by Alex Bellos
I meet Niclas Davidsen, B68's president. He has the two-dimensional aura of a cardboard cut-out. His hands are always in his pockets because of the cold. When he speaks he whispers, without appearing to move his lips. A ruddy, wind-chiselled complexion is offset only by the warmth of his ginger beard and fine blue eyes. He invites me into his house. We sit in his living room, which has a picture of Rio's Sugar Loaf Mountain on the wall.
Niclas tells me that B68 are a pioneering club. He puts on a video to show me why. The story begins on 12 September 1990, a day that, trumpets the commentary, 'will linger long in the memory of the Faroese'. The Faroe Islands, playing their inaugural international match in Sweden, overcame Austria 1-0. When the team returned they were welcomed like heroes, in scenes more reminiscent of the 'streets of South America than the staid north Atlantic'. Niclas appears transfixed, even though he must have seen the video more than a hundred times.
The Faroes could not play at home because they did not have a venue that met international requirements. So Niclas raised £1.3 million to upgrade B68's pitch. It was a complicated task. Toftir has no flat land. Engineers needed fifty tonnes of explosive to blow up the hilly knuckle of rock that rises behind the village. For a year labourers worked ten hours a day, six days a week until remote Toftir gained the Faroes' national stadium, which has a capacity of eight times its population.
The video ends. Niclas looks at me. Then, he says, all B68 needed was some good players.
Help came in the form of an Icelandic friend, Páll Guðlaugsson, who used to coach the Faroese national team. Páll called Niclas and said he was flying to Rio to sign up some Brazilians. Did Niclas want in on the deal?
Few things warm the cold extremities of a Faroese football fan quite like the suggestion of a Brazilian putting on the club shirt. 'Symbolically it is very strong to have Brazilians,' says Niclas. 'And Páll told me that many Brazilians were desperate to leave.' The price of fish was high. B68 had money in the bank. Niclas called his Icelandic buddy and asked for four.
In March 1999 Marcelo Marcolino, Messias Pereira, Marlon Jorge and Lúcio de Oliveira arrived in Toftir. Two other Brazilians flew in with them, hired by GÍ, another mediocre team from another out-of-the-way village with 1,000 people, a church and a fish factory.
They were not the only Brazilians travelling abroad that year. In 1999 more than 650 completed international transfers. They spread themselves widely, joining clubs not only in the world's most competitive leagues but also, among others, in Armenia, Senegal, China and Jamaica. In 2000 the exodus continued apace, with transfers to sixty-six countries, including Lebanon, Vietnam, Australia and Haiti. About 5,000 Brazilians play professionally in foreign climes, according to the Brazilian Football Confederation. This is about four times the number of the country's diplomats. In many ways the footballing diaspora is a parallel diplomatic service; the sportsmen are cultural ambassadors as well as economic migrants. They are public figures wherever they go, promoting their nation's footballing heritage.
Toftir received its Brazilian legion with great excitement. Schoolchildren shaved their blond heads to look like the new recruits. They were the subject of interviews on the local television and in the local newspapers. But B68's expectations were not immediately fulfilled. Playing on snow was not the same as playing on sand. The boys from Brazil did not adapt. Lúcio injured himself and went home. B68 finished the league in seventh place out of ten.
Niclas persevered. The team improved. B68 were third in the 2000 championship. Marcelo won the Best Forward trophy and contracts were renewed for 2001.
Niclas admits it was a gamble. 'We only knew Brazilian players from the television, like Pelé and the national team,' he says circumspectly. 'But we didn't know if the ones we'd hired were any good. We now know they are. Especially Marcelo.'
Third place brought with it a coveted prize – qualification to UEFA's Intertoto Cup. The summer Intertoto may be derided by strong footballing nations, but for the clubs on the fringes of Europe it is the peak of international glory. No Faroese team has ever progressed beyond the first round. With three Brazilians, however, maybe they could break the national duck.
