The Black Man in Brazilian Soccer

By Mario Filho

At turns lyrical, ironic, and sympathetic, Mario Filho's chronicle of "the beautiful game" is a classic of Brazilian sports writing. Filho (1908–1966)—a famous Brazilian journalist after whom Rio's Maracana stadium is officially named—tells the Brazilian soccer story as a boundary-busting one of race relations, popular culture, and national identity. Now in English for the first time, the book highlights national debates about the inclusion of African-descended people in the body politic and situates early black footballers as key creators of Brazilian culture.

When first introduced to Brazil by British expatriots at the end of the nineteenth century, the game was reserved for elites, excluding poor, working-class, and black Brazilians. Filho, drawing on lively in-depth interviews with coaches, players, and fans, points to the 1920s and 1930s as watershed decades when the gates cracked open. The poor players and players of color entered the game despite virulent discrimination. By the mid-1960s, Brazil had established itself as a global soccer powerhouse, winning two World Cups with the help of star Afro-Brazilians such as Pele and Garrincha. As a story of sport and racism in the world's most popular sport, this book could not be more relevant today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Release date: Feb 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781469637037

Mario Filho

Mario Filho was a prize-winning Brazilian journalist and sports writer.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Nostalgic Beginnings

1.

There are those who believe that soccer of the past is what was good. Once in a while we run into one of these nostalgic folks. They’re all white, none black. It was something that intrigued me initially. Why is the nostalgic always white? The nostalgic always being white, never black, raised some doubts. And then the golden era, chosen by the nostalgic, was an era that one could call white. One would see light-skinned, very white players, even blond players on the teams at times: English or German. Few with darker skin and hair. Mulattoes and blacks were a rarity, one here, one there, they were lost in the crowd, not drawing any attention.

One knew who was black and who was white, blacks and whites were not confused. Bangu could put a black player on the team although it was a club of Englishmen. So much so of Englishmen that it included the The; it was The Bangu Athletic Club. The Industrial Progress Company of Brazil, a Brazilian textile factory with Portuguese capital, had sent to find masters in England. The English masters founded The Bangu Athletic Club.

One of them, John Stark, a master of printing, lent the house in which he lived, #12 Estevam Street, for the ceremony of the founding of the club. The founders of Bangu were nine: seven Englishmen, one Italian, and one Brazilian, white. Thus, Bangu was born almost completely English.

It’s true that the director of the factory was Brazilian. He gave the name to the celebrated street along Bangu’s field, "the ground of Ferrer Street or the pleasant field of Ferrer Street," as the columnists of the era would write.

João Ferrer was there to prevent Bangu from becoming an exclusively English club. And even if he weren’t there, in order to make Bangu the factory club, for the masters and the workers, the Englishmen of Bangu were not so many that they could imitate the example of Paissandu Cricket Club and Rio Cricket and Athletic Association.

At Paissandu and Rio Cricket it was the same thing, just that one was in Rio and the other in Niterói. At most, they were clubs restricted to Englishmen and the sons of Englishmen. At Rio Cricket, there was no question: it was much more restricted than Paissandu.

Still, a Brazilian could manage to play for Paissandu in the final days of soccer at the club, that is, in the middle of the Great War, when the Englishmen and their sons were departing to fight for England. Like Sidney Pullen.

We sent to Buenos Aires one Paissandu player: Sidney Pullen. He had been born in Brazil; he was Brazilian. The Argentinians did not believe that a Brazilian player could have such an English name, with a face all the more English. It was necessary to produce his birth certificate and all his documents.

Shortly thereafter, before the Argentinians’ doubts had been entirely put to rest, Sidney Pullen left for England as an English soldier.

With the Englishmen and Englishmen’s sons being called up, enlisting themselves in the British army, Paissandu had no other remedy: they opened up an exception for Cândido Viana.

Cândido Viana had been playing as a back for a while, on Botafogo’s second team, but he was a sports columnist, writing for the Jornal do Commercio (Newspaper of commerce). As a sports columnist, he had free entry to Paissandu, and Paissandu needed a back. A happy coincidence: Viana was at the service of Paissandu.

So Paissandu had on its team, which was on the verge of disbanding, a Brazilian player who was not the son of an Englishman. Rio Cricket, never. We can find on Rio Cricket in 1914, naturally amidst the Englishmen, a German or the son of a German.

The Germans, however, were white like the Englishman. And blond. There was no talk of war. The Englishmen got along well with the Germans; when they got together, they didn’t feel so foreign. Paissandu and Rio Cricket were bits of England transplanted to Brazil. On sunny Sundays the English flag would flap in the wind, high up on its pole, one on Paissandu Street, the other in Icaraí.

The collection of newspapers is there; all one has to do is look up the lineups of the Paissandu and Rio Cricket teams. These lineups must have been torture for the authors and proofreaders. For the readers, too, the majority of whom didn’t know a bit of English, having to spell the names of the eleven players on Paissandu, the eleven players on Rio Cricket.

Paissandu with a Cruickshank, C. T. Cruickshank, the first and middle names reduced to initials; also an M. Murry, a G. Pullen, an E. Pullen, a T. Treehand, a J. P. Hampshire, an L. Wood, a C. L. Robinson, an L. Yeats, and a J. McCulloch.

