How the World Cup Is Experienced in Brazil
HAVANA TIMES – I’m in the mecca of soccer, period. (This article could be summed up that way, but no, I’ll be more explicit.)
I’m a Cuban from a country with no real soccer tradition, living in the land of the green-and-yellow jersey, the five-time world champion, the national team that has been home to legends of the sport such as Pelé, Romário, Ronaldo, and Ronaldinho.
Here, soccer is taken very seriously. At any level, you can find talented players. Among my coworkers alone, I’ve met numerous who once played professionally.
That’s why it doesn’t matter if the national team isn’t at its best right now. It doesn’t matter that they haven’t won a World Cup in years. This is Brazil, and it’s on the biggest stage in the world, where every match matters.
The first match will be against Morocco on Saturday. (At the time of writing, about 24 hours remained before kickoff, and many people were already preparing for the occasion.)
I’ve been told that after 7 p.m. there won’t be anyone on the streets. Today, people were buying meat for tomorrow’s churrasco. They combine two pillars of popular culture: football and barbecue. Cachaça too.
As a Cuban, I never followed league soccer, but the World Cup is something different. Naturally, I always supported one of the teams that qualified. In Italy ’90, it was Argentina, perhaps because it was my sister’s team.
Later, I developed my own preference: Brazil. By the time the World Cup was held in the United States, I was fascinated by that country’s culture. I loved Brazilian soap operas and their actresses as well.
I followed the Seleção until the 1998 World Cup in France. Around that time, I became a fan of Real Madrid, and within that club I especially liked Figo.
Portugal, which had been absent from major tournaments throughout the 1990s, reemerged on the biggest stages during the 2000s.
It was a golden generation. Then Cristiano arrived, and I kept supporting the Portuguese team until around 2018.
After that, I completely lost interest in soccer. So today, when Brazilians ask me—more as a statement than a question, because in their minds it’s inconceivable that I might support another team, or simply not care about any of them—whether I’ll be cheering for Brazil, I just shrug and say yes, so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings.