BEAUTIFUL CHAOS: The Socceroos and the 2014 World Cup Read online

  ‘In the end it comes down to who they believe. It may seem ridiculous they believe one person as opposed to what the thousands or millions are saying. That’s why it’s really important when I do speak to them that I have real conviction. I wasn’t telling a story, I believed it. If I didn’t believe it I wouldn’t have said it. When it comes down to it that’s what the core of it is. Players aren’t stupid, having lived in dressing rooms all my life, one thing about sportsmen is they’ve got pretty good bullshit detectors. If a coach changes his tune quickly, they’ll pick up on it straightaway and you’ve lost them.’

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  Ange Postecoglou explains himself in Vitória (photo courtesy Kevin Airs).

  The squad arrived in Brazil feeling bullet proof. Literally. A full-scale military operation greeted them in Vitória, an hour north of Rio de Janeiro, their base for the World Cup. As the first team to arrive, their faces made every news service in Brazil and around the world as they were whisked along blocked-off streets to their accommodation, a five-star resort perched on a secluded hill. Postecoglou and his players were now cut off from the outside world.

  House opposite the Socceroos’ training base in Vitória.

  Back in Australia, Mark Schwarzer couldn’t work out why Lucas Neill wasn’t at that hotel preparing for a third World Cup. ‘I know people are talking about change and wanting change, but I think you can change things too quickly,’ he said. Australia knew how it would play and who it would play, but they lacked clear definition about where it would lead. There were just a lot of people with a fair idea. Of his misgivings, Schwarzer added, ‘Only time will tell.’

  That time was almost up.

  2.

  BEAUTIFUL CHAOS

  The weeks leading up to any major sporting event are typically full of trepidation and negativity. Brazil 2014 is something else. A football festival that strikes directly to the heartbeat of 200 million is almost underway, but idle time is pessimism’s best friend. Something must be wrong before it can be all right. The 32 teams have arrived, safe behind heads-of-state-like security in five-star comfort, only venturing out for training, to have every stretch, touch, shot and tackle at analysed. Beyond the parameters of the pitch there is blaring white noise and unusual dark clouds …

  The spectacular Ipanema Beach, Rio.

  The heat. It will be too hot! Games are to be held in Cuiabá and Manaus, both on the edge of the jungle, and in the far northern outposts of Fortaleza, Natal and Recife, in sapping heat and humidity. Are you crazy?

  The stadia. They won’t be ready! Part of the $11 billion spent on the tournament was thrown at renovating or creating stadia. Eight people died as they were haphazardly constructed.

  The transport. We’ll all be stuck in traffic and in airports! When Brazil won the rights to host the World Cup back in 2007, it had a booming economy. Since then, it has slowed, now unsure of itself, and large public works projects are in doubt. The infrastructure has always been a decade or two behind the times, so surely the country won’t cope with the millions who’ll be traipsing back and forth.

  How on earth is this World Cup going to happen? Why on earth is this World Cup happening here? And look, the circus is in town too. FIFA Congress, or, as football’s governing body calls its bi-annual gathering, ‘football’s parliament’, meets in the days leading up to the start of the tournament. A junket? Possibly, though important business is conducted in a plush São Paulo hotel, as football’s bosses sort out the direction the sport is heading. If only they could sort themselves out. June 9, the day before Congress sits and three days before the opening match between Brazil and Croatia, is the deadline for an investigation into how big a mess FIFA really is. How it became so large not even the best political animal in all of world sport, FIFA President Sepp Blatter, could control it.

  In 2010 22 FIFA members formed the Executive Committee (or Exco) and decided who would host the 2022 World Cup. But only after going on a voyage of fantasy in their own little fiefdoms. Bids weren’t bids. It was the world’s biggest silent auction, with secret bank accounts and uncontrollable egos the beneficiaries.