***
The alarm goes off at 6am. Messias Pereira wakes up and reads his five daily psalms. The Bible helps his loneliness. Today is a big day. B68 are playing B71. It could be a duel between American bombers or vitamin complexes. The reality is less dramatic: a Faroese football cup tie.
B71 are based on Sandoy, an island only accessible by boat. Niclas drives us to the early morning ferry. The route takes us through a blizzard, torrential rain and moments of icy-bright sunlight. Every few hundred metres the car negotiates a coastal hairpin bend and we enter a violently different climatic condition.
Marcelo is injured and has stayed at home. The other two Brazilians – Messias and Marlon Jorge – look as if they wish they had too. On the ferry, they sit by themselves, huddling to keep warm. Messias wears a denim jacket with a fake sheepskin collar. Marlon has a green coat. Their Faroese team-mates are in B68's red sports outfits and talk loudly in the cabin lounge.
Messias, aged twenty-eight, is a gentle man. He has a goatee beard that makes him look pious and distinguished. Marlon, aged twenty-four, has thick worry lines on his forehead. He is the smartest of all the Brazilians, and the only one who has mastered enough Faroese to be able to have more than a monosyllabic chat. Marlon lives with his Brazilian wife, Angela, who swapped her job as a bus conductor in Copacabana to salt cod in Toftir's fish factory. It was an exchange she was happy to make, since she likes the status of being a footballer's wife.
Today Marlon is conspicuously quiet. He turns very pale as the ferry starts to roll. He excuses himself and disappears to the deck. It gives me a chance to speak individually with Messias, who is the quietest of B68's three Brazilians. 'Football is my life,' he tells me. 'It's what gives me a living. I consider myself very lucky to be here.' The cold ferry is now lurching from side to side. Rain is splashing against the windows.
'But I also consider myself unlucky that I am not playing somewhere better.'
Messias believes his career has more future in the Faroes than in Brazil, where he and Marlon were playing in the second division of the Rio state league. He was earning about £50 a month. Now he is on several hundred, not including the dockwork. 'I decided to come back this season because here I am playing in the first division and I will get the chance to play in the Intertoto Cup.'
The match between B68 and B71 takes place at the end of the world. Or so it feels. The location is inhospitable and desolate. We are in a valley closed off by rock walls and snowy cloud. About fifty spectators turn up. It is too cold to stand outside and they sit watching from inside their cars.
The game is as moribund as the surroundings. Marlon makes one clever pass that creates B68's first goal. Apart from that the Brazilians do not stand out. Neither does anyone. Messias plays competently but is substituted near the end. He takes it badly and storms to the locker room. 'The pressure is huge because you are Brazilian. You have cost the club a lot. Some players in the team make mistakes but are never taken up on them. When we make the same mistakes it's different.'
B68 win 2-0. They tell me the weather was mild. Once the wind was so strong that the referee ordered all the players to crouch on the ground so they were not blown off the pitch.
During the ferry ride back, I have a chance to speak to B68's Faroese players. I ask Hans Fróði Hansen, a central defender who also plays for the national side, what the Brazilians give the team. He is tall and has floppy blond hair in a red Liverpool FC woollen hat.
Hansen first describes the Brazilians as very positive people. I ask how he knows this since they do not speak Faroese well. He thinks for a moment. 'The few words that they can speak are very positive,' he replies through a big smile.
Hansen explains that Faroese football relies on physical strength. It is good to have the Brazilians because they have a better first touch and technique.
But he adds that they are not used to the Faroese way. For him the best thing about the Brazilians is psychological. 'When you think of Brazil you think of samba, smiling and dancing. That is very good for us.'
Hansen, in his perfect Scandinavian English, is expressing a universal sporting truth; that Brazilian football has a unique appeal. It dates back to 1938, although confirmation only came with the triple World Cup triumphs of 1958, 1962 and 1970. Brazil's brilliance was consecrated because, as well as winning, they did it with unrivalled élan. In 1970, the victory was given a boost by colour television, which immortalised Pelé and the yellow shirts on the hitherto black-and-white background of world sport. The impact was so overwhelming that – despite never quite playing like that again – the legacy is still felt all over the world. Even in a freezing cup tie in the Faroe Islands.