Rio Cricket was not far behind with its A. L. Sutfield, its E. A. Tootal, its G. Reither, its T. Moreno, its C. Calvert, its E. Kirby, its L. F. Garton, its F. Slade, its Conrado Mutzembecher, its F. Millar, and its J. F. Monteith.

The names were published in the paper; those who didn’t know the players wondered if there had been any errors in the proofreading. If one day they appeared correctly, the next they appeared with typos. The Brazilians found it pretty; they tried to imitate the Englishmen. Victor Etchegaray, a not-at-all Brazilian name, showed up in the lineups as V. Etchegaray; Clyto Portela as C. Portela; Horácio da Costa Santos as H. da Costa Santos; Félix Frias as F. Frias.

However, there were two Etchegarays, Victor and Emílio. When they played together some confusion arose, dispelled in the Brazilian manner: There’s Victor! There’s Emílio!

Imported soccer, made in England, had to be translated. And as long as it was not translated or Brazilianized, whoever liked it had to familiarize themselves with English names—of players, of everything. On the field, a player with self-regard had to speak in English—or rather, yell in English.

The lexicon of the team captain, precisely the one who would yell most on the field, needed to be vast. When a player on his team had the ball and a player from the other team was running up to take it, he had to warn man on you. When the other team was attacking and he needed to call his players up front, the signal was come back forwards. And there was take your man and more. There were eleven player positions on a team: goalkeeper, fullback-right, fullback-left, halfback-right, center-half, halfback-left, winger-right, inside-right, center-forward, inside-left, winger-left.¹

The referee

[juiz]

was the referee, transformed into referi ou refe; the linesman

[

bandeirinha

]

was the linesman; and so on.

But the names of the players of Paissandu Cricket Club and Rio Cricket and Athletic Association were more difficult to remember. They changed a lot, especially those of Rio Cricket.

Englishmen who came for the English telegraph,² to Leopoldina, spent some time here and afterward left, never to return again. They left and were substituted by others. And Rio Cricket was there with doors open to them. One would leave and another would enter. On the field, one hardly noticed a difference; they seemed the same.

Bangu could not count on any Englishmen arriving from England; they were all spoken for with guaranteed spots on Paissandu or Rio Cricket. The English colony of Bangu—a long way out, isolated one might say—was small. How many masters did the Industrial Progress Company of Brazil have? For this reason, Bangu was never a closed club in the sense of Paissandu or Rio Cricket, at least in soccer. Indeed, in cricket, the Englishmen refused any talk of mixture. Even a white Brazilian couldn’t make it on a cricket team.

What is more, Brazilians were never much for cricket, a game good for an Englishman. The players pad themselves, wearing something close to medieval armor, in order to wield their bat. In addition, the ball was made of wood, covered in leather; if it hit the leg of a player, it could break it.

It would begin in the morning, at nine o’clock, and continue into the afternoon, sometimes all the way till five o’clock; if it was winter, it would be getting dark. And it would stop every half hour for the players and fans to drink whiskey. One break was longer than the others, that for lunch. The bar would fill up; the English would drink, eat sandwiches, laugh, and sing, beating a rhythm with their glasses.

Before installing the field, according to a very English precaution, they installed the bar. Once the bar had been built was when the English of Bangu could think about the field.

There was a garden at the factory, a wide lawn of English grass, grass that would make Bangu’s field the greenest, the softest of carioca fields. The garden, the so-called goal bars on one side and the other, would serve as the field so long as grass was not planted on the neighboring piece of land, separated from the factory by a wall, and where the trash was disposed of.

The trash was manure and of the highest quality; the grass quickly consumed it and spread out, covering the field of Bangu in green. On cricket days, one could see only Englishmen scattered across the field and in the bar. On soccer days, it was another story.

The workers would hang around to see many whites, mulattoes, and blacks also with a desire to kick the ball. All that it took was for the ball to go out of bounds, as it did every so often, for the workers to run after it, like boys running after a São João balloon.³ Later the impression ceased to be this, of boys after a São João balloon, and became that of boys after an actual ball. Street urchins would show up at any field, in any street, where a game of soccer was being played.

But in 1904, the year in which Bangu was born, it was more common to see boys running after a balloon, though only in June, than after a ball all year long. And the English, in order to put together two teams, had to find people to fill in the holes, so much so that when Bangu made its soccer debut, playing a real match against Rio Cricket in Icaraí, there were already two Brazilians on the eleven, the word used by the more erudite columnists. But those Brazilians were white.

One was Luís Gaspar, center-half, from right there, a weaver in the factory. The other, Augusto Alvarenga, left halfback, was imported from the city, an employee of the retail part of the business, having nothing to do with the factory.

Bangu was two months old; it had improvised a team. That team, with Luís Gaspar and Augusto Alvarenga, would not be the final Bangu team. Bangu was still in formation—its true team only arose a year later, with five Englishmen: Frederick Jacques, John Stark, William Hellowell, William Procter, and James Hartley; three Italians: César Bocchialini, Dante Delocco, and Segundo Maffeo; two Portuguese: Francisco de Barros, or Chico the Doorman, a factory guard who was constantly rattling the woodwork, who only saw the ball and nothing else, and Justino Fortes, a giant the size of William Hellowell; and one Brazilian, Francisco Carregal—a Brazilian with 50 percent black blood. His father was white and Portuguese; his mother black and Brazilian.

