Brazil – Copa das Copas – 3

Day 3 – Sao Paulo

The eyes of the world are on Sao Paulo today. Sure enough a small demonstration is broken up by riot police with tear gas and sticks. Later the ITV studio in Rio will have rocks thrown at it, and other cities will also see tear gas and masked protestors.  This is a country ill at ease with itself, aware that the sport it so loves is being used to quell domestic unrest.  The tax-free profits of FIFA have melded with the corruption of the Brazilian government to produce an uneasy atmosphere manifest by graffiti springing up both celebrating the Selecao and lampooning the orgy of greed. 

But come what may, the World Cup will begin today and like all bread and all circuses throughout history it will sweep across the  discontent, the anger, the cynicism and the fury and be another pacification force called football.

If Brazil win today that is.

We travel into central Sao Paulo, passing Croats in their red-and-white chequered shirts, and a tide of yellow and green.  The feeling is still tentative, and the old town is deserted but for gangs of armoured police squads lingering on street corners waiting to crush the revolution should it dare to appear.  The FanFest area is livelier – music pumps out and a small crowd gather to enter – making sure to finish their beer and coke, because FIFA rules are that no food or drink will be allowed into a FIFA area. All the locals dudes selling cans and bottles outside are disenfranchised at a stroke.  Somewhat against our instincts we shuffle into the crowd and enter the dragon.  Everyone is in here. Mexicans, English, Germans, Colombians, Chileans, Ecuadorians, homeless men and women, and thousands of locals.  Beer is the local Brahma (no Budweiser !)  This is a compromise since in Brazil beer is banned from football stadiums and events. FIFA forced them to change the law. So I guess the Brazilians insisted on their local beer) People are already drunk and it’s two hours before the opening match kicks off.  The opening ceremony doesn’t appear on the big screen : instead we get a local version of Justin Beiber who causes an outbreak of fist pumping and singalong frenzy. 

It’s gonna get messy here. We slide out the side and walk up the steps to a previously ear-marked bar and restaurant, securing a table next to some noisy folk from Seattle and underneath a screen, order some beer and pizza and wait for the kick-off.

I guess if you’re reading this you’ve seen the match by now. The first Brazilian goal, symbolically, was in their own net. 1-0 Croatia. The Europeans looked sharp and played direct, marshalled by world-class recently shorn midfielder Luka Modric. Neymar equalised with a beautiful shot, and it was game on.  The atmosphere in the bar was fantastic. 

Then the referee awarded one of the dodgiest penalties in the history of World Football and even some of the locals looked embarrassed. Neymar put it away, a Croatian goal was disallowed for a “foul on the keeper” and Oscar finished the story 3-1. The script was exposed and laid bare for all to see – Brazil HAD to win this game, for themselves, for the World Cup and for the survival of FIFA. A fix ? A referee who didn’t speak English ? We’ve seen it all before in previous trounaments where Brazil – FIFA’s bitch – have been ushered through games by the officials. Nothing new here, sponsor’s rules, advert breaks featuring Brazilian superstars have another five weeks to run. But the feeling of shame embarrassment and anger will not be shaken.

Our beautiful game has been stolen by thieves, crooks and pigs. FIFA have taken everything beautiful and turned it into a corporate whore dance of death.  FIFA must be destroyed.  We want our ball back.

