in there now. You might look like him but you’re not coming in.’
Renato was both intrigued and affronted and asked if he might be able to see this Renato Gaúcho. After five minutes of negotiation, the bouncer walked him inside and pointed to a table in the VIP section – where Kaiser was holding court with a group of women.
Renato smiled knowingly, turned on his heels and left. ‘What,’ he laughs three decades later, ‘can I do with a guy like that?’
***
Renato was amused rather than annoyed by Kaiser borrowing his identity. ‘He was my Mini-Me,’ he says. ‘I started hearing all these stories: “This guy’s slept with women pretending to be you, he’s doing well out of your name.” I said, “Whatever. If the guy’s doing well, let him. Unless he’s stealing or attacking somebody, let him do well out of it.” He looked a lot like me. A hell of a lot. I would be at the team hotel the night before a game and people would say I had sneaked out and was with a woman. I had to explain that he was my double. I used to get in trouble at home with my wife. And it wasn’t me. It was Kaiser. And not even that would make me stop being friends with him.’
At a time when players were not constantly on television or in newspapers, there were more than enough similarities – height, mullet, physique, mullet, swagger, mullet, sunglasses, mullet – to fool casual football fans, whether they were nightclub bouncers or desirable females. ‘He styled his hair the same as Renato and if someone didn’t know much about football they would fall for it,’ says Alexandre Couto, who played with Kaiser at Ajaccio. ‘He did well: 1-0 to him.’
There are tens, maybe hundreds, of women who will go to their graves convinced they have had sex with Renato Gaúcho. ‘I used to go out with older women for money,’ says Kaiser. ‘When America or Bangu were playing away from home, there was somebody who arranged it. The women wanted to date Renato but they paid to sleep with Kaiser.’
There are stories of an up-and-coming footballer called Renato Kaiser, whose mother – so the legend goes – had a soft spot for both men and christened him accordingly. ‘That’s the first time I’ve heard that,’ chuckles Renato. ‘My technique and skill combined with Kaiser’s sweet talk? Oh my God. I really want to meet this kid. He�
�s going to be Superman.’
***
Renato was not the only person whose identity Kaiser borrowed. He would claim the achievements of other players with a similar name, showing newspaper cuttings to convince people he was a star. Kaiser had a different mental checklist to most before a night out: keys, wallet, newspaper cuttings. And he rarely needed the wallet.
In September 1985, a young Grêmio defender called Henrique scored the winning goal for Brazil in the Under-20 World Cup final in the USSR. Kaiser passed that off as his own. Henrique had lighter skin and blond hair, but that didn’t come across in match reports – especially as, with the tournament in the Soviet Union, most newspapers could not afford to send a photographer.
He also laminated articles about Henrique, the America striker, and took them around in his bumbag. He didn’t even care whether the reports were heavily critical, just so long as they showed he was a player. ‘The coach Vanderlei Luxemburgo took Carlos Henrique off for Carlos Alberto to give the attack more movement,’ reads one of Kaiser’s cuttings. Another gives him a 4/10 rating, saying he had ‘no creativity and no purpose’.
Kaiser even managed to make a video of his greatest goals to impress women. He proudly boasted about one goal in particular, a bulldozing solo run by Vasco’s Henrique against Flamengo in 1987. Henrique, like Kaiser, was tall, thin and bemulleted; on a grainy video, a non-football fan would never be able to tell them apart. But they would hear the commentary: ‘GOL DE FANTASTICO! HENRIQUE!’
‘I only ever saw him play on video,’ says Valeria Gallo, an ex-girlfriend of Kaiser’s. ‘There was a very famous goal against Flamengo when he, how do you say it in football, resolved the game? He scored an amazing goal. Did you not know about that? I still have the video tape he gave me. It’s worth its weight in gold because not even he has it anymore. It was him. I’m almost sure it was.’