Every Brazilian is touched by the magic of the 'beautiful game'. The phrase 'Brazilian footballer' is like the phrases 'French chef or 'Tibetan monk'. The nationality expresses an authority, an innate vocation for the job – whatever the natural ability. I sense that the Faroese players do not rate Marlon and Messias, even though they like what they represent. I ask the coach, Joannes Jakobsen. He tries to be diplomatic: 'If the Brazilians came fifteen years ago they would be much, much better than us. But we are a very proud people and we are getting better – especially if you consider how few of us there are. Football in the Faroes has changed.'
I enquire how. 'We are not losing as much as we used to,' he replies.
I ask Joannes if he would like to hire more Brazilians. 'I would prefer to buy more Faroese players because it would strengthen the side and weaken the competition. I also think it is difficult for other nationalities to adjust to the way we live.'
He adds: 'But as people they are great.'
As we drive back from the ferry – at the end of a twelve-hour day – I ask Marlon and Messias what they think of the standard of the Faroese players. They are both convinced that they are better than their team-mates – it's just that the Faroese are too ignorant to realise. Once you get them started they don't hold back with other criticisms. The Faroese, they say, just don't understand football. For a start they do not pray before games. They do not practise tactics. And they do not offer bonuses for wins. 'In Brazil we would get a little cash for a win and half that for a draw,' says Marlon. 'Here we get nothing. Where's the incentive?'
Marlon believes that if he was Faroese he would be called up for the national side. He decides that it is one of his ambitions. 'I was told that if you play five seasons in a country you are eligible. You have to have direction. That's what I'll try to do.'
If he ever does naturalise as Faroese he will not be the first of his countrymen to gain a foreign cap. Brazilians have played for Japan, Belgium and Tunisia. Recently, the Peruvian Football Federation asked Esídio, who is HIV-positive, to naturalise. He scored thirty-seven goals for Lima's Universitario in 2000 – the most goals scored in a season in Peruvian history.
But more than the chance of representing some desolate Danish rocks, Marlon's real motivation is the Intertoto fixture, which will be against Belgian club Sporting Lokeren. Maybe there will be scouts watching the match. Maybe he will be able to get a transfer to a serious football nation. The more he thinks about it the more important it becomes.
'The idea is to play really well and then leave for another team that pays more money.'
I ask Niclas what happened to the two Brazilians who were contracted by the other Faroese club, GÍ. He says that one went back to Brazil but the other, Robson, is still living in Gøta, where the team is based. He offers to take me there.
Gøta, which is a twenty-minute drive from Toftir, is even more remote but set in prettier surroundings. It is at the head of a small bay, enclosed by steep slopes.
I knock on Robson's door. He is clearly overjoyed to have a visitor. Robson has a flat, round face with thick eyebrows and dark olive skin. He has the typical features of someone from Paraíba, a small and poor state 1,200 miles north of Rio. The state's inhabitants are the victims of an ingrained racial prejudice in Brazil. They are seen as rural simpletons. I sense that his countrymen at B68 are hardly ever in touch.
Robson shows me into his living room. The house is modest and cosy. On the wall is a black-and-white poster of a naked man cradling a baby. A bowl of apples is on the coffee table. Cartoons are showing on the colour television. Robson sits on his sofa, wearing a baseball cap, jumper and tracksuit trousers.
He takes out a photo album from when he used to be a footballer in Brazil. It is the only link to his past. I look at the fading images of teams, taken by poor quality cameras in too much sunlight. I sense that Robson is almost as mystified by them as I am. He tells me that he used to play in the Paraíba state league with Marcelinho, who now plays for Hertha Berlin. Their similarities end there. Robson never made it as a footballer in the Faroes. He played once for GÍ but was so bad he never played again.
Robson aimed low – and missed. He tries to explain. He had retired from football aged twenty-three and decided on a career change. He had just finished a course training to be a security guard when his former agent called him up. Did he not fancy putting on his football boots one last time? 'I told him that I hadn't played in two years. I was in bad shape. My agent just said: "Well, go and run on the beach."'