Francisco Carregal, maybe because he was Brazilian and mulatto—the only Brazilian and the only mulatto on the team—was a perfectionist in the way he dressed. He was the best dressed player on Bangu, a real dandy on the field.

There is a photograph of this Bangu team, a photo truly worth saving in an album. Frederick Jacques, master engraver, the goalkeeper, is in the back, standing between José Vilas-Boas, director of sports, and João Ferrer, honorary president of Bangu. João Ferrer is all in white, his white clothes and white collar blending together with his white chest covering and white tie; he looked like a nurse. José Vilas-Boas is in pale gray at the top, reserved.

One looks at the photograph and sees only mustaches: droopy mustaches, like that of Frederick Jacques; rolled mustaches, like that of José Vilas-Boas; twisted mustaches, like that of João Ferrer.

Only three players did not wear mustaches: the doorman Justino Fortes; the Englishman William Hellowell, with a very white face, without a wisp of peach fuzz, smooth and soft like the face of a boy; and the Brazilian Francisco Carregal.

César Bocchialini’s mustache was quite Italian, a daring little mustache with fine tips pointing upward. That of Francisco de Barros, Chico the Doorman, was not daring at all. On the contrary, it was an austere mustache, weighted down with the responsibility of a father of a family with many children, while that of John Stark gave him, helped by his mild air, the face of a bird dog, good and friendly. And then there was the mustache of Dante Delocco, well trimmed, like that of Segundo Maffeo. That of William Procter was black, darkening his face; that of James Hartley was blond, almost white, making him look older. Also, James Hartley already had thinning hair.

The Bangu shirt was not like it is today, knit and tight fitting, with broad stripes in red and white. It had very thin stripes, almost touching. And it had a neck more like a soft collar. At least like one of these collars today, whose design comes from sport shirts. The fabric was a bit silky and brilliant, like muslin.

Not all the shirts were the same. Some had, right in the center, running from top to bottom, bars of the same cloth, with horizontal stripes. Wide bars, the thickness of a fist; skinny bars, the thickness of a finger. The English didn’t pay much attention to these details. They were less careful in their manner of dress than were the Italians and Portuguese.

And much less careful than Brazilian Francisco Carregal, perhaps due to the pride of being of a superior race. Francisco Carregal appears in the foreground in the photo, with his legs crossed, holding the ball. Written on the ball, in chalk, is the initials of the Bangu team and the date of the match photograph: 05-5-14, referring to May 14, 1905. The soccer cleats of Francisco Carregal look brand new, or at least polished that morning for the game.

One’s attention is drawn to the difference between the plight of Francisco Carregal, concerned with not looking shabby, and the blasé air of William Procter, who didn’t give import to such things.

Francisco Carregal, a simple weaver, had bought everything new: the soccer cleats, the short pants, the wool socks. The shirt was provided by the club. William Procter, the master electrician, had ordered some old shoes cleated, had cut up with scissors a pair of white pants that were no longer of use, and chose not to buy the wool socks, which cost 8,000 réis in the Casa Clark store. Instead, he put his feet in common socks, which went only halfway up his legs, and he allowed himself to be photographed with black gaiters.

The black gaiters really hurt the eyes against the white legs of William Procter. It seemed that he hadn’t finished dressing, that he had come running out from inside to pose for the photograph, without pants, in underwear. Principally because he is between Francisco Carregal, finely kitted out, and James Hartley, who, beyond woolen socks, wore shin guards on his legs. Shin guards were a rare thing, which had to be imported from Europe, like a true refinement.

William Procter could be careless; Francisco Carregal could not. Among the English, the Portuguese, and the Italians, he felt himself to be more mulatto while wishing to appear less, almost white. He passed perfectly. At least, he wasn’t scandalizing anyone.

If Manuel Maia, black goalkeeper, son of two black parents, was not pointed at, the mulatto center-forward Francisco Carregal would not draw any attention. What harm did it do for a worker to play soccer? Would he stop being a worker for that reason?

On Sunday he would kick the ball around, sweating his shirt through, while early Monday morning, when the factory opened, he would be there. He would go to the looms like the other workers; he would work, stopping only for lunch, until four o’clock. He didn’t even have time to remember the previous day’s match.

And why remember it? Work was time for work, and the game, time for play. In the end, Bangu was, despite the The, a club of the workers of the Industrial Progress of Brazil Company. If not for the factory, how could the club provide a field? And the rest? The rest was everything.

The worker who played alongside the masters, white or black, did not rise up or go down; he just remained where he was. If he wished to rise, he had to work a lot, to learn a lot, to be promoted from weaver to master. Just as Francisco Carregal ended up being promoted, at the price of hard work rather than playing soccer. Soccer was a pastime. Like every pastime, it cost money, more or less—less in Bangu than on Retiro de Guanabara Street, where Fluminense had made its field. For this reason, there was no danger that a Francisco Carregal, although a clean mulatto, or Manuel Maia, despite being a good, respectful black man, would join Fluminense.

To join Fluminense, a player had to live the same life as an Oscar Cox, a Félix Frias, a Horácio da Costa Santos, a Waterman, a Francis Walter, an Etchegaray; all made men, heads of firms, high officials in big companies, sons of wealthy fathers, educated in Europe, accustomed to spending money. It was a demanding life. Whoever lacked a good income, a good allowance, a good wage, would not be able to keep up.