  In the end Qatar won and FIFA lost any respect it had left. Yet still, President Blatter doesn’t publicly contemplate what the 2022 investigation will find. Because of how FIFA is set up, he’ll be the one to decide if anything is done about the findings. So Congress comes and goes with no mention of 2022. That is for another time and place, preferably behind closed doors. Instead, Blatter serves to distract with a most bizarre statement, even by an ageing autocrat’s standards.

  ‘We shall wonder if one day our game is played on another planet. Why not? Then we will have not only a World Cup, we will have inter-planetary competitions. Why not?’

  Why not indeed. It appears he might have already been there to scout for players, or maybe solicit new nominations for the Exco. FIFA doesn’t care about Brazil the nation. It cares about putting on the best show possible in this ideal setting. Ideal for those who keep on the tourist track.

  At the same time Blatter is on stage in São Paulo, back in the real world, in the town of Vitória, a normal training session offers up an insight into the contrasts and complexities that hosting a World Cup in Brazil presents. Cameroon, the Indomitable Lions, were the romantic story of the 1990 World Cup, where they made the quarter-finals. Forever after, they are no secret and in preparation for this tournament share Vitória with Australia, ahead of group matches with Mexico, Croatia and Brazil.

  As the temperature tips 30°C, typical of mid-winter, local children from the poor part of town where schools are bad and hospitals are non-existent flood into the Kleber Andrade Stadium which has been in redevelopment since before most of them were born. It’s been a construction site for 10 years, with two more to go. Maybe. The plans illustrate a shiny new white stadium with green grass and freshly-laid roads surrounding it. The reality is slabs of unfinished concrete, scaffolding above a tunnel that leads to nowhere behind one goal, and rolls of rapidly-browning turf hurriedly laid over dirt patches. And no, the roads haven’t been fixed either. Never mind, the pitch is pristine, fit for football royalty, and the grandstands have new seats where the kids wait in excited anticipation.

  The stadium in Vitória that’s taken 10 years to rebuild.

  Outside the stadium, a full military operation is underway to convey Cameroon from their hotel to the ground, a journey of some 10 kilometres. One police motorbike is followed by another 30 seconds later. Then another, before a full-blown convey hits, four police cars shielding the team bus, which is followed by an army truck full of soldiers, then two more police cars and two ambulances. Above, a military helicopter hovers.

  Cameroon arrive for a normal training session in Vitória with an abnormal-sized security force to ensure safe passage.

  The team is met at the stadium by a line of 20 army officers standing alongside six mounted police. The bus zooms in, out of sight, under the grandstand. Around US$1 billion will be spent on security for the month, and you can see why if ‘Operation Indomitable Lion’ is the norm for 32 teams going to training each day.

  The kids get to watch Cameroon kick a ball around for 60 minutes. That hour feels like the World Cup has started and the stadium that looks like it will never be brought to life sounds well and truly alive. The kids go nuts, yelling and screaming for players from a world away, many of whom they have never heard. They are lost in the moment, in spite of all that goes on around them in everyday life.

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  Five decades as a political and economic journalist in Brazil opens your eyes and George Vidor has seen it all. Pragmatic and friendly, he’s lived through a military dictatorship, hyperinflation (6800 per cent in 1990), the economic boom of the 2000s, and now a World Cup. Each era is as different as the other, in keeping with the volatile political nature of this quixotic continent. With grey hair and thin-rimmed glasses, George is well placed to explain where Brazil has been, where it is going and why the hell a football tournam
ent, with all its grandiose infrastructure and grotesque spending, can help the delicate economy of a nation that couldn’t fall any more in love with the game if it tried.

  ‘It is important for Brasil to show the country,’ he says in his wonderfully laconic accent. Rolling vowels and the occasional mixed expression are not dimmed by the inner turmoil of trying to find the right verb. ‘Nobody knows Brasil. Everyone knows about the sun, Havianas, Samba … But we have six million tourists per year. China 100 million per year. Paris 60 million a year. Buenos Aires 5.7 million … and Brasil, all of Brasil, six million – is nothing! Why? Is far away. And the language. Nobody speaks English, French or Spanish. So it is language, the distance, the cultural [differences] and no promotion. The World Cup and Olympic Games create a culture of tourism.’