Brazil – Copa das Copas – 2

Day 2.  Sao Paulo The day starts with the worst taxi journey you can imagine – you know – the one where the car doesn’t move for seven minutes at a time, when you’re watching old ladies walk past you up the road and the minutes tick away towards the time your plane is leaving. We get to Santos Dumont airport 45 minutes before our plane is due to take off, but they’re all relaxed, take our cases and let us on.  It’s a beautiful airport too. A quick 45-minute flight down the coast to Sao Paulo – and aside from the odd FIFA representative and sundry Australian fans, you wouldn’t know that a World Cup was starting tomorrow. The country feels tense.  A year ago a million people participated in demonstrations against the cost of this tournament: imagine, Sepp Blatter and his corrupt cronies at FIFA have actually turned Brazil off of football.  There are bits and pieces of bunting but it rather feels as if a nation is holding its breath and waiting for the moment of truth. We check in to Pousada Zilah in the Jardins district, Jenny gets a migraine (from her yellow fever jab – delayed) so I walk up to the Paulista metro station and travel the new subway system into the centre of this huge city of 20 million people – the largest in the southern hemisphere. It’s bright, spacious and air-conditioned and feels very new. Disembarking at Parc Do Se I skid through the homeless, drunk and mentally ill and find XV Novembre where Lebanese merchants are selling all things yellow and green.  FIFA have established themselves appropriately in a vast bank and I go to collect our 2 legitimate tickets for the game on my birthday in Manaus next week. The FIFA girl takes my picture and explains that when we enter the stadium, my face will flash up – this to deter touts.  What if I get ill ? I ask – you’d rather have an empty seat ??  Anyway, I stroll past the Croatians making pub noise down to the viaduct which overlooks the FanFest – still being built at 7pm the night before the opening game. A father and son watch the preparations from the bridge.  A slight sense of anticipation starts to build. I walk back past the Teatro and the buskers, more yellow and green and red-and-white checks, and a proper gathering of football people near Republicca Square, the Croat boys taking selfies with Brazilian girls, their optimism all-consuming. Back in Jardins the tree-lined avenues are relaxed and European so Jenny and I decide to eat in a beautiful Italian restaurant called Positano and decide that we prefer Sao Paulo to Rio.  We are of course experts by now. Two whole days in Brasil.

 

Brazil – Copa das Copas 2014

Day One – Cantagalo, Copacabana, Ipanema

Jenny and I meet Sidney from the Museum of the Favela at the foot of the Miranda lift with Daniel and his wife Vela helping to translate.  We ascend the lift to a viewing room.  Now level with the hillside, overlooking Ipanema beach, the lift and walkway was completed 4 years ago to link the hillside favela of Cantagalo with the beach community of Ipanema. Previously, favela inhabitants had to walk up the steep steps. The lift and walkway are very blue, very modern, and very much in use as people are walk past us while Daniel does the translation and Sidney greets his friends. The artwork starts to appear – painted onto the sides of buildings by local artists and depicting in vivid colour the history of the favela – started by freed slaves over 100 years ago and usually the first port of call for those seeking work in Rio from other parts of Brasil, particularly Minas Gerais to the north.   The mood darkens as a possee of armed police walk past in combat mode, pointing their weapons like a SWAT team into people’s houses.  Sidney waits for them to pass then shows his contempt for this “pacification force”.  We walk up, we walk down, past tight little dwellings cramped onto the slopes, through dark alleyways where dogs are stretched out asleep, tiny hair salons, cafes, stores and kids playing. The views over Rio are breathtaking. Makes we wonder out loud whether the gentrifiers will be along shortly. Slightly farther south past Leblon this is already happening to a hillside favela which looks from a distance like Positano on the Amalfi coast. As the facilities improve here – sanitation, running water, electricity and now the modern, free access, these areas become more desirable to the middle class.  We reach the Museum HQ, buy a T-shirt and pose for photos on the roof.  Moving into Pavao-Parvinhno, a twin favela above Copacabana the mood changes again. A funicular railway here serves the steep hillside and marks the place where a water tower fell down one Christmas day ten years ago killing whole families.  We walk through the entertainment corridor where men unload crates of drink and other men scarcely conceal their weapons. Sidney advises me not to take pictures. But in the next breath he insists that we are safer up here in the slums than we are on the beach down below us, where pickpockets roam and armed muggers look for opportunities. He poses next to a picture of a dancer from the favela and big on TV : Douglas Rafael da Silva Pereira, killed by the police two month ago. There were riots here when his body was found. Jenny recognises a graffiti from a US World Cup commercial. We walk down the steps and out, shaking hands.

It’s been an entertaining and enlightening 3 hours and a great way to start our Brazilian adventure.

Two minutes later we are strolling along the promenade of famous Copacabana beach being gently hassled by trinket sellers, spotting fans from Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, England, Spain and Mexico all deciding not to eat the various fried food offerings. A giant temporary structure at one end of the beach turns out to be the media centre where Gary Lineker, Adrian Chiles et al will broadcast from for the next month. At the far end of the great curved beach is the FIFA Fanpark, where we expect to watch England v Italy on Saturday night. 

We walk around the headland to Ipanema beach where the tone softens, surfers fight the breaking waves and mini-vultures hop along the shoreline. Hat and scarf sellers have to pack up and vanish at a moment’s notice whenever a police car drives slowly and malevolently along the service road. We sip on vodka & tonic and watch the world walking by.  Later that night we eat with the beautiful people in Caffe Felice amidst a tropical downpour and a dumb waiter who brings me milk in a teapot. One mosquito bite and bed.