Just to give an idea: each player who went to São Paulo at the turn of the century to play a football match had to spend 130 mil réis on travel expenses.

Oscar Cox, originator of the idea to create Fluminense, even tried to convince the Central Train Station. He went there and said he was representing a Brazilian sporting delegation, the first that would go from Rio to São Paulo, but got nothing; the Central Station did not discount even one real. A soccer player was a passenger like any other.

Result: all the members of that nameless team were obliged to put their hands in their wallets. On the return, they settled accounts: 130 mil réis from each, real money, in that era of almost equal exchange with the pound.

And in São Paulo, beyond the hotel bill, no one paid anything. One would buy a pack of cigarettes, a box of matches, and it was already paid for. A paulista, or sometimes an Englishman or a German, had made a signal: paid for.⁴ Everything was paid for.

That hospitality, however, was an exchange. The cariocas went to São Paulo, and the paulistas came to Rio. And the cariocas’ turn quickly arrived to do the same, following the paulistas around to pay their expenses. Once that period was over—fortunately always quickly, two or three days at the most, otherwise there wouldn’t be enough money—they would total everything up, calculate each share, and divide up the expenses.

And after a game there was always a celebration. Generally in the Café Cantante Guarda Velha restaurant, which was there on Senador Dantas Street. The victors would fraternize with the losers.

The idea would come from the victors, the defeated still stunned, not ready to think about anything, much less a celebration. Celebration of a defeat? It was unbecoming to refuse, and the losers had to show themselves as on par with the victors, eating like them, drinking like them, singing like them. And, principally, paying like them.

When the time came to pay, there were no winners or losers; everyone came together as bill payers. And the losers could even feel a vanity in their good sportsmanship, of having contributed to the greater brilliance of the victors’ party. And without covering their faces, without showing sadness or the pain of defeat, and without haggling over money. What the winners spent, the losers would spend.

And these celebrations were not cheap. They continued into the wee hours, and did people drink! Therein lay the fun, in drinking a lot. The more they would drink, the more they would sing. Everyone standing, with a stein of draft beer in hand, singing and swaying their heads, following the rhythm, with a loud voice, the louder the better: When more we drink together, quickly; more friends we be, slowly, the words dragged out.

It was that English song to end parties, an end that never came, that the young men of Botafogo, almost boys beside the real Balzacian men of Fluminense, translated into Portuguese. When more we drink together ended up as onde mora o Pinto Guedes (where Pinto Guedes lives), while for he is a jolly good fellow became a baliza é bola de ferro (the post is an iron ball)."⁵

It worked fine. Also, everyone was a little bit more rather than less in the bag, not hearing very well with the half deafness of a good bender. The English didn’t even notice the exchange of words, or if they did, they remained for that reason. Not even the waiters coming and going, taking the empty glasses and bringing full ones, noticed a thing.

The impression given was that everyone was singing in English. Only the Englishmen and the Germans were singing thusly, glasses in hand.

It was not cheap to commemorate a victory, for the winners or the losers. Many a young man disassembled, failed to show up, or even left the club. Their allowance had not arrived.

And the players saved their money; they didn’t spend without reason. If they had some old white pants, they wouldn’t buy shorts. They would cut the pants at knee length or a little lower, and presto. Some old boots with cleats could serve as soccer shoes.⁶

Money was saved for other things, which would certainly arise. When Oscar Cox discovered a piece of land located on Guanabara Street with Rozo Street access, there was no debate. Fluminense had thirty members, each one paying a monthly fee of 5 mil réis. The piece of land alone would eat up 100 mil réis of the total receipts of 150.

If money was lacking, however, they would open up a subscription period. Subscriptions were never lacking—for this, for that, a shack that needed to be built, the field that needed a fence, shirts and balls.

No balls were arriving, each one 25 mil réis.

Fluminense, even when they had only a field without grass, of bare earth; a wire fence stretched between stakes of rough wood; a mud hut, there in the back, where the players changed their clothes; an improvised open-air shower, did not need to concern itself with color, with the social condition of their players.

2.

For someone to join Fluminense he had to be, without a shadow of a doubt, from a good family. If not, he would remain on the outside, like the street urchins of Retiro da Guanabara, celebrated redoubt of hustlers and troublemakers.

The street kids would lean over the wire fence to watch the training sessions; if the ball went out they could run after it, give it a kick. But no delaying. If they delayed, they wouldn’t be allowed to carry the bags of the players, at the end of training, to the tram that ran down Laranjeiras Street.

Some boys from nearby Alfredo Gomes High School would come over to kick the ball around on Fluminense’s field. These boys, indeed, could enter the field, raise some dust, and kick the heavy ball, which would barely move. There was only one inconvenient fact: they were boys; from the right families, good enough for Fluminense, but boys. They still needed to grow, despite their families, despite their whiteness.

It was not only a question of just wanting legitimate white men. Nobody on Fluminense was thinking in terms of color, of race. If Joaquim Prado, winger-left of Paulistano—that is, a left winger—from the black branch of the Prado family, were to transfer to Rio, he would be received with open arms by Fluminense. Joaquim Prado was black, but he was from an illustrious, rich family, which traveled in the best circles.