  Brazil needs its doors opened, though it is an expensive way of doing it, both financially and morally, given the prevailing social problems. Throughout its history, the impulse of the boom has pushed the country forward. Sugar cane after discovery by the Portuguese in 1500; gold in the 1700s; coffee in the 1900s. All of which were powered by slavery, which was not abolished until 1888. When the world moved on from the explicate need for those exports Brazil was left with a huge workforce. By the 20th century they had migrated en masse from rural areas to the cities.

  ‘In the middle of last century, modern times, 20th century, 60 per cent of Brazilian people lived in rural areas. In the last 50 to 60 years the country changed. Now, 84 per cent of the population live in cities; urbanisation [happened] so fast.’

  When they arrived in the cities, those who couldn’t afford housing just built their own wherever they could, thus leading to the rise of favelas, pockets of desperately poor areas found in every part of every city in Brazil. There’s a perfect example in the faces of the tourists who swing by Copacabana. It’s quite a scene: a pristine beach opposite million-dollar apartments and plush hotels, bars and restaurants. But walk back four blocks and you’ll find yourself in a favela. The social divide has been there, in different forms, since 1500. But through every boom and change, there is one constant which keeps the inhabitants of Brazil where they are on the social spectrum.

  ‘It’s a problem because [from the start] they didn’t invest in education, schools,’ explains George.

  Fifty years ago, half the population was illiterate and the urbanisation of the mid-20th century put immense pressure on the education system. The middle to upper class was and always will be fine thanks to private schools, where the fees buy the best teachers and programs available. Public schools? Free, but far from easy thanks to crowded, under-resourced classrooms. And that’s for the kids who bother to show up. The rich get educated, the poor don’t, the gap between social classes grows wider and the cycle continues. George sees little change and even with government programs offering incentives to families who send children to school the timeframe for meaningful improvement is in generations, not years.

  Still, the middle to upper class ensures Brazil is not some economic backwater. Big industry is well and truly engaged, highlighted by random ‘did you knows’ such as Brazil is the world’s leading producer of jet planes; while the exportation of beef, chicken and soy beans is near world leader status too.

  George explains all of this without hysterical mannerisms. Be it slavery, the booms and busts of the past, or social change, his delivery is calm and reflective. There is only one subject which provokes meaningful emotion. The eyes widen, charismatic expressions appear from nowhere as he talks with his arms and a definitive tone.

  The topic? Football, of course. A Scot by the name of Thomas Donohue introduced the game in 1894 and the two have been in a passionate relationship ever since.

  ‘What is Brazil known for abroad? Football. Everybody is proud of Brazilian football, five World championships!’ George says.

  As explained in Alex Bellos’ brilliant work, Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life, the sport is a symbol for what the nation stands for. Every kid wants to kick a ball, every parent wants their kid to kick a ball and everyone is an expert. It reaches every part of society, exists everywhere you tread, from alleyways with barefoot kids to the futsal courts occupied at 1 am. And of course, at the beach.

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  Kayke Moreno de Andrade Rodrigues, or Kayke to everyone but passport control, is on his off-season break from being a professional footballer in Portugal. If you can call it a break. He’s into his third hour on Rio’s Ipanema Beach playing foot volley, one of the many variations of life Brazilians have invented that involve a ball. There’s beach soccer, a lung-busting test of co-ordination and strength required to churn through soft sand. There’s keepy-uppys, where groups of men, women and/or children form a circle near the shoreline, skilfully keeping the ball from touching the wet sand. And there’s foot volley, a bit like beach volleyball but without the hands. Feet, knees, chest, heads and shoulders are expertly used to try to bring the pair on the other side of the net undone. Three touches, then back over the 2-metre-high barrier. And so it continues until the ball hits the sand.

