Futebol

by Alex Bellos

  Luiz Gustavo Vieira de Castro runs the register at the Brazilian Football Confederation. When I meet him a pile of paper is stacked high on his desk. The forms are applications to inscribe new players. He picks up one arbitrarily and reads it aloud.

  'Belziran José de Sousa.

  'Bel. Zi. Ran' he repeats, dwelling on each syllable.

  'Elerubes Dias da Silva.'

  'Ele. Rubes,' he sighs.

  'Look – just one of the first seven names is normal.'

  'Belziran?' he asks, as if it was a particularly rare species of Amazonian beetle. 'Elerubes?' Luiz Gustavo's mouth curls and he shakes his head.

  'Whatever happened to José?' he implores. 'Now there's a good name.'

  Luiz Gustavo says that Brazilians' names are increasingly ornate. It saddens him. He feels it is an indication of a lack of education. Made-up names are an embarrassment – not just for the poor soul involved but for the country too. He shows me a list of about 200 professional footballers that prove his point. The roll call goes from Aderoilton and Amisterdan to Wandermilson and Wellijonh.

  Whether or not Brazil's culture of naming is the result of ignorance, it is certainly an extension of the creativity applied in other fields. If Brazil changed football it did so only by breaking orthodoxies and rewriting the rules with a playful, elastic flamboyance. The same process produced Tospericagerja.

  In 1970 the aforementioned baby was born. He incorporates the first syllable of more than half the team that won that year's World Cup: Tostao, Pelé, Rivelino, Carlos Alberto, Gerson and Jairzinho. Another 1970 child was Jules Rimet de Souza Cruz Soares, named after the World Cup trophy. Jules Rimet proved worthy of the tribute – he became a professional footballer, in the Amazonian state Roraima.

  World Cups have left a trail of onomastic devastation. In celebration of victory in 1962, a child was named Gol (Goal) Santana Silva. Perhaps Gooooool Santana Silva would have been more accurate. Whenever his mother screamed at him, passers-by must have thought: 'Who scored?' During the 1998 World Cup semi-final penalty shoot-out with Holland, a baby was named Taffarel each time he made a save. Regardless of the tot's sex. First, Bruna Taffarel de Carvalho was born in Brasilia. A few minutes later, when the keeper's defence won the match, Igor Taffarel Marques was born in Belo Horizonte.

  Zicomengo and Flamozer sound like two Texan cops from a low-budget TV show. They are, no less glamorously, two brothers who incorporate 'Flamengo' with two of its stars from the 1980s, Zico and Mozer. It was the idea of Fransisco Nego dos Santos, a night watchman who lives more than 1,000 miles from Rio. Even his daughter, Flamena, could not escape his passion. When Fransisco took his children to meet Zico, he was deeply disillusioned. He said bitterly afterwards: 'Zico treated me like I was a mental retard.'

  A conventional Brazilian way to name a child is by creating a hybrid word from the mother and father's name – as if the name is a metaphor for the physical union. Gilmar, for example, is the joining of Gilberto and Maria. Gilmar dos Santos Neves was born in 1930. Gilmar grew up to become Brazil's most successful goalkeeper, winning the 1958 and 1962 World Cups.

  Gilmar Luiz Rinaldi, born in 1959, was one of several children named in his honour. As may be expected, the young Gilmar was a hostage to his namesake. 'Whenever I played football I was always put in goal,' he says. 'No one let me play in any other position.' But Gilmar discovered he had a talent. He eventually turned professional and was called up for the national side. In 1994 he won a World Cup-winners medal as Taffarel's reserve. Name had determined nature. Gilmar had become his namesake.

