Football in Brazil

Association football is the most popular sport in Brazil and a prominent part of its national identity. The Brazil national football team has won the FIFA World Cup tournament five times, the most of any team, in 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994 and 2002.[5] Brazil and Germany are the only teams to succeed in qualifying for all the World Cups for which they entered the qualifiers; Brazil is the only team to participate in every World Cup competition ever held. It is among the favorites to win the trophy every time the competition is scheduled. After Brazil won its third World Cup in 1970, they were awarded the Jules Rimet Trophy permanently. Brazil has also won an Olympic Gold Medal, at the 2016 Summer Olympics held in Rio de Janeiro.[6]

Football in Brazil
Night view of Maracanã Stadium, June 2013.
CountryBrazil
Governing bodyCBF
National team(s)Brazil
First played1894[1]
Registered players2.1 million[2]
Clubs29,208[2]
National competitions
Club competitions

Série A
Série B
Série C
Série D

State Football Leagues in Brazil

There are 27 competitions.[3]
International competitions
Audience records
Single match199,854
(Brazil 1-2 Uruguay at Maracanã Stadium in 1950 FIFA World Cup)[4]

Pelé, statistically the most successful footballer ever, led Brazil to two of those championships and won it three times (he was injured during most of the 1962 World Cup). All of the leading players in the national teams are prominent in the football world, including Garrincha, Cafu, Roberto Carlos, Romário, Rivaldo, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Kaká and Neymar in the men's game, and Marta in the women's game. Some of these players can be considered super-stars, achieving celebrity status internationally and signing sports contracts, as well as advertisement and endorsement contracts, in the value of millions of euros.

The governing body of football in Brazil is the Brazilian Football Confederation.

History

Football was introduced to Brazil by a Scottish expatriate named Thomas Donohoe.[1] The first football match played in Brazil was in April 1894, played on a pitch marked out by Donohoe next to his workplace in Bangu.[1]

In the 1870s, like many other British workers, a Scottish expatriate named John Miller worked on the railroad construction project in São Paulo with other European immigrants.[7][8][9] In 1884, Miller sent his ten-year-old son Charles William Miller to Bannister School in Southampton, England, to be educated. Charles was a skilled athlete who quickly picked up the game of football at the time when the Football League was still being formed, and as an accomplished winger and striker Charles held school honors that gained him entry into the Southampton F.C. team, and later into the county team of Hampshire.

In 1888, the first sports club was founded in the city, São Paulo Athletic Club. In 1892, while still in England, Charles was invited to play a game for Corinthian F.C., a team formed of players invited from public schools and universities. On his return to Brazil, Charles brought some football equipment and a rule book with him. He then taught the rules of the game to players in São Paulo. On December 14, 1901, the "Liga Paulista de Foot-Ball" was founded, organising its own championship, "Campeonato Paulista", first held in 1902. Therefore Campeonato Paulista became the oldest official competition in Brazilian football.[10]

São Paulo Athletic Club won the first three years' Paulista championships. Miller's skills were far above his colleagues at this stage. He was given tashe honor of contributing his name to a move involving a deft flick of the ball with the heel "Chaleira" (the "tea-pot"). The first match played by one of Miller's teams was six months after Donohoe's.[1]

Another competition, Campeonato Carioca, was first held in 1906 as the Rio de Janeiro State football championship, being contested up to present days.

Corinthian F.C. was the first British team to tour Brazil in 1910, winning all matches. Local club Corinthians took its name after them

Charles Miller kept a strong bond with English football throughout his life. After a tour of English team Corinthians F.C. to Brazil in 1910, Corinthians was established on September 1, taking on the name of the British side after a suggestion from Miller.

In 1913 there were two different editions of the Campeonato Paulista. One was organized by the Associação Paulista de Esportes Atléticos (APEA) while the other one was organized by the Liga Paulista de Foot-Ball (LPF).

The Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) was founded in 1914, but the current format for the Campeonato Brasileiro was only established in 1959.

In 1988, Sport Club Corinthians Paulista celebrated playing the English side Corinthian-Casuals F.C at the Morumbi Stadium. The Casuals finished its tour by going against the local professional Sport Club Corinthians Paulista team, who counted the likes of Sócrates and Rivelino amongst its roster, at Pacaembu Stadium in São Paulo. To celebrate their shared history, Sócrates changed shirts to play alongside the English amateurs when the score was 1–0 in favor of the locals. This did not affect the score, however, although a largely-full stadium was cheering for a draw between the sides.