  Kayke is good at it. Superb, in fact. Supremely fit, with a six-pack of the non-beer variety that makes mere mortals feel lazy, he charges around the court, soaring like Tim Cahill time and time again to nod the ball for winners. On the adjacent court, a huge crowd gathers to watch former stars like Cristian Vieri, Juan Veron and Fabio Cannavaro, in Rio for TV work, attempt it. They all hold their own, but the crowd misses the show-reel stuff on Kayke’s court. After three hours, he finally stops. Not bad for holidays. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

  ‘My father was a football player, for me it was easy to like football,’ he says. ‘Living football, everything in my house was about football. My first gift was actually a ball.’

  That early investment paid off. After moving from Brasilia to Rio as a young child, at the age of eight he successfully trialled to join Flamengo, Brazil’s most popular club.

  ‘For me, at the start, Flamengo was like a dream. Place of Romario, Zico, I was like, oh my gosh. I was dressed in the shirt, looking at myself all the time, seriously!’

  Kayke would prove to be worthy of the famous red and black stripped uniform, scoring over 200 goals while progressing through Flamengo’s youth system.

  Rio has four main professional clubs – Botafogo, Vasco da Gama, Flamengo and Fluminense. The latter pair are fierce rivals, and the ‘Fla-Flu’ derby usually fills the famous Maracanã Stadium. In 1963 an estimated 194,000 people turned up to watch the match. They are both institutions, Fluminense’s reputation as a club for the higher parts of society enhanced by the Estádio das Laranjeiras, the country’s oldest stadium which is primarily used for training these days, but played host to the Brazilian national team’s first ever match in 1914. The stands are just plain painted concrete but character seeps through every crack, and as the team goes through its paces on a muggy morning, four diehards with flags and a drum sing of their love for their club.

  Near the main entrance is a statue of José Castilho, a former keeper who had his broken finger amputated in order to play an important match 50 years ago. The half-finger is clearly visible. Through the doors in the main grandstand, past the Honorary Members Board which has the name Dwight D. Eisenhower among Brazilian luminaries, is a vast ballroom like something out of the Titanic. Massive stained-glass windows reach to a high ceiling, complete with an elaborate chandelier. In the bowels is a museum home to all the trophies the club has collected, both in football and other pursuits as Fluminense, like most clubs in Brazil, is also a sports club. In the trophy room is Brazil’s first Olympic medal, won for shooting at the 1920 Antwerp Games by a bearded Guilherme Paranese. Among the football silverware is a trophy surely created too close to a nuclear reactor. The Taça Gardano Cup, which is 7, yeah, 7 feet high.

  Surely the biggest trophy in the world at the Fluminense museum in Rio.

  Fluminense won it in 1938 after winning more games against Flamengo over the course of three
seasons in the Rio State Championship.

  Flamengo, though, edge their great rivals for overall success. Thirty-three state championships to 31. Six national champions to four. Three Copa do Brasils to one. It’s a wonderful rivalry, one of the most famous of the hundreds that exists in every corner of a nation besotted by the game.

  Unfortunately, despite all the success and history, most clubs in Brazil rival each other in another realm – how badly they are run. Fluminense are just coming out of a period of heavy debt. Flamengo, too, have been troubled by financial issues highlighted by the short spell Ronaldinho had at the club. The curly-haired, buck-toothed wizard joined in 2011 amid scenes of great celebration. Eighteen months later, he’d leave in dispute over four months’ unpaid wages. Shamefully, the club wasn’t paying anyone. Rumours even circulated Ronaldinho himself was paying his teammates’ wages for a time, though they turned out to be false. Still, the fact something such as that had to be fact-checked, meaning it was possible, not just dismissed with laughter, illustrates the state of turmoil the club was in. That Brazil’s most supported club can run into financial strife is just another case of a total separation from logic. But the rampant mismanagement, ego and self-interest that infects Brazilian football makes sense to Kayke, the 200-goal kid from Flamengo. He’s lived it. Football is a symbol, not an export to drive an economy. It drives the motivations of a select few who can make money out of it: players and, more likely, those who own the rights of players, be it clubs or agents. The rest are just along for the ride.