  First names are especially relevant in Brazilian football since, together with nicknames, that is how footballers are generally known. Brazil and Portugal, its former colonial power, are the only countries in which this is the case – and Portugal much less so, since it is a more traditional, ceremonious society. First-name footballers are a reflection of the informality of Brazilian life. 'The Brazilian contribution to civilisation is cordiality – we gave the world the cordial man,' wrote the historian Sérgio Buarque de Holanda. You can call someone by their first name or nickname even in the most official situations. Politicians, doctors, lawyers and teachers are addressed the same way as you address a close friend. In a Brazilian record shop George Benson, George Harrison and George Michael are listed together, under G. (Brazilians are also tireless in using the suffixes '-inho' and '-ao' – meaning 'little' and 'big' – which increases the impression that the country is both excessively intimate and exaggerative. In the 1990s many Ronaldos played for the national side. The first three were easy to name: Ronaldao, Ronaldinho and Ronaldo, Big, Little and Regular-sized Ronaldo. Easy. But in 1999 another Ronaldinho turned up. What was left? Would he be nicknamed Ronaldinhozinho, Even Littler Ronaldo} No. He was first called Ronaldinho Gaucho, Little Ronaldo from Rio Grande do Sul. Then, since he was no longer so little, the original Ronaldinho graduated to Ronaldo (the first Ronaldo was no longer in the squad) and so Ronaldinho Gaucho became Ronaldinho.)

  Using first names was one of the first ways, in the early years of the last century, that Brazilians changed football's conventions. They at first imitated the English expats, whose teams were listed by surname. But it did not stick. How could you distinguish two brothers? The confusion was resolved the Brazilian way. When teams were mixed with Europeans and Brazilians, naming style determined nationality. Sidney Pullen was known as Sidney because he was a Brazilian, albeit of English descent. His team-mate Harry Welfare, born in Liverpool, was always Welfare.

  Brazilian football is an international advert for the cordiality of Brazilian life because of its players' names. Calling someone by their first name is a demonstration of intimacy – calling someone by their nickname more so. Brazil feels like a team of close friends; mates from the kickabout at the park. It fosters an affection that no other national team commands. The fan personalises his relationship with Ronaldo by virtue of using his first name, which does not happen when you call someone Beckenbauer, Cruyff, or Keegan.

  Because footballers are known by first names and because Brazilians are imaginative namers, players are a great window on national concerns. One of the most common names for footballers is Donizete. In 2000 there were three Donizetes in the Brazilian first division. It is not a traditional name. Fifty years ago there were no Donizetes. Two centuries ago, however, there was an Italian opera composer called Donizetti. A Brazilian music-lover named his sons Chopin, Mozart, Bellini, Verdi and Donizetti. The latter became a priest who, in the 1950s in São Paulo, became a famous miracle-worker. It spawned a wave of Donizetes. One estimate puts the number at more than a million people.

  American culture is a strong inspiration for babies' names, especially Hollywood. Not just film stars but the place itself. Oleiide was a strong club player in the 1990s. He tended, however, to be known by his nickname, Capitao, or Captain. Since he was often captain, this was very convenient. How long before Brazilian football does away with proper names all together?

  Alain Delon, the French actor, once said: 'It's much more exciting being a football player than being a film star. To be honest, that's really what I wanted to do.' He must be tickled by the success, if not at the spelling, of his South American namesake. For a period in 2001 Allann Delon was highest scorer in the Brazilian league. 'I might not have the actor's eyes, but I'm charismatic and always a success with the ladies,' jokes the twenty-one-year-old, a squat mulatto with thick eyebrows and matty black hair. He was very nearly called Christopher Reeves, but his mother changed her mind – swapping one misspelt film idol for another. 'Can you imagine how weird it would sound "Christopher Reeves shoots into the corner of the net",' he says. 'Allann Delon is much better.'

  The cast list of Brazilian Football: The Movie also includes Maicon, who has played for Brazil's youth side. His father paid tribute to Kirk Douglas by naming his son Maicon Douglas, after Kirk's son Michael. The man at the register office wrote it down wrong.

  Other celebrities in football boo
ts include Roberto Carlos, the veteran left back, who was so called because his mother liked the real Roberto Carlos, who is Brazil's equivalent of Frank Sinatra. The tribute turned out to be especially poignant, since the singer was run over by a train in his youth. In other words: the footballer with one of the most coveted kicks in the game was named after a man with a gammy leg.

  Roberto Carlos's music is subtly contained in another footballer: Odvan, who played for the national team in 1998. His mother was so taken by the song O Diva, The Divan, that she immortalised it on his birth certificate.