He was a kind of carioca ambassador in São Paulo. If a tour of a club from Rio de Janeiro was announced there, Joaquim Prado, without anybody telling him anything, made the arrangements. He would not forget a detail, thinking of everything.

The job of a club from Rio de Janeiro was to go, to show up, consigned to Joaquim Prado. Jumping off the train, the first sight of São Paulo was the good and friendly Joaquim Prado, arms extended for a hug. Beyond that, cars were waiting and rooms reserved at the hotel, as well as luncheons, dinners, and outings. For this reason, whoever went to São Paulo to play a soccer match would return enchanted with Joaquim Prado, without even noting that he was black.

And if they took a look at him, it was to like him all the more. A true lord. He dressed well, admirably well. No loud colors, not even the contrast of black and white, so pleasing to men of color. Gray, black, and navy blue. In the evenings, always in black, in a tuxedo. He wouldn’t dine, wouldn’t attend a theater, in anything but a tuxedo.

Even those who hadn’t brought a tuxedo were at ease in Joaquim Prado’s presence. He would do everything as if he were not doing anything at all. He had also been born into that environment; he lived in it. He was the Paulistano scene. Because he lived in São Paulo, Joaquim Prado played for Paulistano. If he’d lived in Rio, he would have played for Fluminense. Naturally he would choose Fluminense—not just because it was a club of fine people, like him, but also because it was a club of made men, like himself; men of responsibility. Joaquim Prado would only fit well on Fluminense.

The natural tendency of things was for each player to seek out his own milieu, going to where his people were. And if his people had no club, the solution was to found another one.

As in the case of Botafogo, which consisted of students of the same high school, divided into clubs, discovering affinities with Fluminense or with a club that did not yet exist. The difference came about when the school bell rang at four o’clock, the end of the day. The Antunes (Almir, Alair and Aciole), the Borgherts, Chico Loup, Gustavo de Carvalho, Eduardo Guerra, and Raul Maranhão would head up Laranjeiras Street, turning left at Guanabara Street, on the way to Fluminense.

Flávio Ramos and the Sodrés, Emanuel and Mimi, could have done the same. They received invitations but did not go, like the others, to kick the ball around on Fluminense’s field. They attended a match at the Paissandu field, with the best will in the world to enjoy Fluminense’s soccer. They felt nothing when the team with the shirt of white and gray squares—Fluminense was not yet the tricolor—entered the field.

The others did indeed—Alberto Borghert, Gustavo de Carvalho, Chico Loup—they jumped, shouted, and never tired of clapping. They only stopped clapping to point out, with profound admiration, the Fluminense players. That one there was Víctor Etchegaray.

They knew by heart the names of all the players, even the complicated English ones. Buchan, Salmond, and Etchegaray were not English but Brazilian, like Oscar Cox.

Oscar Cox had brought a ball from Europe, while here nobody knew anything about soccer. He had been at some pains for four years to organize a team, searching for Englishmen who were obligated to know something about soccer, searching for Brazilians who had returned from Europe, like he had. Cox had not studied in England; he had studied in Switzerland.

It had been there, in Lausanne, at the High School of La Ville, where Cox had learned soccer. Many Brazilians had studied in Europe; all one had to do was bring together eleven Brazilians who had studied in Europe, and one had a team.

So Oscar Cox took four years, from 1897 to 1901, to form a team, five years to found a club. The club was Fluminense.

It had been difficult to form a team and found a club, to transplant soccer from England to Brazil. But once the team was formed, the club founded, soccer began to catch on.

Paissandu also had a soccer team. And there was another in Niterói.

For Alberto Borghert, Gustavo de Carvalho and Chico Loup, it was enough. Even if Fluminense were the only team, it would also be enough. For them, soccer was Fluminense. For Flávio Ramos and Emanuel Sodré, Fluminense was one thing, soccer another. They understood soccer soon enough, but they didn’t understand Fluminense.

They returned home with their heads full of soccer. It was easy to play, to put foot to ball, to run after it. The ball was so big there was no way to go wrong. Everything was simple; when the ball went in, goal, new kickoff. Only the keeper could touch the ball with his hands.

And Flávio Ramos and Emanuel Sodré saw themselves on a field, like that of Paissandu, running after the ball. Themselves along with others. The others, however, did not have mustaches; they were young men like themselves, with smooth faces, a little peach fuzz showing, the lads of Botafogo, of the Largo dos Leões; they would buy a ball, and presto.

But nothing doing with Fluminense, no going to the Guanabara Street field to kick the ball around. In the Largo dos Leões there was a field, a large plaza with three rows of palm trees. It would serve perfectly as a field. The palm trees didn’t get in the way—on the contrary. Where would they find goal posts better than the imperial palms of the Largo dos Leões? If the goal ended up a little big, they’d arrange a paving stone.

Botafogo was born there, in the Largo dos Leões, in the field of palm trees. In the afternoon, after classes, before sunset, they would get together for an evens against odds game, the lads of Botafogo.

Some boys—like Flávio Ramos, Emanuel Sodré, and Lauro Sodré—studied at the Alfredo Gomes High School. Others, like Álvaro Werneck, Mário Figueiredo, and Basílio Viana, studied at Abílio. Otávio Werneck, Arthur César de Andrade, Vicente Licínio Cardoso, and Jacques Raimundo were of the National Gymnasium, Pedro II. People from the same high school would separate, while those from different high schools would come together, the neighborhood uniting, dividing, creating borders.

