In the wake of the tragedy at the stadium to host the opening match in 2014 (pictured above), Mauricio Savarese speculates on the political logic behind the selection of the 12 host cities.

By Mauricio Savarese

“Who are the most powerful governors and mayors in Brazil?”

Back in 2008, that was a strange question to ask someone involved in choosing the 2014 World Cup host cities. But I did. So off the record, one of those guys pored over the map for the presidential elections, friends that former President Lula had to please and opposition members that couldn’t be ignored. He said nothing about projects, common sense or legacy.

I thought he was just a tactless political analyst. But in the end he got it all right when the venues were announced in 2009.

To understand delays, missed deadlines and excessive spending it is important to know how the 12 host cities were chosen. After all, Brazil could have had a tournament with only eight stadia. It could also have made the arenas smaller in cities where local professional football is just a fantasy – as is the case in Brasilia, Manaus and Cuiaba. And if the issue really was bringing more tourists into great cities practically unknown abroad, then Belem, Florianopolis and Goiania would be in.

The most controversial case is that of Cuiabá, Mato Grosso. It sits in a place with little infrastructure, tradition in the sport or touristic appeal. It seems the most bizarre choice of them all. Its stadium almost certainly won’t be finished by the end of the year. But it was one of the first to be counted in. The main reason: former governor and soybeans magnate Blairo Maggi was a key ally for the ruling Worker’s Party (PT) to keep. He is a great fundraiser and a calming presence in his party.

The Amazon was the excuse for selecting Manaus. But it wasn’t that easy: Belem was a bitter rival and it is the capital of a state governed then by another PT politician, Ana Julia Carepa. But former governor Eduardo Braga (Amazonas state) was a rising star in the government coalition. Everyone knew that he is a potential leader of the Senate and that he controlls votes in the North. Carepa was going the opposite way – bound for defeat in 2010. Manaus won, Carepa lost.

Fortaleza, one of the most violent cities in Brazil, is getting an astonishing six World Cup matches mainly because governor Cid Gomes is a close ally to both Lula and President Dilma Rousseff. He is such a key figure in the highly populated Northeast region that he is now eagerly attacking former party colleague and presidential hopeful Eduardo Campos so he can help Rousseff keep her job at the 2014 elections – to be held shortly after the World Cup.

Curitiba’s bid was supported by two strong elements: the support of former governor Roberto Requiao, who is now a maverick at the Senate, and the difficulties PT has in Santa Catarina, the state where beautiful and football crazy Florianopolis is located. Natal’s case was a little different: governor Rosalba Ciarlini was an important interlocutor within the opposition and runs a state that has given ministers, a speaker of the House and key congressmen to Rousseff’s administration.

Brasilia’s Mane Garrincha stadium was more of a case of political megalomania. Before he became the first Brazilian governor to be jailed during his term, the opposition’s Jose Roberto Arruda decided he would try to win the right to hold the opener from Sao Paulo. To do that, he would have to build a venue for about 70,000 people in a city where you don’t get that many people even if you add together all the attendants at all of the local league’s fixtures. Later, the PT’s Agnelo Queiroz insisted.

The troubled Arena Corinthians was also a political pick, although that had more to do with Lula’s passion for his club than party politics. At first, the opener would be at São Paulo FC’s Morumbi stadium. A completely new one only made it into the plans after a Corinthians chairman scrapped a deal on broadcasting rights and signed a deal that pleased the former head of the Brazilian FA, disgraced Ricardo Teixeira.

Sao Paulo’s new arena was also suitable to deflate Belo Horizonte’s bid for the opener – a late, but credible competitor because of former governor Aecio Neves’ support. Neves is set to be the main contender against Rousseff in 2014, although polls now say the incumbent is likely to remain in power.

Rio, Salvador, Recife and Porto Alegre were all natural candidates to host World Cup matches, regardless of their possible political benefits.

It could have been worse. One of the closest allies to Presidents Lula and Rousseff is the Viana clan, running the distant state of Acre on the behalf of PT since time immemorial. Their capital, Rio Branco, is a tiny city of about 300,000 inhabitants in the middle of the jungle. That analyst I talked to a few years ago said then the place actually had a chance. Most Brazilians laughed pretty hard at that possibility. But the run up to 2014 shows a little love can always make stadiums happen.

Mauricio Savarese is a Brazilian journalist, originally from Ipiranga, in São Paulo’s zona sul, and is the author of the blog, “A Brazilian operating in this area.” He was formerly a reporter in Brasília for UOL and is active on Twitter.

This year, the country didn’t deliver on everything international observers thought the country had promised, but Brazil still remains one of the 21st century’s most remarkable success stories. 2013 could be decisive.

For those paying attention to Brazil headlines, 2012 was mostly a bad year. For some, it was enough to re-evaluate the status as an emerging power that the country has euphorically held for years now.