  Spelling mistakes due to transliterations are often the result of ignorance, but not always. Brazilians have a relaxed attitude to spelling. It is often used as a device to customise names, rather than as a convention to be obeyed. Less-educated parents tend to prefer the aesthetics of the letters 'w', 'k' and 'y', which are not part of the Portuguese alphabet, and also lovingly run two consonants together. Allann Delon's father could not remember how the Frenchman spelt his name so he added an T and an 'n' for good measure. Registrars are obliged to take down the name that the parent dictates. In 2000, a magazine reported that 'Stephanie' was so popular that a registrar in São Paulo listed seventeen different spellings (from Stefani to Sthephanny) and asked parents to choose by number.

  Inconsistent spelling was not one of the major grounds for Congress's football investigations. It could have been. And for a moment it seemed that it was. At the beginning of ex-national coach Wanderley Luxemburgo's testimony, Senator Geraldo Althoff asked him: 'How will you sign your name?'

  The senator looked like an exasperated headmaster berating a naughty pupil. He said: 'Will you use a W and a Y or a V and an I?'

  It was a simple question, in spite of the accusatorial tone and the humiliating circumstances of the interrogation, but Luxemburgo could not give a straight answer.

  He replied that his signature would be Wanderley and his documents would read Vanderlei. Althoff had the rankled expression of a man at the end of his tether. How could he believe a word the man said if he was in two minds as to his own identity?

  Questionable spelling, it seems, comes with the job of national coach. Luxemburgo's predecessor, Mário Zagallo, misspelt his name for almost fifty years.

  Zagallo was born Zagallo on 9 August 1931. He became the footballer Zagalo during the 1940s. Zagalo played for Flamengo, Botafogo and the national side. Zagalo won four World Cup-winners medals. Always Zagalo. Never Zagallo.

  Then one day, around 1995, the veteran was giving a talk at a São Paulo newspaper. A reporter enquired about his surname. He replied that on his birth certificate it had a double T. The following day the newspaper printed Zagallo.

  Gradually other newspapers and TV stations followed suit. Books rewrote his achievements with his 'correct' name. The desire for spelling rigour turned into a self-contradictory mess. For a while Zagallo kept on signing a newspaper column Zagalo, even though the same newspaper in other articles spelt him differently. Zagalo might have been a mistake, yet it was nevertheless his footballing identity. It was doomed to be erased from history.

  The episode is less a victory of thoroughness over inaccuracy – or of punctiliousness over common sense – than a demonstration that Brazil is a strongly oral culture. What does it matter to Luxemburgo if he is Wanderley or Vanderlei, or to Zagallo if he is has one '1' or two? Both names sound the same.

  Zagallo's name stands out in another way. He is the only Brazilian forward who has won a World Cup final to be known by his surname. So what? This explains a great deal. The coup de grace of Brazilian naming customs is that you can often identify the position of a footballer depending on how he is known. Goalkeepers tend to be known by their surnames and first names; forwards by their nicknames. Zagallo is the exception that proves the rule.

  I compiled a quick list of the Brazilian national team's all-time top scorers. Seven of the first ten are known by their nicknames. In fact, the only surname among the top twenty-five is Rivelino – but this should not really count. First, it sounds like a nickname. Secondly, Rivelino really is a nickname – his real name is Rivellino. Part of the artifice of a Brazilian goalscorer is to have a name that bluffs.

  Zagallo was not a flashy left-winger. He did not deserve a nickname. He did what was expected, nothing more.

  Likewise, Brazilian goalkeepers rarely have nicknames. Of the nine goalkeepers to have had more than twenty national caps, four are known by their surname and four by their first name. Only one is known by his nickname – Dida-and that took eighty years to come about. He won his first cap in 1995.

  Defenders also tend not to have nicknames, although the phenomenon is less extreme than for goalkeepers. 'There is always the impression that a defender who uses a nickname does not take responsibility for his actions. Who can trust a defence that has a pseudonym?' asks Luis Fernando Verissimo. 'The ideal defensive line-up should list the defenders with their surname, their parents' name, national insurance number and a telephone number for complaints.'

  If referring to someone by their nickname shows intimacy and affection, then Brazilians are fonder of their attackers than of their defenders. Which we know already. And as for goalkeepers? Their surnames reinforce the fact that they are loved less. No wonder they are tormented souls. According to a popular saying: 'The goalkeeper is such a miserable wretch that the grass doesn't even grow where he stands on the pitch.'

