by Dave Barry
Q. That isn’t so bad! There are plenty of times in American sports when a player and a referee get into . . .
A. I’m not done. Otávio, upset about being punched, pulled a knife, and . . .
Q. Wait . . . the REFEREE pulled a knife?
A. That is correct: The referee in an amateur soccer match pulled a knife. He used it to stab Abreu in the chest. Abreu was taken to the hospital, but he died en route.
Q. My God! That’s horrible!
A. Wait. We haven’t gotten to the bad part yet.
Q. What?
A. According to a statement released by the Public Safety Department of the State of Maranhão (as reported by the Associated Press), friends and relatives of Abreu “rushed into the field, stoned the referee to death and quartered his body.”
Q. They QUARTERED THE REFEREE?
A. After stoning him to death, yes. And then . . .
Q. THERE’S MORE??
A. Unfortunately, yes. According to local news media, the crowd “also decapitated Silva and stuck his head on a stake in the middle of the field.”
Q. Sweet Lord Jesus.
A. Yes. It’s on YouTube.
I want to stress, again, that I always felt perfectly safe when I was in Brazil, and that I found the Brazilian people to be uniformly friendly and welcoming. On any given day, there are probably hundreds, maybe even thousands, of games of soccer played in Brazil, and I’m sure that only a tiny percentage of them end with anybody being quartered. My point in recounting this awful and totally non-humorous incident—which, as you will recall, was your idea—is simply that when it comes to describing how the Brazilians feel about soccer, “passionate” does not get the job done.
During the World Cup, when the Brazilian team was playing, Rio essentially shut down. Most businesses closed; the streets emptied of traffic; the sidewalks were deserted. Every bar and restaurant had TVs tuned to the game, with yellow-shirted crowds spilling out onto the sidewalk. In our hotel, the desk clerks abandoned the desk and went into the bar to watch the game. When Brazil scored a goal, you heard fireworks all around, and a deep, thunderous rumbling roar, seemingly coming from everywhere, from the city itself. When the national team won, the streets flooded with people celebrating. In our neighborhood, the party went on all night; at dawn, people were still singing in the street outside our hotel. This was going on everywhere in Brazil, for every game. This is how big a deal soccer is to Brazilians; this is how proud they are of their team.
Which makes it all the more impressive, the way they reacted when their team was eliminated in spectacularly humiliating fashion, getting obliterated by the Germans, 7–1—an unthinkable score for any World Cup semifinal, let alone one involving Brazil. The Brazilians didn’t riot, as some feared they would. They were bummed, of course, but they didn’t turn violent, and they didn’t plunge into a state of national despair. In fact they managed to find humor in their humiliation, turning to Twitter and other social media to exchange, among other jokes, doctored photos of Rio’s giant mountaintop Jesus statue, one with Jesus holding his hands over his eyes. They laughed at themselves.
“What else could we do?” one Brazilian asked me.
“Quarter some Germans” is one answer. But the point is, they didn’t.
The German team, which was scarily good and could probably have kicked the ass, using only its feet, of many other nations’ actual armies, went on to win the World Cup. Sophie and I saw the German team play the French team in Rio’s Maracanã Stadium in front of a highly festive, beer-consuming crowd featuring many people wearing face paint, costumes and—in the case of the French fans—rooster hats.
The rooster, or cockerel, is of course the national symbol of France, and for a very good reason: All the good animals were taken. I mean, let’s face it, we are talking about using as the animal representing your country a male chicken. Granted, roosters can be fierce, courageous fighters, but that’s when their opponents are other roosters. They do not fare so well against, for example, dogs, or reasonably large squirrels.
Also the physical format of a rooster frankly does not make for a fear-inducing, warrior-style hat. When you see a French fan coming your way with this fuzzy, plump poultry unit on his head, its feet dangling next to the fan’s ears, its head listing sadly to the side, you do not think: “Whoa! This fan represents a team to be reckoned with!” It did not help that some of the male French fans—and these were not small men—were wearing, in addition to their rooster hats, leotards and tutus. I’m sure they meant this to be self-mockingly funny. And it was funny. But still . . .
French fans have been known to release live roosters on the playing field during rugby and soccer matches. This can lead to highly entertaining chases as security personnel try to capture the roosters, which may not be the most fearsome animals but are shifty and can run pretty darned fast. Tragically, no roosters were released in the World Cup match that Sophie and I attended, which may be why France lost, 1–0. Although I believe the tutus were also a factor.
Sophie and I also attended a game between Colombia and Uruguay, which are two countries whose fans, for reasons that are not clear to me, do not like each other. We sat in the middle of a large Colombian rooting section. I had this conversation with the guy sitting next to me:
GUY: Who are you supporting?
ME: Colombia.
GUY: Where are you from?
ME: Miami.
GUY: Miami is almost Colombia.
Which is true. But the reason we were supporting Colombia—aside from the fact that we were surrounded by Colombians—is that the Uruguayans were being obnoxiously defensive about the fact that their star player, Luis Suárez, had been banned from the World Cup following a shocking incident: During a game against Italy, Suárez could clearly be seen on video robbing an Italian player at knifepoint.