The economy barely grew, and government involvement in the economy has surprised some international investors. The ruling Worker’s Party was dragged through the mud repeatedly as the Supreme Court handed down sentence after sentence for a vote-buying scandal from Lula’s first term. The PCC returned to the scene in São Paulo, and a small-scale war broke out between police and the gang. New laws dismayed environmentalists concerned for the Amazon.

But Brazil still remains one of the most remarkable success stories of the 21st century. This is true for a few simple reasons. 40 million people have risen out of poverty, and inequality has decreased. Despite the slowdown, unemployment is at record lows, and wages have continued to rise. Perhaps most importantly, we saw last week that President Dilma has an eye-popping 78 percent approval rating.

In short, the vast majority of the population support the way the country is being run, people are better off than ever, and society is more just. It’s important to remember that this is the whole point of economic growth and democracy in the first place. The results are there. We shouldn’t confuse means with ends, as is so easy to do when we journalists get caught up in the latest GDP numbers, or scandal.

Even some of the the year’s worst stories have a positive flip-side. As ugly as the corruption trial was, many believe that the tough sentences handed down to high-level politicians could signal an end to political impunity in the country. And despite the tragedy of a spike in violence in São Paulo’s periphery, the state’s murder rate is still much lower than it was a few years ago.

When Brazilians and observers (justifiably) complain about the country at the moment, a little context can be uplifting. What has the world been going through for the last 12 years, especially since 2007? How many countries in the world can you point to with: rising standards of living, reduced inequality, and widespread, long-lasting contentment with leadership? This is certainly not how things feel in my native California, or in Europe. And all of this in an open, liberal democracy? I can’t think of many examples.

But of course, nothing guarantees this will continue, and 2013 could be a decisive year. We can’t expect wages to rise forever without economic growth returning, and so the world will be holding their breath until it does, as expected next year.  But if instead there is more stagnation, or more of what the international community sees as state meddling in the economy, international investors could finally give up and concentrate on countries like Mexico or Colombia. And it’s hard to imagine how the PT would be seen by the people if any of the party’s social gains were reversed.

I personally don’t think either of those doom scenarios will come to pass. We’ll see. But for now, here are some of the bad, the good, and the interesting stories from 2012.

These are summaries – click the links for more in-depth info.

The bad

Corruption –

We watched all year as high-level politician after high-level politician was brought down for the ‘mensalão’ scandal from 2003, and a new hero of the opposition (and anti-corruption movements) was born in the form of Joaquim Barbosa (pictured above).

Violence –

War broke out for the first since 2006 in São Paulo. Again, the major parties were the PCC, the state’s main gang, and the military police. The latter lost over 100 officers to (mostly) targeted executions, while the murder rate in SP jumped.

The economy –

This is the big one. After growing 7.5% in 2010 (and causing us in the international press to rush here), then slowing to 2.7% in 2011, we may not do much better than 1% in 2012. Even more awkward was the moment when Finance Minister Guido Mantega joined the rest of analysts in wildly overestimating third-quarter growth, leading The Economist to call for his dismissal. Needless to say, President Dilma was not pleased to hear this from the British magazine.

But the economy is expected to pick up in 2013, thanks not only in part to the huge cut in interest rates carried out this year, which have finally come down to the levels of a normal country. And in reality, the 7.5% growth year was a statistical blip after -0.3% in crisis-hit 2009. Taken together, the economy had been growing at 3.6% a year, close to the average over the last 20 years, and to what we’re likely to see over the next few years.

But more worrying is that some investors believe, whether rightly or wrongly, that the government has begun to micro-manage the economy and that the possibility of intervention may be unpredictable. Much of this has to do with the decision to lower energy prices. I personally think they’re wrong, or at least that this was a problem of the government’s way of communicating the changes rather than the changes themselves. But some people are on edge, and this is especially important, as a drop in investment is the real culprit for the bad numbers.

And of course, there remains so much that Brazil should and could do to increase productivity and upgrade its growth model.

Infrastructure –

We are still waiting on this one. This is one part of Brazil’s economy that most desperately needs to be resolved, and we’ve still only seen baby steps.

The environment –

My visit to the Amazon this year was not pretty, both because of the persistence of slave labor and the obvious destruction of the rain forest. Things took a turn for the depressing for environmental activists as the government rolled back protections in 2012.

The good

Politics –

Whatever you think of the ruling Worker’s Party (PT), it is undeniable that if you use the standard most often applied to political parties, Lula and Dilma’s have overseen a truly remarkable success story since 2003. Lula left office one of the most popular leaders in the world, and two years into her term, Dilma is already widely supported. 78 per cent approval is a breathtaking figure. And this after everything that happened in 2012.

Despite the mensalão mess, the PT did very well in municipal elections this year, and took back São Paulo, South America’s largest city. If 2014 elections were held today, all polls indicate Dilma would win by a landslide.

And without a doubt, the country plays a much larger role on the world stage than it did in 2002.

The PT, like everyone else, could improve greatly, but widespread support and a rising nation means you are winning, big. This is a tough act to follow.

