Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
In the City of God, you see many different faces, depending on the depth of your faith or the cobbled street of Rio de Janeiro you so happen to stumble into.
On Friday night, I saw the true face of the World Cup, and his name isn’t Ronaldo, Messi, Van Persie or even Neymar, yet he’s a superstar nonetheless.
His name is Alesandro. He possesses the widest grin of any player who will score a goal in the next month. He is the player already tipped to make it. He was playing on this cement football court, in the favela of Vasco da Gama, at 3am the night before.
And he is five years old.
‘‘Why is he here at 3am?’’ asks Carlao, a former player with the famous Rio clubs of Flamengo and Vasco and now a father figure of this favela. ‘‘Why are any of them here? For many of them, their fathers are drug dealers. They don’t get fed at home. They are six or seven years of age. They have no father, their mothers are addicts. They come to me for 150 reais [about 75 Australian cents] to buy food.’’
As Carlao tells me this, the Socceroos have just conceded their second goal in as many minutes against Chile in Cuiaba.
We are sitting less than 50metres from Vasco da Gama’s stadium, the home of the club that first allowed black footballers to play in the Brazilian league.
Old men in the small bar nearby are slowly sipping cold beer and watching like it’s State of Origin, or an AFL grand final. It’s a scene repeated hundreds of times over in this favela, and indeed this city, tonight. When Matthew Leckie sprays a shot, they condescendingly laugh.
Since the government’s ‘‘pacification’’ campaign started in 2008, with around 174 of Rio’s 600 favelas now monitored by Pacifying Police Units, it is said these areas have lost their soul.
The police, for their part, urinate on the quadrant where these children are playing on this night. Nonetheless, the place is abuzz – most favelas are on a Friday night – but the atmosphere was at fever pitch the previous evening when Brazil won the opener against Croatia.
We are a 20-minute walk from the Maracana, the spiritual home of Brazilian football that has been modernised at a cost of $500 million. It’s a spend these people, who hold on to football so closely because alongside their families it’s all they’ve got, struggle to fathom.
On Monday morning (AEST), the Maracana will host its first match of the tournament when Argentina meet Bosnia-Herzegovina. Carlao is going because his friend, Australian charity worker Conor Hartnett, has paid $250 for his ticket.
Carlao remembers when it cost 10 reais to watch a Brazilian league match at the Maracana. Now they are charging 90 reais for the nosebleeds. The price hike is to pay for the stadium upgrade, and it is just one of the reasons the nation wants to win the World Cup but is displaying palpable anger at its government for hosting it.
‘‘There shouldn’t be a World Cup, for many reasons,’’ Carlao insists. ‘‘The stadiums have cost too much. The health system is bad. The education system is bad. Transport is bad. Security is terrible. Why have we spent so many dollars on this, when it could’ve been spent on that?’’
Says Conor: ‘‘FIFA is doing a great job taking the game away from the people.’’
Two years ago, Irish-born Conor had an epiphany.
After finishing work as a business analyst at Westpac in Kent Street, Sydney, he needed to kill time before training with Balmain Old Boys, who play in the Canterbury league.
He typed ‘‘round-the-world ticket’’ into Google and volunteering abroad came up.
‘‘Guys, I’m moving to Rio,’’ he told his teammates when he arrived at training that night.
Conor, 39, now partners with two organisations in Rio. IASESPE, with which he helps children aged between three and 14, and Carlao’s Football Project, which involves a hundred kids.
‘‘We collect money to buy the kids football shoes, shirts and shorts so they can play,’’ Conor explains. ‘‘Basically, the program provides a safe haven, enjoyment and some male role models. Carlao is a father figure to these kids and not one of them call me Conor but simply Tio, which means ‘uncle’.’’
When you see the infectious nature of the children on this night, the temptation is to empty your wallet to help give them a better life. Conor felt this way, too.
‘‘All the time,’’ he says. ‘‘When I first arrived in this favela, I bought one of the children the strip of Botafoga, one of Rio’s proudest clubs. He then knocked on every door to show off his new shirt. I was swamped with kids the next day.’’
Conor helps coach the children alongside Swede Mikael Gobeze, who was once part of IFK Gothenburg’s youth squad but left because ‘‘I didn’t burn for it any longer’’.
Along with Conor, Mikael is piecing together a documentary on the favela, to be released in September.
What Carlao wants them to teach the kids is to play like a European player, not so much the joga bonito – ‘‘play beautiful’’ – style for which Brazilian players are famous.
‘‘The kids all want to dribble and shoot,’’ Conor explains. ‘‘We are teaching them that passing and marking are far more important. You will hear my Portuguese with a heavy Irish accent imploring the kids, ‘Passar o futebol’ [pass the ball] or ‘Marcar o jogador’ [mark your players].’’
Despite this, Neymar is the only player the kids aspire to be.
So while the Socceroos are desperately pressing for their equaliser against Chile in their opening group game, with the old men at the bar still watching intently, there is little passing and a lot of shooting happening on the quadrant.
The children are still discerning enough, though, to know who the best player in the world is ... Neymar or Messi?
‘‘Messi!’’ they tell you.
Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo?
‘‘Messi!’’ they shout.
Their heroes are not Pele, nor even Ronaldo – two of the biggest names in Brazilian football to come out of the favelas or abject poverty.
‘‘They forgot where they came from,’’ Carlao says bitterly, although he makes it clear the likes of Romario and Adriano have not.
Conor is all about giving the community as much as he can, too, before visa restrictions see him back in a suit and tie in Kent Street.
‘‘Carlao and I talk football 24-7 and it’s great as we know we can’t save the world, but we can give some security and love to these kids and have great fun doing it,’’ he says. ‘‘Let me stress: the kids give me way more than I can ever give them. Sitting in a bar in the favela on a Friday night watching football and having random kids coming up saying ‘Boa noite, Tio’ [good evening, uncle] and giving you hugs beats the Beach Road Hotel in Bondi.’’
Football is critical to these people. It can save them. It could save Alesandro. But football can hurt as much as it can heal.
Everyone has a theory on what will happen if Brazil don’t win the World Cup. Few seem to predict the depression the country felt after it lost the final to Uruguay in 1950, which is the last time it hosted the tournament.
Should they fail to get past the second round, Carlao predicts briga. Trouble.
And what if Brazil win the World Cup? Will it justify the $12 billion spent on infrastructure and stadiums many of its people can’t afford a seat in? Carlao shakes his head.
‘‘After the Cup has finished, and everyone goes home, the problems still remain,’’ he says. ‘‘It will still be a four-hour wait in emergency. That doesn’t change. The money doesn’t go to schools, it goes to FIFA. The World Cup goes for one month. What happens after everyone has left?’’