Alberto Borghert, Gustavo de Carvalho, and Chico Loup would remain in Laranjeiras, even though there was no spot for them on Fluminense—not yet, at least. They would found a club to wait for the day when they could join Fluminense as men.

The desire to be a man, so strong in every little boy, brought them closer to Fluminense. The desire to be a man was no less strong in Flávio Ramos and Emanuel Sodré, younger than twenty. But they would become men on Botafogo, their club.

It was a neighborhood rivalry taking the form of a club, a banner, a shield: the shield of Fluminense and the shield of Botafogo, made by a mulatto, Basílio Viana.

But a mulatto full of surprises. With his tight clothing, a costume vest puffing up his chest, and pointy shoes with Cuban heels, Basílio Viana spoke French and bragged about having been at Mackenzie College. Mackenzie College was in São Paulo, but Basílio Viana had never left Rio.

At least that’s what they said. Álvaro Werneck recalled having always seen him at Abílio High School. When Werneck matriculated at Abílio, Basílio Viana was already there. Basílio himself, Mackenzie College this, Mackenzie College that.

And then, once one began talking about soccer, the name Mackenzie College would no longer grace the lips of Basílio Viana. Mackenzie College was for him, in his boyhood, what Paris would be later.

He would go to Paris not just once or twice; when he returned, it seemed he had never been anywhere else. And he brought proof: suitcases patched up with hotel labels, French names, Paris, Paris, Paris; photographs of starlets of the Folies Bergère, of the Moulin Rouge, of the Casino de Paris, dedications in ink still fresh to mon cher Basílio Viana, from beautiful white women, legitimate blondes.

Mackenzie College did not have a label to put on his suitcases, or starlets to write affectionate dedications. It mattered little, however, whether Basílio Viana had been at Mackenzie College. He was in the circle, in the group; he was one of them.

He also ran a lot. He had a club, Electro, for foot races, a club that ended up leaving behind, as its only souvenir, a book of receipts. To make use of the book of receipts, Botafogo called itself Electro for a month. Maybe Basílio Viana, the runner, could be a winger

[

extrema

].

The word extrema did not yet exist in soccer; the one that was used instead was winger, either right or left.

When Botafogo competed for the first time in a match—or, if you prefer, a challenge—there in the field of the Cycling Club, a close-cut lawn surrounded by clapboard and wire fencing but with goal posts, everything set up just right, Basílio Viana was one of the players in the white knitted shirt of Botafogo; that of the Football Athletic Association was made of red cloth.

Basílio Viana did not stand out amidst the players of Botafogo and the Football Athletic Association. Others had made use of old pants as soccer shorts, or shorts that were close enough, or long pants cut at the knee. Basílio Viana’s shorts were as good as those of Norman Hime, who wore the shorts from his England days, true soccer shorts. Everything he wore was English: the shorts, the cleats, the thick wool socks—really everything except the shirt bought at Casa Clark.

The Baron of Werneck, who watched the challenge under an open umbrella, very serious, very grave, without clapping, was impressed with the elegance of Norman Hime and Basílio Viana. That was how the players should enter the field. Basílio Viana, however, did not last long on the team; a better winger appeared, and he was out.

The shield of Botafogo, however, made by him, was in a frame, affixed to the wall like a painting, in full view of anyone who entered the club headquarters, the servants’ quarters of a house in ruins. Basílio Viana could not have a greater proof of respect.

But even so, he removed his Botafogo shirt, then black and white, and put on the black shirt of América and played against his club, against his shield.

There was just one goal in that game, scored by América. There was confusion when they saw that the ball was at the back of the net of Botafogo. Basílio Viana made a point of assuming paternity of the goal, in order to be able to make a graceful exit from soccer.

Basílio Viana was not like Pereira, a forty-year-old Portuguese with no illusions of youth, who just wanted to play. Even Raul de Albuquerque Maranhão, a young buck like Basílio Viana and full of illusions, would also jump from club to club.

Raul de Albuquerque Maranhão played wherever there was a place on a team for a fullback in order to do his signature kicks, which rose high in the air like São João balloons. The ball would get tiny, everyone straining their necks to see it. A success.

No one, however, liked this kick—which would later take his name—more than did Raul de Albuquerque Maranhão. To do a kick à Maranhão, he was willing to go to the ends of the earth.

If he found out about the existence of a new club, he would show up there and do his little tryout. He would roll up the hem of his pants, exposing his elastic boots, which would often fly after the ball. Then Raul de Albuquerque Maranhão would take off his shoes. Barefoot, he would kick even better, and the ball would go higher.

Because of that kick, Raul de Albuquerque Maranhão did not have a steady club. It might be Bangu, with its Englishmen and the black Manuel Maia behind him in the goal. Tall, blond Raul de Albuquerque Maranhão would be mistaken for an Englishman of Bangu. He fit well at anyone’s side: Englishmen of Bangu; Brazilians of Riachuelo and Mangueira; whites, mulattoes, and blacks all mixed together. It was as if Raul de Albuquerque Maranhão had a need to change clubs and shirts in order to do advertising for his kick.