The real economy –

As I mentioned above, for all the dismal numbers, life on the ground still feels better than ever. Families are still rising out of poverty. The explanation for this is a little complicated, but the reality is there. It can’t last forever like this, of course, but forever hasn’t happened yet.

Justice –

The flip side to the mensalão mess is a justice system which really has teeth for the first time anyone can remember. This has always been the case for the poor, but now politicians can be on the hook, too. This has many hoping they will think twice in the future.

Even some police are being held to account. Some of those that gunned down suspected members of the PCC and, by all accounts, set off this year’s wave of violence, are now in jail.

World Cup preparations –

For years we wondered if Brazil would be ready to host the World Cup. We haven’t sorted out our infrastructure problems, but it looks like at least the stadiums will be ready.

My personal take is the following: The World Cup will go the way Brazil does for most visitors. Something or another will go wrong. They’ll be stuck in traffic, or miss a flight, or end up spending more than they expected on this or that. But those things will be heavily outweighed by the charm of the country and the fun of the event, and most will go home raving about Brazil.

Cost of living –

For us foreigners, it’s been good news that the real has come down significantly this year. Brazil is no longer so maddeningly expensive. For Brazilians, the cost of living hasn’t changed much.

Corinthians –

“The people’s team” from São Paulo took the world club championship, and gave Brazilian football a much-needed boost. This also meant lots of traffic and nonstop fireworks in the city, but overall it was very good for the country, and for South America.

The unexpected and interesting

Lula back on the scene –

I suppose it was more of an anomaly that he was actually gone for a while. But after recovering quickly from cancer, the former president was given a grand welcome back and got to work quickly, helping out in this year’s municipal elections. Crucially, he has so far floated above the mess of the mensalão scandal, and insisting he know nothing of the scheme. We’ll see if he can keep this up in 2013.

Music –

2012 was a much more interesting year musically than 2011, in my opinion. We saw the rise of Brazilian hip hop to the mainstream, “techno brega” from the Amazon in the form of Gaby Amarantos, and funky pop from the likes of Tulipa Ruiz. Here’s our full interview with Emicida, and Criolo’s will be posted next year.

Eike Batista –

He did not have a good year. There was the unfortunate incident with his son, Thor. Then he attracted lots of negative attention, and fell quite dramatically from his position as Brazil’s richest man.

Race –

Hard to categorize this one as good or bad, but the country stared two deep-seated problems in the face this year: relations with indigenous populations, and the government’s approach to black Brazilians.

Tourism –

The sector is doing quite well, but it has nothing to do with the gringos. The sector is almost entirely powered by Brazilians moving around their own country.

The rebirth of the center –

Long more famous for being “Crack land” than anything else, we saw interesting new movements coming up from the street.

Evangelical power –

Much to the dismay of bien-pensant liberals, Brazil’s numerous, and often unsettling, Evangelical Christian churches revealed themselves as an ever more potent political force.

Exhibitionist turn –

We saw Brazil’s sub-celebrity realitytainment industry power into the same bizarre gears we’ve been accustomed to around the world. First, there was the sex, or perhaps rape, transmitted live on Big Brother Brasil. Then we had the young girl who auctioned off her virginity for $800,000.

Petrobras – Graça Foster –

One of South America’s largest companies inherited a true rags-to-riches story as Graça Foster took over. Here’s hoping she can help navigate Petrobras out of its current mess.

Niemeyer –

And finally, we bid a sad farewell to nation-defining visionary architect Oscar Niemeyer, who passed at 104 years old. Here’s an interview I did with him last year, and perhaps next year I’ll post my pictures from his 104^th birthday party.

Here’s hoping 2013 goes better. Happy New Year.

Follow @Vinncent

The ‘people’s team‘ from São Paulo upset Chelsea this morning in Japan and delivered Brazilian football a particularly delicious triumph.

By Dom Phillips

It has been six years since a South American team won the FIFA Club World Cup. But today Corinthians deserved every centimetre of their 1-0 victory, having outplayed Chelsea with a performance that showed the São Paulo team at its very best.

Owned by a Russian billionaire, managed by a Spaniard, with a team stocked by expensive, international players like Spain’s Fernando Torres and Brazil’s Ramires, Chelsea were far and away the favourites.

But Corinthians played with the technique, the skill, the defensive capacity, and most of all the garra – or sheer force of will – that characterises their game at its best. And with a headed goal by Peruvian forward Paulo Guerrero that gave them the trophy, the team have caused a major upset in world football.

At kick-off, it did not look so balanced: Corinthians had struggled to beat Egyptians Al-Ahly 1-0 in the semi final, whereas Chelsea had effortlessly disposed of Mexico’s Monterrey 3-1. Even Corinthians coach Tite had refused to promise victory, saying instead the team would leave fans proud.

This was precisely what they did, taking the game to Chelsea from the beginning, while growing in confidence and stature as the match developed and it became obvious that, yes, the team from London could be beaten. Chelsea threatened time and again. But when the Corinthians defence did falter, goalkeeper Cássio held firm – a goal-line save with his legs was just one of his heart-in-the-mouth, match-saving moments. He deserved his man-of-the-match prize.

