Silvio Berlusconi, owner of Milan, forbade fans from singing the club’s anthem, the traditional chant “Milan, Milan,” because its malevolent vibrations paralyzed his players’ legs; in 1987 he commissioned a new anthem, “Milan Nei Nostri Cuori.”
Freddy Rincón, Colombia’s black giant, disappointed his many admirers at the ’94 World Cup. He played without a drop of enthusiasm. Afterward we learned that it wasn’t from a lack of desire, but an excess of fear. A prophet from Buenaventura, Rincón’s home on the Colombian coast, had foretold the results of the championship, which turned out exactly as predicted, and warned that he would break his leg if he was not very careful. “Watch out for the girl with freckles,” he said, referring to the ball, “and for the one with hepatitis, and the one covered in blood,” alluding to the yellow and red cards of the referee.
On the eve of that Cup’s final, Italian specialists in the occult declared their country would win. “Numerous evil spirits from black magic will defeat Brazil,” the Italian Magicians Association assured the press. The contrary result did not add to the prestige of the profession.
Amulets and Spells
Many players put their right foot first and cross themselves when they step onto the field. Some go directly to the empty goal and kick one in or kiss the posts. Others touch the grass and bring their fingers to their lips.
Often you see a player wearing a little medal around his neck or a magic band tied around his wrist. If his penalty kick goes awry, it’s because someone spat on the ball. If he misses an easy shot, it’s because some witch closed the enemy goal. If he loses the match, it’s because he gave away his shirt after the last victory.
Amadeo Carrizo, goalkeeper for the Argentine club River Plate, went eight matches with his net untouched thanks to the powers of a cap he wore day and night. That cap exorcised the demons of the goal. One afternoon Ángel Clemente Rojas, a player for Boca Juniors, stole it. Without his amulet, Carrizo let two goals by and River lost the match.
A leading Spanish player, Pablo Hernández Coronado, says that when Real Madrid refurbished its stadium the team went six years without winning a championship, until a fan broke the curse by burying a head of garlic in the center of the playing field. Barcelona’s celebrated forward Luis Suárez did not believe in curses, but he knew that every time he knocked over a glass of wine while eating he was going to score a few goals.
To invoke the evil spirits of defeat, fans throw salt on the enemy’s field. To scare them off, they sow their own field with fistfuls of wheat or rice. Others light candles, offer the earth cane liquor, or toss flowers into the sea. Some fans seek protection by praying to Jesus of Nazareth and the blessed souls who died by fire, drowning, or losing their way. In several places Saint George’s lances and those of his African twin Ogum have proved very effective against the dragon of the evil eye.
Thoughtful gestures are appreciated. Fans favored by the gods crawl on their knees up steep slopes, wrapped in the team flag, or they spend the rest of their days whispering the million rosaries they swore to say. When Botafogo was crowned champion in 1957, Didi left the field without going to the dressing room and, still in his uniform, fulfilled the promise he had made to his patron saint: he walked across the city of Rio de Janeiro from end to end.
But deities do not always have time to come to the aid of soccer players tormented by misfortune. The Mexican team arrived at the 1930 World Cup overwhelmed by pessimistic predictions. Just before the match against France, Mexican coach Juan Luque de Serrallonga gave the players a pep talk at his hotel in Montevideo. He assured them that the Virgin of Guadalupe was praying for them back home on Tepeyac Hill.
The coach was not apprised of the Virgin’s busy schedule. France scored four goals and Mexico finished in last place.
Erico
During the Chaco War, while the peasants of Bolivia and Paraguay were marching to the slaughter, Paraguay’s soccer players were in other countries playing to raise money for the many who fell helplessly wounded in a desert where no birds sang and people left no footprints. That’s how Arsenio Erico came to Buenos Aires, and in Buenos Aires he stayed. Argentina’s leading scorer of all time was Paraguayan. Erico scored over forty goals a season.