João Pereira, aka P’reira, wanted to play on the right wing. As long as he was playing on the right wing, kicking his corners, he wouldn’t think of leaving. He was willing to stay his whole life on the same team, wearing the same jersey; he would do everything to stay.

He would even like it if his club was having difficulties, relying on him. Pereira would not make them beg. He would reach into his pockets—his money was the team’s money. Pereira’s generosity became famous. When he came on the field, the few fans, spread out along the fence, would shout aí P’reira! Pereira would puff out his chest, smooth his mustache, and try to excel even more at his corners.

Poor Pereira! The money would allow the club to improve a bit, and pretty soon they would remove him from the right wing. He didn’t complain; if they didn’t want him anymore, he would leave. And he would go in search of another team where there was, on the right wing, a place for him.

In the beginning it was easy; the Football Athletic Association would drop Pereira, and Riachuelo would start him on its team, naturally on the right wing. If up till then he had been generous, Pereira now became lavish. But it was no use, quite the contrary: with Pereira’s money the club would grow, and they would think they didn’t need him anymore.

It became less and less easy for Pereira, even difficult. Plus, he had gone through all the clubs. The answer was to have his own club, just for him. So Pereira founded clubs, not to be the president but to be the right winger. If Pereira was playing (P’reira!), everybody knew it: the club was Pereira’s. He would buy the ball, outfit the players, and pay for transport, and the bar expenses would be on his tab.

The smaller the club, the more black players would be on the team, which for Pereira was better. He had become disillusioned with whites. As far as whites went, he recruited only poor ones without money for a ball or a pair of cleats, grateful like the black players, grateful like he was when he played on the right wing and could kick, while resting, his corners.

On further consideration, this was a good thing. It allowed him to better see what differences there were, not between blacks and whites but between clubs—clubs of neighborhoods, of suburbs, of the Southern Zone and the Northern Zone.⁷ Large and small, each one remaining in its place, preserving its distance without even attempting to grow closer. Sometimes one would be right next to the other, like Fluminense and Guanabara—Guanabara of the hill, of the favela; Fluminense of the chic neighborhood. Those who lived in tin shacks would go to Guanabara, while those who lived in mansions would go to Fluminense.

The people of the hill could, at most, root for Fluminense, fight for it from the outside like Chico Guanabara, a tough with a cropped brim hat sitting high on his head, a kerchief at his throat, a switchblade in his belt, clogs falling off his feet. Nobody dared speak ill of Fluminense in his presence, as Chico would soon have his fists up, do leg sweeps, and draw his switchblade. He was a Fluminense henchman.

As a fan, as a henchman, he would do. What is more, Chico Guanabara had no intention of being anything else for Fluminense. It never crossed his mind to wear the tricolor jersey. The tricolor jersey suited Edwin Cox, fine, elegant, playing in a beret. The jersey that suited Chico Guanabara was that of the club from the hill.

Even as a fan he knew his place: among the general admission, viewing from afar the grandstand, full of young women—a bouquet of flowers, according to the comparison of a worldly columnist.

It followed the good social order of great family houses, with everyone in their places, including the poor relatives. General admission on one side, grandstand on the other, the players running in the middle of the field—running more for those in the grandstand than for those in general admission.

Just as at a little party, a shindig, with couples dancing. People in the hall itself, watching; people outside the hall, peeking in; people outside the house, in the street, the hangers on, spying.

General admission were not the hangers on; they were the kitchen, the larder, the backyard, more on the inside, almost outside. The hangers on were the hill, which was covered with curious folks lacking the ten tostões for general admission and who saw only pieces of the game: half the field, one goal down there in the background, the players tiny.

It’s true that there were fans entering as general admission who would try to get onto the grandstand. These fans were almost always poor students. They had to present, however, a special pass, a blue, green or pink card. Once the first half was over, everybody would head to the bar. Those departing the grandstand would receive that card to distinguish themselves from those leaving general admission, who wouldn’t receive any card at all.

But that which distinguished the grandstand man from the general admission man was not the card. The doorman would look and could tell right away, especially if the grandstand man had a ribbon with the colors of the club encircling his straw hat. Only the members, the VIP fans, the people from the inside, could afford to encircle their straw hats with those white and black, or red, white, and green ribbons. The ribbons came from Europe; it was necessary to send away for them.

Many fans awaited them anxiously. Before they arrived, they felt almost humiliated before the others, who already had their ribbons, who could already show them off, proudly, wrapped around their straw hats.

So there were always plenty of signs. To fix social injustice. Whoever belonged to general admission would remain in general admission; whoever belonged in the grandstand would stay there. Everybody was satisfied; there were no shocks.

At least that was the illusion, although the story of win but don’t take had already begun in Bangu. Bangu would open its doors to everyone, the grandstand and general admission people mixing together. And even if they didn’t mix, when the game was over, the distance that separated those who had paid two thousand réis from those who had paid ten pennies would disappear entirely. The crowd would invade the field, spread itself throughout the grandstand, encircle the shed where the players changed clothes, and take over the train station, with the trains stopped, waiting for the city’s fans, all of them in shirt collars and ties, wearing straw hats with little ribbons, white and black, or red, white, and green.⁸

When Bangu won, there was no problem; the train could return without broken windows. When Bangu lost, however, it was another matter. The players from the city would lock themselves in the shed and would not want to leave without a police escort; the fans would run to hide themselves on the train, flat on the long wooden benches, while the rocks would come flying, breaking windows and heads.