This was a tense, but fluid game. But Corinthians kept coming back and kept coming forward. Tite’s advance defence system – in which every player, no matter how far forward he is, has the job to close down the opposition and get the ball back – saw Corinthians winning possession time and time again.

It took them 69 minutes to score as the ball rebounded from the Chelsea goalmouth, out to midfield and back again. In a deft and determined play, Danilo moved laterally across the area to shoot – and Guerrero seized upon the rebound to head the ball home. Even then, Corinthians did not sit back: they defended hard, fought for the ball in midfield, constructed attack after attack, while Chelsea, technically superior, always looked dangerous on the break.

And when the whistle blew, Chelsea looked stunned in defeat. They had not expected to lose. With the game over, the cameras panned over the sour, disbelieving faces of Chelsea’s Frank Lampard and Fernado Torres. “Chelsea fume after world final defeat,” read the Guardian headline.

The victory tops a remarkable year for Corinthians. In December 2011, on the same day that they were mourning the loss of their former captain Sócrates, Corinthians sealed the Brazilian championship. Six months later, after decades of disappointment, the team beat Boca Juniors to win the Libertadores – South America’s Champions League. And now, a hard-fought and, outside of Brazil at least, unexpected victory over European champions Chelsea.

It was all very different a year ago, when the high hopes that Santos would beat Barcelona were crushed 4-0. And it is a victory Brazilian football should be grateful for. Two years away from hosting the World Cup, the Brazilian national team still struggles to find its rhythm and has just been given a new manager: ‘Big Phil’ Scolari. In Brazil, attendances are low and the game even in the country’s top division cannot compare to the pace and finesse of Champions League teams. Corinthians are not celebrated for playing the fluid, creative ‘beautiful game’ Brazil is famous for. But today they gave Brazilian football a much needed shot in the arm.

Because for a team from São Paulo that is largely made up of workmanlike Brazilian league players to go to Japan and beat one of the richest, most famous, and most successful teams in Europe with its multi-million dollar line-up of global talent, is a particularly delicious Brazilian victory.

By Dom Phillips

The game is being scripted as an epic battle: glamorous, strutting Chelsea, Champions League winners, up against the gritty, passionate Corinthians and their army of fans. São Paulo’s so-called ‘team of the people’ finally beat their decades-old jinx and won the South American Libertadores in July. They were also 2011’s Brazilian Champions. A win on Sunday would crown a perfect year for them.

Both teams conquered their trophies with efficient, defensive games. Corinthians then floundered in the Brazilian national league, before rallying back with some recent wins. Chelsea are already out of this year’s Champions League and struggling under unpopular new manager Rafael Benitez. But they are still clearly the favourites

In past years, the trophy has been much more valued by South American teams. But recently the Europeans have won it. Even so, expectations were high before last year’s Club World Cup Final that Santos, where two of Brazil’s brightest talents Neymar and Ganso were playing, could beat the Barcelona team being called one of the greatest of all time. Could Neymar, the one young Brazilian genius not to have left Brazil to dazzle alongside Lionel Messi? Dream on. Santos didn’t even get a look in, losing dismally, 4-0.

I was in São Paulo in December 2005, when São Paulo FC beat Liverpool 1-0 to win the FIFA Club World Cup. The noise of cheering, firecrackers, and car horns blaring reverberated around the city, much to my disappointment. Liverpool is not my team, but it’s pretty much my home city and Brazilian friends took no prisoners in rubbing in the defeat.

Rafael Benitez was Liverpool manager then. But he won the title with Italy’s Inter in 2010. And he’s now in charge of Chelsea – with three of Brazil’s national team in his squad. And he knows exactly what this trophy means to a South American team.

“Maybe in Europe people don’t consider the Club World Cup important. But talk to Brazilians or Mexicans and you will see how they see it. For them, it’s a chance to show the level they’re at against a great European team,” Benitez said recently.

Benitez also has three Brazilian national team players in his squad: midfielders Oscar and Ramires and defender David Luiz. Ramires scored a key goal for Chelsea to take out Barcelona in April on their way to this year’s Champions League victory. Both Oscar, in a deft one-two, and David Luiz, masterly in a rare midfield role, contributed to Chelsea’s 3-1 defeat of Mexico’s Monterrey in Thursday semi-final. Which will have rattled the thousands of Corinthians fans flooding Yokohama’s streets, many of whom watched as Chelsea effortlessly dispensed with the Mexicans.

But this Corinthians team is an efficient soccer machine that coach Tite has crafted over the past year or so, adjusting his system to different players. When the team is playing well as a unit, it is adept at getting the ball back as soon as it loses it, at getting the goals it needs, at hanging on to a lead.

Nevertheless, they struggled to beat Egypt’s Al-Ahly, the African champions, 1-0 in Tuesday’s semi-final with just one goal from their new Peruvian centre-forward Paulo Guerrero – and this despite the army of fans they had dominating the stadium. It is midwinter in Japan and many of the team had never seen snow. Brazilian sports sites are covered in pictures of Corinthians players smothered in giant parkas, scarves and beanie hats, eyes glittering with cold.