No, seriously, Suárez bit Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini. The video (again: YouTube) of this moment is pretty wonderful. Suárez—who had twice before gotten in trouble for biting opponents during games—clearly leans over and chomps on Chiellini’s shoulder. Chiellini, being a veteran Italian soccer player, immediately falls down. Suárez, for no apparent reason other than that Chiellini has fallen down, also falls down. Chiellini then pulls the neckhole of his jersey down and, yelling to the referee, points to the bite mark on his skin. Suárez, not to be outdone, puts his hands to his mouth and adopts a facial expression indicating great pain, as if to say, “This ruffian has used his shoulder to injure me in the teeth!”
It goes without saying that since an extremely flagrant foul was committed, the referee—this being soccer—did not call a foul on the play. However, upon further review of the video, the authorities booted Suárez from the tournament. This outraged the Uruguayans, who somehow made themselves believe that Suárez—who had clearly (for the third time) bitten an opponent in a game televised internationally to millions of viewers—had done nothing wrong, and was in fact the victim. So their fans were in a pissy mood, and it didn’t help that fans of opposing teams—the hated Colombians, for example—made great sport of the Suárez incident by wearing vampire teeth, zombie costumes, Hannibal Lecter–style anti-biting muzzles, etc.
Anyway, Colombia won, 2–0, to the rapturous joy of our rooting section. Each time the Colombians scored, the entire team sprinted to a corner of the field and performed, in unison, a well-choreographed and highly entertaining salsa line dance. Also the Colombian fans chanted some uncomplimentary things about Uruguay. As the game wore on, there were several fights in the stands, all of them—according to the Colombians around us—started by Uruguayans.
UNIVERSAL SPORTS FACT: A fight in the stands, no matter how pathetic, is always much more interesting to all of the spectators in the area than anything that is happening on the field.
Sophie and I greatly enjoyed the Colombia–Uruguay and Germany–France games, but the most exciting game f
or us was the one between the United States and Belgium. It was a round of sixteen game, meaning the winner would advance to the quarterfinals and the loser would be eliminated from the World Cup. So this was our chance to root for our country in a meaningful game.
I began my preparations several days in advance by going to a bar with some other Americans and trying to come up with reasons to hate the Belgians. My goal was to develop a Colombia/Uruguay-style grudge rivalry between us and them. This was not easy. Like most Americans, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about Belgium, and thus there are many things I don’t know about it as a country, such as which specific continent it is located on. You don’t think of Belgians—at least I don’t think of Belgians—as being the kind of people who stir up strong passions in others. An expression you almost never hear is: “Those damn Belgians! They’re always doing X!” With X representing something unlikable.
But we gave it our best shot, sitting around in the bar. Here are the anti-Belgian ammunition points we came up with:
The Belgians claim that they, not the French, invented French fries.
Get over it, Belgium! Nobody cares!
Also, the Belgians put mayonnaise on their French fries.
Actually, it might be the Dutch who do that. But the point is, it’s wrong.
The Belgians probably did invent Belgian waffles, but why, exactly, do they have to have their own waffles?
Our waffles aren’t good enough for them?
Hitler was Belgian.
The Belgians were behind 9/11.
(We came up with those last two ammunition points after several beers, so they might not be 100 percent accurate.)
We also tried to come up with some anti-Belgian chants to chant at the big game. The best we could do were these:
Hey, Belgium!
You can go to Hellgium!
You say you invented French fries,
And that’s just lies.
After that the evening got a little murky.
The USA–Belgium game was played in the northern Brazil city of Salvador. We flew there from Rio and took a taxi from the airport into the city on a modern eight-lane, or possibly ten-lane, or maybe even twelve-lane, expressway. You couldn’t tell how many lanes there were because the road had apparently just been resurfaced and no lane markings had been painted on it yet. It was just this vast, wide-open, unmarked road, with Brazilian motorists weaving happily all over it at 70 miles an hour.
The game day weather was beautiful, and a big crowd was gathering by a scenic lake next to the stadium. Sophie was wearing red, white and blue clothing and face paint; I was wearing a USA team shirt. There were a lot of Belgian fans on hand, and I made a sincere effort to hate them, but they were annoyingly non-annoying.
It turns out that—speaking of Hellgium—the Belgium team is nicknamed the Red Devils; some of the fans were wearing devil outfits. One middle-aged Belgian guy had painted his face bright red and was wearing an all-red outfit, accessorized with a red cape and giant devil’s pitchfork. People were lining up to get their pictures taken with him. Despite my long-standing hatred for Belgium, I was one of those people.
“OK,” he said. “But this is the last one. I need to start drinking.”
(It turns out that the Belgians speak English better than we do, which is another reason to dislike them.)
We sat in a heavily pro-USA section, right in front of a large group of flag-bedecked twenty-something American fans who spent the entire game jumping up and down and bellowing songs and chants, as they have seen fans of other nations do. I admired their spirit, but at times it seemed kind of forced and wannabe-ish, like when one of those bands made up of wealthy white middle-aged orthodontists performs a blues song.