From August 1941 through April 11, 1983, women's football was prohibited in Brazil. The law, created by the Conselho Nacional de Desportos, determined that "violent" sports such as football, rugby, and boxing were incompatible with women's capabilities. Despite the ban, women's teams continued to play informally for the next four decades, gaining increasing popular support through the 1970s and early 1980s. The movement to legalize women's football, which coincided with the feminist movement in Brazil at the time, contributed to the termination of the ban by the CND, which also cited rules set by the Union of European Football Associations in its decision.[11]

On September 29, 2007, it was announced that the CBF would launch a Women's Association Football league and cup competition in October 2007 following pressure from FIFA president Sepp Blatter during the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup in China.[12][13]

In 2013, a year before the 2014 World Cup, hosted at home, Brazil's FIFA World Rank dropped to 22nd, an all-time-low position.[14] During that tournament, Brazil made it to the semi-finals but were eliminated by Germany in a heavy 7–1 loss.

In 2014, Brazil was one of the eight nations to take part in the first Unity World Cup. The team played the opening game with notable players such as Beto, Fabio Luciano and Carlos Luciano da Silva.

Football culture
2014 FIFA World Cup

Football is the most popular sport in Brazil. Football quickly became a passion for Brazilians, who often refer to their country as "o País do Futebol" ("the country of football"). Over 10,000 Brazilians play professionally around the world.[15]

Football has a major effect on Brazilian culture. It is the favorite pastime of youngsters playing football on the streets and indoor Futebol de Salão fields. The World Cup draws Brazilians together, with people skipping work to view the national team play, or employers setting up places for employees to watch. The General Elections are usually held in the same year as the World Cup, and critics argue that political parties try to take advantage of the nationalistic surge created by football and bring it into politics. Former Brazilian footballers are often elected to legislative positions.

One unique aspect of football in Brazil is the importance of the Brazilian State Championships. For much of the early development of the game in Brazil, the nation's size and the lack of rapid transport made national competitions unfeasible, so the competition centered on state tournaments and inter-state competitions like the Torneio Rio-São Paulo. Nowadays, however, there is a growing tendency of devaluation of the importance of such championships as continental and national competitions have grown in relevance since the early 1990s.

Football style

Brazil plays a very unfundamental and distinctive style.[16][17][18][19] For example, dribbling is an essential part of their style. Many people criticized former head coach Dunga because of the pragmatist, fundamental, defensive-minded style he brought to Brazil.[20] After Brazil's failure at the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Dunga was fired and Mano Menezes became the head coach. With the aid of young talents such as Neymar, Lucas Moura, Paulo Henrique Ganso, Oscar and more, Brazil strives to return to its creative style.[21]

The great exodus of players in recent years to European competitions is scene of much debate in the country, especially about the consequences that this would generate in the style of Brazilian football.

Race and Football

Historical background

Race appears as a prominent issue in discussing football in Brazil. Individual's socioeconomic status, ethnic identities, and family backgrounds—key components that closely tied with race in Brazil—were heavily involved throughout the development of the sport. Gregg Bocketti, a professor of history at Transylvania University, presents how football incorporated participant's racial identities during the process of expanding the sport across the country in his book—The Invention of The Beautiful Game: Football and the Making of Modern Brazil. According to the author, Football was first introduced in Brazil as a European sport that exclusively favored white males with social and economic privileges.[22] Charles Miller, a Brazilian-born male of Scottish descent who learned to play the sport while attending boarding school in Southampton, championed this persistent hierarchy within the sport, and further promoted his idea through recruiting members of the British expatriate São Paulo Athletic Club and his Brazilian acquaintances to take charge of the game.[23] Moreover, Miller's vision perceived football as an effective tool to "improve Brazil according to a European standard…and was infused by Eurocentrism and social exclusivity."[22] Above all, football functioned as an integral component in the "high life among the urban upper classes" during the late nineteenth century Brazil.[24]

Throughout the early twentieth century, racial exclusivity continued to exist yet with major changes in the sport's perception on racial minorities. Under the Vargas regime, football expanded its scope of participants. During the 1930s, Getúlio Vargas, former President of Brazil, issued policies that promoted nationalism across the nation in which football served as an effective tool in unifying the people of Brazil as a single race.[25] This allowed the Brazilian national team to compete in international games overseas during which the administrators believed the team should be "represented by its best players, regardless of their backgrounds."[25] Many non-white soccer players from the working class demonstrated their skills and talents at publicly recognized games. Mario Filho, a writer for the Journal dos Sports in 1936, commented that "in football there was not even the merest shadow of racism."[26] In contrast, Bocketti argues Filho's statement lacked in understanding "the reality that traditional hierarchies and traditional exclusions" were deeply embedded throughout the 1930s.[27] This was true because football clubs in Brazil were still organized and managed by privileged white administrators with wealthy backgrounds who established football amateurism to increase exclusivity among participants during the 1930s and 1940s.[28]