But the team has a tradition of putting itself and its supporters through all kinds of cliff-hangers before occasionally pulling out the magic at the last minute. And this stadium has been lucky for another Brazilian team before: Brazil won the 2002 World Cup here, defeating Germany with two goals from the great Ronaldo. Whose last team before retiring, in the twilight of his career, was Corinthians.

The ‘people’s team‘ took the South American cup last night, and the continent’s largest city promptly began setting off more fireworks than most cities in the US did for Independence Day. Our gringo Corinthiano Dom Phillips reports on what it felt like.

By Dom Phillips

The weight of expectation was becoming unbearable even hours before kick off. It was there in the Corinthians shirts that half of São Paulo seemed to be wearing, in the banners celebrating victory in a game yet to be played, in the running battle between police chucking stun bombs at rock-throwing supporters outside the stadium.

The 30 million fans of the famous São Paulo soccer team had decided a week ago that victory in the South America-wide Libertadores trophy, the continent’s equivalent of Europe’s Champions League, was theirs. Their opponents, Buenos Aires’s equally famous Boca Juniors club, were perhaps the only ones who disagreed.

In the end, two second-half goals from the Corinthians number eleven Emerson clinched it. Though it could be argued that Romarinho’s equalizer when Corinthians were trailing 1-0 to Boca in the first game in Buenos Aires was almost as crucial to their final victory – their first ever in the Libertadores.

That first goal followed a cheeky back-flip from Danilo inside the area, which Emerson seized and buried in the net with both verve and velocity. His second was a combination of luck and opportunism: the Corinthians forward stole the ball from a bad Boca pass in Argentine half, out-sped a defender, and slammed home the goal. By this point, the noise in São Paulo’s Pacaembu stadium was deafening, banners were covering half the ground, and Boca were falling to pieces.

The Argentinean team rallied a little. But it was all over. The tears, the exultation, the sense that Corinthians deserved to win a trophy they’d been chasing for decades – not to mention another firework display – were all as expected.

Firecrackers and car horns sounded all night in São Paulo. Fans screamed at each other in the street, hung outside cars blasting hip hop and carioca funk versions of the Corinthians Hymn, or stood wrapped in Corinthians flags, arms outstretched to the sky in celestial thanks. At three in the morning, Corinthians supporters continued to shout and jeer at fans of rival São Paulo FC in one upmarket neighborhood – São Paulo supporters are known as playboys, street slang for the spoiled children of the rich.

Another early hours chant was directed at another of the city’s teams – Palmeiras, who play in green, and were now dubbed ‘Guarani de Pompéia’, a reference to a small team from the interior who also play in green, and the district where Palmeiras traditionally play. Vindication over rival teams who have long taunted Corinthians for never winning the trophy was all part of this delicious victory for fans.

Emerson’s two goals were highlights in the Corinthians Libertadores campaign – because this is not a trophy the team won playing the ‘beautiful game’ that Brazil made famous. Corinthians coach Tite deserves praise for forming a cohesive team that could fight and win this trophy. But not for playing inspiring soccer.

“It was with workers’ sweat that the time arrived in the final,” said the front page of tabloid Diário de S.Paulo on the day of the game. With a picture of defender Alessandro glowering beneath a construction worker’s helmet. Corinthians’ Libertadores triumph was about their determined, organized defence – much like the victory of London’s Chelsea in Europe’s Champions League.

And Chelsea are one of the team’s that Corinthians will meet in December’s FIFA’s Club World Cup in Japan. The line of male supporters in front of me had their T-shirts ready in Corinthians black and white, with a rising sun on black, and the phrase in red: “I go, Tokyo, 6-12-12,” and they put them on when the final whistle blew. Their sense of relief at the title finally conquered was as palpable as the expectation that preceded it.

[Photo above: Corinthians fans take over the iconic Avenida Paulista late into the night]

São Paulo’s gritty Corinthians will take on Boca Juniors of Buenos Aires Wednesday, in a rematch of last week’s thrilling tie. The match, set for 21:50 at São Paulo’s Pacaembu stadium, is the second of the two-part final that will determine the champion of the continent.

By Dom Phillips

One-nil down to Boca Juniors in their gladiatorial La Bombonera stadium in Buenos Aires is not a good place for any team to be. Especially when it’s the final of the Libertadores Cup – South America’s equivalent to Europe’s Champions League. But Corinthians went down 27 minutes into the second half, after a shot by Roncaglia emerged from a goalmouth scramble.

But with the sense of drama that is one of their trademarks, São Paulo’s Corinthians somehow pulled it back with a dazzling and opportunistic goal from 21-year-old substitute Romarinho that silenced La Bombonera. In the 40^th minute of the second half, four minutes after entering the pitch. It was the stuff soccer folklore is made of.