That magician had secret springs hidden in his body. He could jump without bending his knees, and his head always reached higher than the goalkeeper’s hands. The more relaxed his legs seemed, the more powerfully they would explode to lash out at the goal. Often Erico would whip it in with his heel. There was no deadlier backheel in the history of soccer.
When Erico wasn’t scoring goals, he was offering them on a platter to his teammates. Cátulo Castillo dedicated a tango to him:
Your pass from the heel or head is such
a marvelous feat
a thousand years won’t see a repeat.
And he did it with the elegance of a dancer. “He’s Nijinski,” commented the French writer Paul Morand, when he saw him play.
The 1938 World Cup
Max Theiler was discovering a vaccine for yellow fever, color photography was being born, Walt Disney was launching Snow White, and Eisenstein was filming Alexander Nevsky. Nylon, invented not long before by a Harvard professor, was being turned into parachutes and ladies’ stockings.
The Argentine poets Alfonsina Storni and Leopoldo Lugones were killing themselves. Lázaro Cárdenas was nationalizing Mexico’s oil and confronting a blockade and other Western furies. Orson Welles was broadcasting a Martian invasion of the United States to frighten the gullible, while Standard Oil was demanding a real invasion of Mexico to punish the heresy of Cárdenas and put an end to his bad example.
In Italy Manifesto on Race was being written and anti-Semitic attacks were on the rise. Germany was occupying Austria; Hitler was hunting down Jews and devouring territory. The English government was ordering people to stockpile food and teaching them to defend themselves against poison gas. Franco was cornering the last bastions of the Spanish Republic and receiving the recognition of the Vatican. César Vallejo was dying in Paris, probably in the pouring rain, while Sartre was publishing Nausea. And there, in Paris, under the darkening shadows of the war to come, where Picasso’s Guernica was on display to denounce the time of infamy, the third World Cup was getting under way. In Colombes stadium, French president Albert Lebrun made the ceremonial kickoff: he aimed at the ball, but cuffed the ground.
As with the previous Cup, this was a European championship. Only two South American countries joined eleven from Europe. A team from Indonesia, still called the Dutch East Indies, came to Paris as the sole representative of the rest of the planet.
Germany’s side incorporated five players from recently annexed Austria. Thus reinforced, with swastikas on their chests and all the Nazi symbols of power at hand, the German squad came on strong, claiming invincibility, only to trip and fall to modest Switzerland. The German defeat occurred a few days before Aryan supremacy suffered another rude blow in New York, when black boxer Joe Louis pulverized German champion Max Schmeling.
Italy, on the other hand, pulled off a repeat of the previous World Cup contest. In the semifinal, the Azzurri defeated Brazil. One penalty was questionable, but Brazil protested in vain. As in ’34, all the referees were European.
Then came the final: Italy against Hungary. For Mussolini, winning was a matter of state. On the eve of the match, the Italian players received a three-word telegram from Rome, signed by the Fascist leader: “Win or die.” They did not have to die, because Italy won 4–2. The following day the victors wore military uniforms to the closing ceremony, presided over by Il Duce.
The daily La Gazzetta dello Sport exalted “the apotheosis of Fascist sports symbolized by this victory of the race.” Not long before, the official press had celebrated Italy’s defeat of Brazil with these words: “We salute the triumph of Italic intelligence over the brute force of the Negroes.”
But it was the international press that chose the best players of the tournament, among
them two black men, Brazilians Leônidas and Domingos da Guia. With seven goals Leônidas was the leading scorer, followed by the Hungarian Zsengellér with six. The most beautiful goal scored by Leônidas came against Poland. Playing in a torrential storm, he lost his shoe in the mud of the penalty area and made the goal barefoot.
Goal by Meazza
It was at the 1938 World Cup. In the semifinal, Italy and Brazil were risking their necks for all or nothing.