  The list of unhappy owners of the number one shirt predates Barbosa, who suffered for fifty years after letting in one goal. Jaguare was Brazil's best keeper in the 1920s and 1930s. He would catch the ball with one hand and then spin it on his index finger. He would dribble opponents or bounce the ball on their heads when their backs were turned. Jaguare went to Europe, where he played for Barcelona and Olympique de Marseille. But he spent all his money as soon as he earned it. One year after returning to Brazil, in 1940, he was found dead in a gutter. Castilho, who played for Fluminense between 1947 and 1964, committed suicide. Pompeia and Veludo – two other flamboyant Rio goalkeepers from the 1950s, ended up alcoholics.

  Brazilian goalkeepers have to find love from other quarters. Pompeia said: 'The goalkeeper likes the ball the most. Everyone else kicks it. Only the keeper hugs it.' This affection was reciprocated in a delightful children's book written by Jorge Amado, Brazil's most famous novelist. It tells the story of a ball who falls in love with a talentless goalkeeper. The keeper becomes unbeatable since the ball always heads for his arms, where it is kissed and then warmly held to his chest. One day, the goalkeeper has to defend a penalty which he does not want to save. So he runs away, leaving the goal wide open. But the ball chooses to follow him. They marry and live happily ever after.

  It is not only in Brazilian literature that the ball is considered a real person. Players of a certain generation – when football was less about force and more about delicacy-describe the ball as a lady to be courted. 'The ball never hit me in the shin, never betrayed me,' says Nilton Santos, who played for the national side between 1949 and 1962. 'If she was my lover, she was the lover I liked the best.' Didi, Nilton Santos's team-mate in the 1958 and 1962 World Cups, opined: 'I always treated her with care. Because if you don't, she doesn't obey you. I would dominate her and she would obey me. Sometimes she came and I said: "Hey! My little girl," . . . I treated her with as much care as I treated my wife. I had tremendous affection for her. Because she's tough. If you treat her badly she will break your leg!'

  One of the reasons why Brazilians regard a ball as a woman is semantic. In Portuguese, 'a bola' – the ball – is a feminine noun. (Unlike 'el balon' in Spanish or 'le ballon' in French, which are masculine.) Since Portuguese has no word for 'it', the ball is always described as 'her' or 'she'. In a verbal culture in which there is a tendency to give everything nicknames, it was only a small step until the ball grew human characteristics.

  If a player is scared of touching the ball, commentators say he is 'calling the ball "Your Excellency"'. If he is displaying intim
acy with the ball, he is 'calling the ball "my darling"'. I cannot imagine that eskimos have as many words for 'snow' as Brazilians do for 'bola', ball. Haroldo Maranhao, in his Football Dictionary, lists thirty-seven synonyms:

  Leather balloon, child, girl, doll, chubby one, Maricota, Leonor, pellet, Maria, round one, mate, sphere, kernel-stone, balloon, her, infidel, plum, leather, little round one, baby, pursued one, globe, wart, chestnut, leather sphere, young lady, Guiomar, Margarida, mortadela, little animal, capricious one, deceitful one, demon, tyre, bladder, number five, leather ball.

  Five are women's names. Margarida is Margaret. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase: 'Pass the Marge.'

  'In Brazil you can call the ball anything,' jokes the radio commentator Washington Rodrigues. 'Except "ball".'

  Once before a match between two small Rio teams, Washington took the personification to another extreme. He declined to interview the players. Instead, he interviewed the Margaret. How did she feel to play among two small teams when she had once played with Pelé? Didn't she feel like giving up, throwing in the towel? The interview lasted ten minutes and ended with the ball in tears.

  Radio bears a lot of the responsibility for the richness of Brazilian football talk. Radio influenced football more than any other medium. It was the vehicle that turned football into a mass sport by allowing all corners of the country to follow games. Radio was more suited to Brazil than newspapers since the country is so big and large parts of the population were illiterate. Radio grew in parallel with football-the 1950s and 1960s were both the golden age of Brazilian football and the peak of popularity of transmissions.

  Radio gave football a language of its own. Right from the earliest sports broadcasts the aim was to create as much excitement as possible rather than clinically describe what was going on. In 1942 Rebelo Junior, a commentator who started his career narrating horse-races, invented sport's most famous prolongated vowel. A player scored and he shouted 'gooooooaP.