The young hotshot had already scored against twice against São Paulo rivals Palmeiras the previous Saturday. He’s scored three goals in just four games for the team. But it doesn’t get much bigger than a Libertadores final – and now everyone in Brazil knows who he is.

And Corinthians are a team currently lacking a matador, killer, or goalscorer. Instead it is a job divided amongst the team. Consequently Romarinho’s moment didn’t just put Corinthians back in the game, it put the trophy that has eluded the team for the 53 years of the championship’s existence back within reach: with away goals counting double in the event of a draw, 1-1 is not a bad starting point for Wednesday’s decisive second game at São Paulo’s Pacaembu stadium.

But there is still a long, tense 90 minutes to go for Corinthians, in front of a crowd rabid for victory. Nerves could very easily fail them. Boca have a strong team with strikers like Riquelme capable of putting the wind up the home side. History is not on Corinthians’ side: in nine Libertadores games in Brazil since 2000, Boca have only lost one.

And Boca goalkeeper Orion has been stoking the Brazilians’ nerves with provocative talk of a Boca turnaround victory. “Brazilians feel troubled against Argentineans,” he told Fox Sports Monday. “Boca’s statistics weigh heavily. I hope we can continue feeding this.” He added: “We’re going to win and bring home the cup.”

Not if Corinthians can do anything to stop them. This is a team that can feel the hands of football history on their shoulders, along with the weight of expectation of 30 million fans, and the eyes of the whole of Brazil. Whatever happens, it should be one hell of a game. And if all else fails, there’s a 21-year-old substitute called Romarinho on the bench with stars in his eyes.

[photo above: The now-famous Romarinho slips one by Boca and makes a name for himself, last week in Buenos Aires]

Anyone with a feel for Brazilian soccer should tune into Wednesday night’s final: Argentina’s Boca Juniors against São Paulo’s Corinthians. This heavyweight title fight is the first leg in a two-game final to decide the Libertadores South America-wide club competition – the continent’s equivalent of Europe’s Champions League.

All eyes in Brazil will be on Corinthians, the country’s second most popular team, who have never even made the final, never mind actually won the trophy. This is a deeply emotional matter to their 30 million fans. And a cause of great amusement and incessant jibing for everybody else in Brazil.

In 2010, when veteran defender Roberto Carlos joined the great attacker Ronaldo in the team, he promised to win the Libertadores trophy for Corinthians. It looked good. Both were former members of Brazil’s 2002 World Cup winning team. It was Corinthians’ 100th anniversary. But then Corinthians lost 1-0 to Flamengo under torrential April rain in Rio de Janeiro, when the faulty drainage at the Maracanã stadium turned it into an ankle-deep swamp.

Corinthians won 2-1 on the return leg in São Paulo, but as away goals count double in a draw, Flamengo went through. Roberto Carlos left for Russia the following February. The joke had already gone around Brazil: 2010 wasn’t the team’s centenário – or centenary. It was their centenada (nada means nothing in Portuguese).

In 2011, the Corinthians Libertadores campaign got even worse. They team went out in the first phase, 2-0 down to a nobody team from Colombia called Deportes Tolima. The jibing intensified. Ronaldo retired that year.

So this is the closest, then, that Corinthians have ever been. They can smell victory, and they can also remember the bitter taste of defeat. Although the Boca team they face at the Bombonera is not what it once was, Argentine clubs have a good Libertadores record against Brazilian teams. When River Plate, another Buenos Aires team, turned a Corinthians 1-0 home lead into a 3-1 defeat in 2006, furious fans stormed the pitch at the Pacaembu municipal stadium the São Paulo team calls home.

This is pretty much the same Corinthians team with which coach Tite won the Brazilian championship with in December 2011. Some of the players to watch are Emerson, our main forward, Chicão, another veteran defender, Danilo, who scored a crucial goal against Santos, and new goalkeeper star Cássio. But Tite hasn’t got to here by playing the ‘beautiful game’ Brazil was once famous for. Instead he has done it by forming an efficient football machine that is as focused on defence as it is attack, that marks its opposition heavily, and that badly lacks a craque – star, or genius player.

“The whole team has the function of marking, not just the defence system. They begin at the front, making it difficult for the ball to go back and the whole team has this function,” Tite told me in a recent interview.

“Much like Chelsea,” quipped the Flamengo fan on my local newsstand the other day, referring to the mixture of dumb luck and heroic defending that saw London’s most hated club defeat the glorious Barcelona and then beat Bayern Munich to win this year’s Champion’s League. On a smaller, less glamorous scale, perhaps it’s a little like how Corinthians defence faced down the fluid, creative attack of Santos and their star players Neymar and Ganso in their recent Libertadores semi-final.

As a gringo Corinthiano, like most of the club’s fans, I couldn’t care less. I just want them to win. This is a results-based team – and we want a result. Resolute, constant defending is, I have decided, a much neglected art. And anyway, it fits the mood in today’s Brazil, with the economic growth of the last years stalling, and a hard-nosed technocrat like Dilma Rousseff as president, instead of her flamboyant predecessor and mentor Lula.