Italian striker Piola suddenly collapsed as if he’d been shot, and with the last flutter of life in his finger he pointed at Brazilian defender Domingos da Guia. The referee believed him and blew his whistle: penalty. While the Brazilians screamed to high heaven and Piola got up and dusted himself off, Giuseppe Meazza placed the ball on the firing point.
Meazza was the dandy of the picture. A short, handsome Latin lover and an elegant artilleryman of penalties, he lifted his chin to the goalkeeper like a matador before the final charge. His feet, as soft and knowing as hands, never missed. But Walter, the Brazilian keeper, was good at blocking penalty kicks and felt confident.
Meazza began his run-up and, just when he was about to execute the kick, he dropped his shorts. The crowd was stupefied and the referee nearly swallowed his whistle. But Meazza, never pausing, grabbed his pants with one hand and sent the goalkeeper, disarmed by laughter, down to defeat.
That was the goal that put Italy in the final.
Leônidas
He had the dimensions, speed, and cunning of a mosquito. At the ’38 World Cup a journalist from Paris Match counted six legs on him and suggested black magic was responsible. I don’t know if the journalist noticed, but Leônidas’s many legs had the diabolical ability to grow several yards and fold over or tie themselves in knots.
Leônidas da Silva stepped onto the field the day Brazilian great Arthur Friedenreich, already in his forties, retired. Leônidas received the scepter from the old master. It wasn’t long before they named a brand of cigarettes and a candy bar after him. He got more fan letters than a movie star; the letters asked him for a picture, an autograph, or a government job.
Leônidas scored many goals, but never counted them. A few were made from the air, his feet twirling, upside down, back to the goal. He was skilled in the acrobatics of the chilena, which Brazilians call the “bicycle.”
Leônidas’s goals were so pretty that even the goalkeeper would get up and congratulate him.
Domingos
To the east, the Great Wall of China. To the west, Domingos da Guia.
In the entire history of soccer no fullback was more solid. Domingos was champion in four cities—Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires—and he was adored by all four. When he played, the stadiums were always jam-packed.
Fullbacks used to stick like stamps to the attacking strikers and peel off the ball as quickly as possible, wafting it to high heaven before it burned their feet. Domingos, in contrast, let his adversaries stampede vainly by while he stole the ball; then he would take all the time in the world to bring it out of the box. A man of imperturbable style, he was always whistling and looking the other way. He scorned speed. Master of suspense, lover of leisure, he would play in slow motion: the art of bringing the ball out slowly, calmly, was baptized domingada. When he finally let the ball go, he did so without ever running and without wanting to, because it saddened him to be left without her.
Domingos and She
This here ball helped me a lot. She or her sisters, right? It’s a family to whom I owe a debt of gratitude. In my time on earth, she was the key. Because without her nobody plays at all. I started out in Bangu club’s factory. Working, working, until I met my friend here. And I was very happy with her.
I’ve seen the world, traveled a lot, had many women. Women are a pleasure too, right?
From an interview by Roberto Moura
Goal by Atilio
It was 1939. Nacional from Montevideo and Boca Juniors from Buenos Aires were tied at two goals apiece and time was running out. Nacional was on the attack; Boca, in retreat, was holding them off. Then Atilio García got the ball, faced the jungle of legs, and opened up a path on the right, gobbling up the field, adversary by adversary.
Atilio was used to getting kicked. They would go after him with everything they had; his legs were a map of scars. That afternoon on the way to the goal, he was tackled hard by Angeletti and Suárez and had the pleasure of eluding them both twice. Valussi tore his shirt, grabbed him by the arm, and kicked him, and hefty Ibáñez blocked his path when he was running full tilt. But Atilio was unstoppable. The ball was part of his body and his body was a tornado, knocking over players as if they were rag dolls, until at last Atilio let the ball go with a terrifying smash that nearly burst the net.
The air smelled of gunpowder. Boca players surrounded the referee, demanding he disallow the goal because of the fouls they had committed. He paid them no heed, and the players left the field, indignant.