The police would come, and the players would leave the shed, well guarded, with the directors of Bangu in tow, being very friendly and making apologies. In a tumult like this, it was natural that nobody would remember the cup being offered to the victor. Thus, the expression that caught on was win but don’t take. The club from the city might win the game; the cup, however, would remain in Bangu.

At its base, it was a class war, but without anyone seeing it as such. Everyone took it more as a rivalry between a suburban club and a club from the city—a rivalry that was emphasized from just one side: the side of the suburban club. The suburban club was distancing itself, moving farther and farther apart, even wishing to separate itself. Why separate? Because it felt itself to be a different club, with different people.

And Bangu had its Englishmen, whiter than the Brazilians of Botafogo. And while it had its Englishmen, it also had its factory workers, its poor whites, its mulattoes, its blacks. What distinguished Bangu from Botafogo, from Fluminense, was the factory worker. Bangu, a factory club, put workers on the team on an equal footing with the English masters. Botafogo and Fluminense, not even as a joke; only elite folks. It was the first distinction that was made between great and small clubs—one, the club of the bigwigs; the other, the club of the little guys.

Bangu felt this before any other club, and it did not easily accept it. It had its revolts, invading the field after the match, throwing stones at the train, keeping the cup. It also began wanting to play with only other small clubs, clubs of factory workers, of the suburbs. A trophy, the João Ferrer Cup, ended up being instituted for these games.

Suburban clubs thus began to be founded, including Esperança, Brasil, and mini-Bangus, also helped by a factory. Alongside them, Bangu was big. It seemed like Fluminense, with its Englishmen and sons of Englishmen, but not entirely, as there were one or two factory workers amidst the masters, a mulatto player, and a black player.

Bangu distanced itself, only to return later. It was also courted primarily by Fluminense. Fluminense didn’t go up there without bringing a corbeil. When the corbeil appeared, almost always of red and white flowers, it would receive applause from the general admission and the grandstand. The corbeil would make the Bangu fans forget that Fluminense was a club from the city. Fluminense could even win the game and take the cup.

Botafogo wouldn’t bring a corbeil, and it didn’t go well for them. Once, after a Botafogo victory up there, Manuel Motorneiro—also known as Manuel Juca Rocha, because he worked for Juca Rocha—had to draw a revolver and keep it drawn, guarding the shed. The Botafogo players were in there, changing their clothes, unaware that the shed was surrounded by Bangu fans with sticks in their hands, with rocks—the picture of win but don’t take.

Manuel Motorneiro was the Chico Guanabara of Botafogo. Like Chico Guanabara, he was white but poor white, with the right only to root for, to fight for, his club. As long as the police didn’t come, and the police always took a while to show up, he remained, without budging an inch, pointing his revolver at the crowd. If anyone took a step forward, they’d be dead. Manuel Motorneiro would really shoot. He had brought the revolver for this, to shoot it, if needed. Botafogo would win—Manuel Motorneiro had no doubt about it—and if Botafogo won, there would be trouble.

The police arrived, and the door of the shed was opened. Afraid, some quite pallid, white as paper, the players of Botafogo came out, guarded by the police and by Manuel Motorneiro, still with his revolver in hand, and went to the train. Arriving at the train, they tried to lie down among the wooden benches, curling up and covering their heads with their hands, because there was no Manuel Motorneiro or police officer who could deliver them from the rocks. The signal for the departure of the train was, infallibly, the first rock, the first broken window.

Proof that soccer was becoming popular, an entrance fee was charged, and everyone could go see the match—or attend the meeting, to use the language of the papers. It was a question of ten pennies for general admission, of two thousand réis for the grandstand. Initially, there were more people in the grandstand. General admission was almost empty, a fan here, a fan there, united by the distance that separated them from the grandstand, covered by flowers.

Also, the ads that were put out were for the grandstand. The society columns would note, "Our grand monde was present, and then list the names of the young misses, all ornaments of society. In the streets would be a man in an enormous cardboard ball costume, with his legs and head sticking out. On the ball, in large letters, would be the announcement of the game: Today, on the grounds of Fluminense, a great soccer match, Fluminense and Botafogo. Everyone, today, to the grounds of Fluminense!" The man stuck in the cardboard ball did not climb the hill, did not go to the villas, with their little houses close together, to the streets of houses with doors and windows, to cul-de-sacs. He would go to the Largo do Machado instead, choosing the best time—that is, the time of the chic mass at the Matriz da Glória church.

When the mass ended, there would be two lines of young men on the stairs, from top to bottom, awaiting the young women. The young women would come wearing hats and light dresses, the skirts covering the ankle, leaving uncovered only the shoes, their umbrellas open.

And there would be the man in the big cardboard ball, his immense stomach announcing the upcoming match. It was today: Fluminense vs. Botafogo. The young men made discrete signals; the women made even more discrete signals. Everything was arranged. In the afternoon there would be a game, and the couples would meet in the grandstand of Fluminense. These were the people that Botafogo and Fluminense wanted.

3.

Soccer would prolong that delicious moment after mass, and the young women were all the more beautiful. They had gone home, delaying in front