It’s all about number-crunching and bottom-line in this most capitalist of countries – despite an ostensibly left-wing government. On Monday the giant Brazilian state oil company Petrobras, suffering a falling share price and falling production figures, presented a revised business plan for the next four years to a skeptical audience of analysts.

Its new CEO, another hard-line technocrat called Graça Foster, is a friend and former colleague of Dilma’s, and she laid down the law. Petrobras had for nine years promised unrealistic production targets and failed to meet them. Now it was all about the detail, the projects – and the results.

“Here, nobody works with comfort of absolutely anything,” said Foster sternly from behind her glasses at a press conference afterwards. “Comfort is a word absolutely prohibited between us. We work with total discomfort. Here it is discomfort 365 days a year to attend the demand of all our senhores and senhoras.”

Preparing his team for their Bombonera showdown, and the second leg Wednesday July 4^th in São Paulo, and living under the expectations of 30 million rabid fans, Corinthians coach Tite knows exactly what she means.

Game is Wednesday night, 21.50, Brasília time, played in Buenos Aires and aired on Globo. Second leg Wednesday is July 4^th, at Pacaembu, 21.50. Check online to see where it might be streaming or aired in your country.

[Photo – Emerson at a training session in preparation for the game, in front of the famous Corinthians logo]

Links:
The people’s team
Who is Neymar?

The legions of fans in the outskirts of São Paulo that celebrate and suffer along with Corinthians, arguably Brazil’s toughest soccer team, are maddeningly close to clinching the South American title.

By Dom Phillips

“Hawk steals reporters cell-phone at Corinthians training,” is not a headline sports reporters tend to write. Yesterday one did. The story had everything a sports reporter needed on a slow day: soccer, a girl, an iphone, and a bird of prey – especially as Corinthians biggest organized supporters club is called the Gaviões da Fiel, the Hawks of the Faithful. And the iphone in question was a very lurid pink.

It happened as São Paulo soccer team Corinthians were training on the edge of the city. Press are allowed in to watch. A player is generally put up for a press conference afterwards. As this was the day after Corinthians had won a hard-fought 1-0 victory over rivals Santos in a crucial first-leg semi-final in the South America-wide Libertadores championships, most of Brazil’s news media was represented. I happened to be there too, working on a piece for British soccer magazine 442.

Roberta Gabardo, a reporter for the RedeTV! Network, had put her iphone down for a moment when the hawk appeared and nicked it. Immediately the press and camera crews clustered round, as the bird trotted up and down with a pink cell-phone in its beak, until somebody had the courage to grab it. The next day, it made a story on the uol news site.

At the press conference afterwards, Corinthians goalkeeper Cássio explained that the hawk is a regular visitor to training and the players give it food. I suspect its media career isn’t over yet. It’s a good example of how ravenously Brazilians will consume any news titbit about football – but also of how they like to have fun with it.

While the game is taken deadly seriously, it’s also played for laughs, particularly amongst supporters. Brazilian football banter is quick-witted, cruel, and, much like the hawk who really didn’t want to give up that enticingly-coloured iphone, unrelenting.

My favourite is a visual gag that whizzed around facebook the morning after São Paulo team Palmeiras were slaughtered 6-0 by Coritiba: a photo of a plane in the colours of low-cost airline Gol (Goal), with ‘GOL’ painted six times on on its fuselage in orange instead of the usual one, and a caption suggesting this was the Palmeiras team’s flight home.

I was at the 41^st birthday party the night of the Santos-Corinthians game, which the male host, a santista, or Santos fan, had combined with the match. His living room was evenly divided into two arquibancadas, or terraces for opposing fans, seated either side of the television.

Tension was running high, especially when Corinthians scored an early goal. When a swarm of blacks-shirted Corinthians players buzzed angrily around Santos’s star player Neymar, the santistas began to roar their indignation: “Look! How many of them are there?” A corinthiano roared back: “The Corinthians ants! The Corinthians ants!”

Corinthians, as the tradition goes, are the time do povo (the people’s team), its supporter heartlands the endless cinder block periferia, or poor suburbs, in São Paulo’s Zona Leste, or East Zone. When Brazilian military invaded the lawless Vila Cruzeiro favela in December 2010, TV Globo’s helicopter broadcast memorable images of armed bandits fleeing up a dirt track to safety in a nearby favela. Immediately a screen-grab of the instantly-recognisable swarm of bandits did the facebook rounds, with a Corinthians badge inserted and captions ‘identifying’ fleeing gang members as Corinthians players.

The club’s popularity makes it the one team in São Paulo everybody else loves to hate. Emails for that 41^st birthday party said that the amount of corinthianos attending meant there would be a search on the door. They’re just jealous.

Passionate, diehard Corinthians fans cheer and sing the loudest when Corinthians concede a goal. Their samba drums beat with the most intensity. They might be the second biggest torcida (fan-group) in Brazil with some 30 million, compared to 40 million for Rio’s Flamengo. But they’re certainly the loudest. I was witness when they proved it one Sunday in December last year, when they clinched the Brazilian championship.