The Perfect Kiss Would Like to Be Unique
Quite a few Argentines swear, hand over heart, that Enrique García was the one. Known as “Bandyleg,” García played left wing for the club Racing. Just as many Uruguayans swear, fingers crossed on their lips, that it was Pedro Lago, “Muleteer,” a striker for Peñarol. It was one or the other, or perhaps both.
Half a century ago, or a little more, Lago or García scored a perfect goal, one that left his adversaries paralyzed with rage and admiration. Then he plucked the ball from the back of the net and with it under his arm he retraced his path, step by step, dragging his feet. That’s right, raising lots of dust to erase his footsteps, so that no one could copy the play.
The Machine
In the early 1940s, the Argentine club River Plate had one of the best soccer teams of all time.
“Some go in, others come out, everyone moves up, everyone falls back,” explained Carlos Peucelle, one of the parents of this brood. The players traded places in a permanent rotation, defenders attacked, attackers defended: “On the blackboard and on the field,” Peucelle liked to say, “our tactical plan is not the traditional 1–2–3–5. It’s 1–10.”
Even though everyone did everything on that River team, the forward line was the best. Muñoz, Moreno, Pedernera, Labruna, and Loustau played only eighteen matches together, but they made history and they still make for conversation. These five played by ear, whistling to each other to make their way upfield and to call to the ball, which followed like a happy dog and never lost its way.
People called that legendary team “The Machine” because of its precision plays. Dubious praise: these strikers had so much fun playing they’d forget to shoot at the goal. They had nothing in common with the mechanical coldness of a machine. Fans were fairer when they called them the “Knights of Anguish,” because those bastards made their devotees sweat bullets before allowing them the relief of a goal.
Moreno
They called him “El Charro” because he looked like a Mexican movie star, but he was from the countryside upriver of Buenos Aires.
José Manuel Moreno, the most popular player on River’s “Machine,” loved to confound his opponents. His pirate legs would strike out one way but go another, his bandit head would promise a shot at one goalpost and drive it at the other.
Whenever an opponent flattened him with a kick, Moreno would get up by himself and without complaint, and no matter how badly he was hurt he would keep on playing. He was proud, a swaggerer and a scrapper who could punch out the entire enemy stands and his own as well, since his fans, though they adored him, had the nasty habit of insulting him every time River lost.
Lover of good music and good friends, man of the Buenos Aires night, Moreno used to meet the dawn tangled in someone’s tresses or propped up on his elbows on the counter of some café.
“The tango,” he liked to say, “is the best way to train: you maintain a rhythm, then change it when you stride forward, you learn the patterns, you work on your waist and your legs.”
On Sundays at midday before each match, he would devour a big bowl of chicken stew and drain several bottles of red wine. Those in charge at River ordered him to give up his rowdy ways, unbecoming of a professional athlete. He did his best. For an entire week he slept at night and drank nothing but milk. Then he played the worst match of his life. When he went back to carousing, the club suspended him. His teammates went on strike in solidarity with this incorrigible Bohemian, and River had to play nine matches with replacements.
Let’s hear it for partying: Moreno had one of the longest careers in the history of soccer. He played for twenty years in first-division clubs in Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Uruguay, and Colombia. When he returned from Mexico in 1946, River’s fans were so anxious to see his daring thrusts and feints that they overflowed the stadium. His devotees knocked down the fences and invaded the playing field. He scored three goals and they carried him off on their shoulders. In 1952 Nacional in Montevideo made him a juicy offer, but he chose instead to play for another Uruguayan side, Defensor, a small club that could pay him little or nothing, because he had friends there. That year, Moreno stopped Defensor’s decline.
In 1961 after retiring, he became coach of Medellín in Colombia. Medellín was losing a match against Boca Juniors from Argentina, and the players could not make any headway toward the goal. So Moreno, who was then forty-five, got out of his street clothes, took the field, and scored two goals. Medellín won.
Soccer in Sun and Shadow Page 6