Also some of the American fans’ songs were, frankly, lame. They kept singing one to the tune of the 1963 hit by Little Peggy March, “I Will Follow Him.” Unlike the twenty-somethings, I am old enough to remember when that song was a big hit. I hated it then, and I still hate it, because—this is an objectively provable scientific fact—it sucks. It sucks even more with the strikingly unimaginative lyrics that the soccer fans have given it, which are:
We love you! We love you! We love you!
And where you go we’ll follow! We’ll follow! We’ll follow!
’Cause we support the U.S.! The U.S.! The U.S.!
And that’s the way we like it! We like it! We like it!
Seriously, USA soccer fans? “And that’s the way we like it”?
The thing is, there are many popular 1963 recordings that would make much better soccer songs than “I Will Follow Him.” Take, for example, the Angels’ 1963 classic hit “My Boyfriend’s Back.” I came up with these alternative lyrics in mere seconds:
America’s back and we’re better and bolder
Hey la, hey la, America’s back!
So you better not try to bite us on the shoulder
Hey la, hey la, America’s back!
Granted, that’s a tad Uruguay-specific. But it’s still better than “And that’s the way we like it!”
I don’t mean to be too harsh on the American fans. They made a genuine effort to be original in their chants against Belgium, which included this one:
Your waffles are good!
Your team is shit.
Unfortunately, this was not accurate. The Belgian team was very good—better, overall, than the USA team. But the Americans had Tim Howard, who proved that day that he was the best goalie in the 2014 World Cup, and maybe the world, as well as clearly not a biological human being. He made a record 16 saves, some of them ridiculous. If Tim Howard had been aboard the Titanic, the Atlantic Ocean would never have gotten in.
So after 90 tense minutes it was 0–0, which meant the teams had to play 30 minutes of extra time. The Belgians finally managed to beat Tim Howard, scoring a quick goal, then another one. Two goals is a big lead in soccer, and the spirits of the American fans were sagging. But then, with 13 minutes left, the USA scored, making it 2–1, and the American fan sections exploded.
The last 13 minutes were nonstop, sphincter-clenching action, as exciting as any game I’ve ever seen—the U.S. team taking chances, trying desperately to get the second goal they needed to at least have a chance of keeping their World Cup hopes alive, the players knowing that if they failed, they wouldn’t be back for four more years, if ever. In the stands, we were all on our feet, basically just roaring incoherently, getting even louder when it looked like our team might score. And a couple of times the U.S. came sooo close . . .
But in the end, they just couldn’t get that second goal. (Nobody ever scores in soccer. It’s so boring!) The USA’s World Cup run was over. In the stands, we applauded the exhausted players, especially Tim Howard. They applauded us back, as soccer players do. More than a few fans were crying. Next to me, Sophie had tears trickling down her face paint. And I have to say, I was moved to the point where I almost joined in the final singing of the Little Peggy March song, although I managed to restrain myself.
As we left the stadium, we passed a Belgian fan, who, seeing my USA shirt, shook my hand and said, quite sincerely, “You did a good job. Don’t feel too bad. See you in Russia.”*
Damn Belgians.
The next morning (I am skipping over some beers) we took a taxi back to the airport on the Mystery Invisible Lanes Expressway. Our driver was a lovely gentleman in his seventies who, having determined that we were visitors to his country, delivered a lengthy informative talk about Brazil, entirely in Portuguese. Michelle was able to understand some of it and translate the gist to me. Among the Brazil facts our driver told us were these:
Brazil produces many things.
Fruits, for example.
Also, nuts.
Brazil has very good soil.
There are a great many Brazilians living in Brazil.
An Amer
ican who is well known to Brazilians is John F. Kennedy.
Other people well known to Brazilians are the Pope, Princess Diana and Elvis.
Our driver kept this up for 30 minutes solid, providing us with information about Brazil all the way to the airport. There he presented us with his card, which said that he worked for the John Lennon Taxi Company. He explained at length why a taxi company in northern Brazil was named after a Beatle, but Michelle didn’t really follow his explanation, other than that it also involved Frank Sinatra.
From Salvador we flew back to Rio, and from there, after a few more days, back to Miami.
The next World Cup, as the Belgian fan noted, will be in Russia, and I hope to be there, although I’m having a hard time imagining how the Russians could be as friendly and fun as the Brazilians. They lost, but they won. I’d go back to Brazil in a heartbeat. There is nothing about that country I didn’t like.
Except the damn Belgians.
CABLE NEWS IS ON IT
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ANCHOR: If you’re just joining us, something has reportedly happened. At the moment we don’t have specific details, but we’re following the story closely, and as soon as we have any additional information we will pass it along to you. Right now we’re going to go to our Washington correspondent, Rex Farmtrout. Rex, what can you tell us at this point?
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Bob, I’m standing here in front of the White House, which you can see behind me. At this point I can tell you that we don’t have any specific information about what has happened, other than, as you say, something reportedly has.
ANCHOR: Do we know whether the president is aware of the situation?
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: We have received no specific details regarding whether the president has, or has not, been apprised of the situation. I do, however, think we can assume that it is a distinct possibility.