Racial Discrimination

Although non-white footballers had the opportunity to participate in a higher level of football, racial discrimination remains a serious problem in the Brazilian football communities. Before football in Brazil became a nationalized and popularized sport with participants from various racial, ethnic, and social backgrounds, the sport "advertised Brazil as white and cosmopolitan," which important political figures considered individual's race, class, and region in building representative sides.[29] In relation to racial hierarchy, Bocketti argues that the Europeans perceived non-white soccer players as inferior and considered racial minorities’ participation in football as physical labor and exclusive for lower class. In the early twentieth century, prestigious football clubs in Rio de Janeiro prohibited non-white players to compete in the league tournaments.[30] This trivialization continues throughout modern day society in which non-white soccer players are portrayed as inherently inferior. For example, various media reports reveal that non-white Brazilian soccer participants still experience racial discrimination. Neymar Junior, in his interview, shared his confrontations with coaches and fans for calling him a monkey.[31] Similarly, non-white soccer players are often referred as a monkey to degrade their identities based on their race.[32] Moreover, Aranha, a goalkeeper for the Paulista club, was targeted for racist abuse from the audiences,[33] and so was Dida, a former goalkeeper for the Brazilian national team,[34] and Marcio Chagas da Silva.[35] In 2014, twelve incidents of racial discrimination were reported from soccer matches in Brazil.[33]

Racial Mobilization

For non-white soccer players, their social privilege and acknowledgement acquired through football allowed them to practice racial mobility despite their original heritage. In the 1930s, nationalization of football allowed non-white soccer players to experience social mobilization. However, professionalization of football in the early twentieth century Brazil strictly prioritized individuals with affluent backgrounds.[28] Thus, non-white soccer players, after ascending their socioeconomic status, were accustomed to an exclusive environment in which the members were politically, socially, and economically influential. For instance, Arthur Friedenreich, a Brazilian soccer player with African and European heritage, experienced the upward social mobility during the 1910s through demonstrating his skills in football. However, he did not categorize himself as non-white but rather preferred to be identified as white because it was the color that was "traditionally accepted by Brazilian elites."[36] Moreover, worldly renown football stars in the contemporary society such as Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo, and Neymar Jr. refused to be racially identified as black but rather as white.[31] It is impossible to trace and beg the question of these players’ true intentions. Unlike the issues non-whites soccer players face for their statements, Kaka, a white Brazilian football star, is portrayed as a sincere Christian and devoted father with no internal or external conflicts regarding his race.[37] In contrast, those who characterizes their race differently are depicted as a betrayer and unfaithful person. According to The Times of India, anthropologists and sociologists conducted research to demonstrate that racial minorities in Brazil tend to undergo upward mobilization to segregate themselves from underprivileged and underdeveloped environment.[38] Football stars, in this context, showed similar process which they prefer to be identified as powerful figures through categorizing themselves as white. For example, in writing about Arthur Friedenreich, Mário Filho wrote that "the black man in Brazil does not want to be black," and therefore many Brazilians "did not believe black men should represent the nation."[39]

Football in Brazil

Brazilian Football in television

Football is broadcast in television in the following channels:

Free television


League system
Main article: Brazilian football league system

There is a four tier league system.

There are also State Championships which are not hierarchically below the national league, however, they are used for the purposes of promoting clubs to the National Leagues.