GÍ's Brazilian import may have disappointed the team, but the village discovered he was well worth the cost of the transatlantic flight. He started at the fish factory, checking for defective fish and chopping off their heads. Robson was such a reliable, honest worker that he was kept on for the 2000 season. Then he met Anja, a ruddy-cheeked nineteen-year-old. Nine months later Mateus was born.
Anja is tidying the house as I chat with her husband. She speaks a little bit of English. She tells me it is much better than Robson's Faroese. 'He understands a lot but it is very difficult for him to speak,' she says, charitably. I see them converse. He mumbles something in Portuguese. She replies in Faroese. I am oddly moved, since they appear affectionate and contented, despite their fundamental communication difficulties.
'I've been out with blondes before but none as attractive as Anja,' Robson tells me later.
With help from Anja's family the young couple set up home. She is a housewife and he works ten-hour shifts at the fish factory. He earns £230 a week. It is enough for a respectable life. Recently he bought his first car.
Anja is a soft and attentive woman. Her hair is a tawny blond that she keeps back in a ponytail. I ask her what she sees in her husband: 'He is a gentleman. If I asked him to wash the toilet he would. The other boys that I know like to drink and go dancing. Robson doesn't. He likes to go to work and stay at home with the baby. He is a family man.'
Robson knows that had he stayed in Brazil he would have remained poor. In the Faroes he feels like a millionaire. He has all the status symbols that Brazilian footballers strive for – a home, a car, a blond wife and a little baby. 'I got all of this through football,' he says proudly. 'I would never have got all this in Brazil – now I live in a country where it is possible to build yourself a future. I have no doubt that my life is better now. Thank God I am doing well.'
But these words cannot disguise a melancholy that he is desperately alone in a foreign land. He has no friends, apart from his wife, nor any chance of returning to Brazil. He says he thinks about going back but he knows he is deluding himself. Anja's parents do not want them to move there-with good reason. If they did, Robson would never earn a quarter of what he earns now. Robson knows he will stay in the Faroes all his life.
***
The day I leave the Faroes I need to be at the airport early. Niclas lends Marlon his car to take me there. It is mid-April and snowing. Marlon has just learnt to drive. He zooms down the islands' roads. I ask him to slow down since I have the impression he has little experience of driving in icy conditions. It is not something you are taught when you take your driving test in Rio de Janeiro.
On a straight stretch of road Marlon accelerates and hits fifty miles an hour. He loses control. The car glides over the icy surface. Marlon stamps his foot on the brake. Instead of stopping the car spins and we end up back-to-front in the middle of the carriageway.
He drops me off at the ferry to the airport. It is 1°C and the snow has turned to rain.
'Best of luck for the Intertoto!' I shout as I wave goodbye.
Several months before I travelled to the Faroes I had met Marlon and Marcelo on Copacabana beach. It was so hot that the sweat from my brow dripped on my notebook and dissolved the ink. We sat in our swimming trunks and drank water from green coconuts. Marcelo was wearing sunglasses and a gold necklace. He smiled and whistled at women as they passed. They told me that the beach was where they learnt to play football, since they grew up four blocks away.
When Marcelo is back in Toftir, I visit his family. I drive to Copacabana, which is Rio's most densely inhabited neighbourhood. It has four times the population of the Faroes. Four blocks from the beach I take a cobbled street that rises sharply. I follow it until I am well above the Copacabana skyline. Rio is an upside-down city in which the richest live at sea level and the poorest in favela hillside shanties. I reach Cabritos Hill and park my car. The favela is an unplanned clutter of simple brick dwellings that spread like a rash across the slope. On the street, children are flying kites and men are sitting around drinking beer. I walk up a narrow alleyway of concrete steps. My presence provokes attention. I pass a plate of rice balancing on a wall, an offering to Afro-Brazilian gods. A neighbour's yard has a fighting cock in a cage. Life in the favela seems as chaotic and precarious as life in Toftir is uneventful and safe.