That morning, one of their most famous former players, the Brazilian great Sócrates, had died. Sócrates was captain of the legendary Brazil side of 1982. At Corinthians, he had led the Democracia Corinthiana (Corinthians Democracy) movement at the club in the early 1980s which briefly put decisions in the collective hands of all and coincided with the pro-democracy movement that finally ended Brazil’s military dictatorship in 1985.

Before kick-off, players raised one clenched fist in tribute to the gesture that Sócrates and Democracia Corinthiana made famous. Banners depicting his bearded image floated over the ground during the game. After a scrappy draw with Palmeiras left Corinthians champions, the elation and intensity in the stadium was, quite simply, something I’ll never forget.

The club was formed by workers in São Paulo after a visit in 1910 by the famous London amateur football club of the same name and the Romanesque municipal stadium, Pacaembu, where they play is situated in Praça Charles Miller, a square named after the Englishman believed to have introduced soccer to Brazil. All of which made them an obvious choice for a Brit like me to follow. And I’m not the only gringo corinthiano.

Corinthians fans are passionate and diehard. They wear T-shirts in the club colours of black and white with slogans like Louco Por Ti Corinthians (crazy for you Corinthians) and Nunca Vou Te Abandonar Corinthians (I’m never going to abandon you Corinthians). The team has a reputation for creating unnecessary drama: equalising or scoring a winner in the dying seconds of the game, prolonging the agony of their supporters beyond the bearable. The fate of a corinthiano is to ‘suffer’, the fan is a ‘sufferer’. Its players regularly thump the club logo over their hearts.

It’s all about the commitment and the drama, as fans who have supported them all their lives – unlike us gringo pretenders – are wont to explain. And the jokes. The team held doggedly onto that 1-0 lead over Santos until the end of the game, and now just need to draw at Pacaembu next Wednesday in the second leg to reach the final of the Libertadores.

Corinthians have never won the trophy and they want it so bad it hurts. Everybody else wants them to fail. Whatever happens, it will be suffering and drama and jokes right down to the last minute. Who knows, maybe even the Hawk will put in an appearance.

I’m reporting from the Carnival of Recife, in Pernambuco – but more on that later.

Before I left São Paulo, I caught a striking take on the samba parade.

Former President Lula is in treatment for cancer, so he could not march this year with Gaviões da Fiel, the samba school associated with Corinthians, his favorite football team. We knew that as a result, they would pay homage to him this year.

But we didn’t expect this. The hour-long show went through his life history, the political battles that led to the creation and success of the Worker’s Party (PT), which has dominated Brazilian politics for almost a decade, and its successes and vision for the future, all to a samba beat. We got the fall of the dictatorship, migration tales, and the major policy initiatives of the 21st century.

Essentially, what we saw was a history of modern Brazilian politics told through dance, and the costumes and placards donned by half-clothed women.

Continue on to see how it went

The man was born in the arid Northeast of Brazil, in a small poor town in the state of Pernambuco. Like many others at the time, his family migrated from the Northeast, which was languishing in poverty, to the industrial Southeast – in his case, São Paulo – to find work. He became a metal worker, and rose up through the system to be a political leader in the left-leaning union system. Here we see a version of him in traditional Northeastern costume, in front of two placards with distinctly Northeastern artwork.

Yes, that is a samba dancer carrying a card that reads “general strike”. Note the hard hat. What is unfortunately missing from our photo archives is the legions of these, men and women, that made up this part of the parade. In the late 70s, during the military dictatorship, the unions were involved in a set of contentious strikes, which eventually led to Lula being imprisoned for a month. There was also a float of him in jail.

This is a re-enactment of the marches in the ‘Diretas Já‘ movement, which demanded “direct elections now” at the end of military dictatorship, in 1984. Unlike some of the other parts of this parade, virtually all of the major post-dictatorship political players, left and right, consider this a major moment of victory for democracy.

The Worker’s Party was founded in 1980, and entered the official political scene with the fall of the dictatorship. Lula went on to lose presidential elections in 1989, 1994, and 1998. Here we see a float with banners naming issues which dominated opposition, and some of the goals of his presidency which started in 2003: food, health, education, etc.

A dancer wearing a house for a head, presumably meant to represent “Minha casa, minha vida”, or “My house, My life,” one of Lula’s social programs, this one aimed at expanding housing. His most famous was “Bolsa Familia”, a cash-transfer program to the poorest that boosted his popularity massively in the Northeast. These moderate programs, combined with relatively pro-business macroeconomic policy, dominated his presidency until hand-picked successor Dilma Rousseff took over in 2011.

Some other remarkable installations were dancers dressed as the “worker card,” a movement meant to represent the formalization of the labor sector, and one dedicated to hopes and dreams in the future of Brazil. Watch the video for the whole thing.

Lula speaking in a taped recording. Bald, because of the cancer treatment.

Links:

Watch the full, hour-long video on Youtube
More pictures (Folha de S.Paulo)

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