See also

References
  1. "New research reveals the Scottish dye worker who brought football to Brazil, 117 years ago exclusive". Herald Scotland. March 24, 2011. Retrieved February 21, 2014.
  2. Brazilian Soccer: A Country of "Soccerists"
  3. State football leagues in Brazil
  4. Largest Sporting Crowds at Top End Sports
  5. "Brazilian Football". Brazilian Football. Retrieved February 21, 2014.
  6. https://www.latimes.com/sports/olympics/la-sp-oly-rio-2016-brazil-tops-germany-for-soccer-gold-1471736142-htmlstory.html
  7. Jones, Jeremy V. (April 27, 2010). Toward the Goal: The Kaka Story - Jeremy V. Jones - Google Books. ISBN 9780310590033. Retrieved February 21, 2014.
  8. Bellos, Alex (2003), Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life, Bloomsbury Publishing, p. 27, ISBN 978-0-7475-6179-8
  9. "The 'Labour Question' in Nineteenth Century Brazil: railways, export agriculture and labour scarcity" (PDF). p. 35. Retrieved February 21, 2014.
  10. IFFHS HISTORY AND STATISTICS - CAMPEONATO PAULISTA DE FUTBOL (1902 - 1924) part 1 on the IFFHS, 18 May 2020
  11. Elsey, Brenda; Nadel, Joshua (2019). Futbolera: A History of Women and Sports in Latin America. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. pp. 99, 100, 134. ISBN 978-1-4773-1042-7.
  12. "Brazil to set up women's soccer league". Sports. People's Daily. September 29, 2007. Archived from the original on November 5, 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-30.
  13. "Brazil will create women soccer cup". Sports. People's Daily. September 29, 2007. Archived from the original on November 5, 2007. Retrieved September 30, 2007.
  14. "Brazil plummets to No. 22 in FIFA rankings". Retrieved June 14, 2013.
  15. "Natal Brazil". Natal Brazil. September 29, 2006. Retrieved July 23, 2009.
  16. Langbein, Francis (February 28, 2013). "The secret behind the mystique of beautiful Brazilian soccer 02/28/2013". SoccerAmerica. Retrieved February 21, 2014.
  17. Homewood, Brian (March 1, 2012). "Menezes sets Brazil quest for old style - World Cup 2014 - Football". The Independent. Retrieved February 21, 2014.
  18. "Carlos backs Brazilian style | Football News". Sky Sports. Retrieved February 21, 2014.
  19. "The famous Brazilian football". Chinadaily.com.cn. Retrieved February 21, 2014.
  20. "Legend Socrates slams Brazil's style under Dunga as an 'affront' to football". The Sydney Morning Herald. June 11, 2010. Retrieved September 6, 2020.
  21. Edwards, Richard (July 8, 2012). "Brazil's Samba style looking so out of step | Football | Sport | Daily Express". Express.co.uk. Retrieved February 21, 2014.
  22. Bocketti, Gregg (2016). The Invention of The Beautiful Game: Football and the Making of Modern Brazil. University Press of Florida. p. 3.
  23. Bocketti, Gregg (2016). The Invention of The Beautiful Game: Football and the Making of Modern Brazil. University Press of Florida. p. 1.
  24. Bocketti, Gregg (2016). The Invention of The Beautiful Game: Football and the Making of Modern Brazil. University Press of Florida. p. 27.
  25. Bocketti, Gregg (2016). The Invention of The Beautiful Game: Football and the Making of Modern Brazil. University Press of Florida. p. 118.
  26. Bocketti, Gregg (2016). The Invention of The Beautiful Game: Football and the Making of Modern Brazil. University Press of Florida. p. 114.
  27. Bocketti, Gregg (2016). The Invention of The Beautiful Game: Football and the Making of Modern Brazil. University Press of Florida. p. 115.
  28. Bocketti, Gregg (2016). The Invention of The Beautiful Game: Football and the Making of Modern Brazil. University Press of Florida. p. 64.
  29. Bocketti, Gregg (2016). The Invention of The Beautiful Game: Football and the Making of Modern Brazil. University Press of Florida. p. 14.
  30. Daflon / Ballve, Rogerio / Teo (September 25, 2007). "The Beautiful Game? Race and Class in Brazilian Soccer". NACLA. Retrieved April 11, 2018.
  31. "Neymar Jr, Brazilian Racism and The World Cup of Football (soccer)". The Corn Dealer's House. June 24, 2014. Retrieved March 29, 2018.
  32. Blakeley, Robbie (September 2, 2014). "Brazilian Football: Is Racism a Major Issue to Be Addressed Immediately?". Bleacherreport. Retrieved April 11, 2018.
  33. Bowater, Donna (June 9, 2014). "Racism on soccer field in Brazil still hidden not so deep beneath surface". Aljazeera America. Retrieved April 11, 2018.
  34. Prange, Astrid (May 23, 2014). "Brazilian football plagued by racism". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved April 11, 2018.
  35. "Rousseff Speaks Out Against Racism in Football: Daily". The Rio Times. March 10, 2014. Retrieved April 12, 2018.
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  37. Jones, Jeremy (2014). Toward the Goal, Revised Edition: The Kaká Story. Zonderkidz.
  38. Saxenal, Siddharth (June 27, 2014). "Of Neymar's hair colour, race and identity". The Times of India Sports. Retrieved April 12, 2018.
  39. Bocketti, Gregg (2016). The Invention of The Beautiful Game: Football and the Making of Modern Brazil. University of Florida Press. p. 128.
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