As surely everybody knows by now, Your Life Is An Impossibility spent last
year, perhaps the longest of his weary life, living in Goiânia, in the desolate
mid-western flatlands of Brazil. For all its many charms (cows, country and
western duos, and, um, plastic models of cows), Goiânia is not what one would
describe as a footballing hotbed. And as some may have noticed, YLIAI is quite partial to the odd bit of
football. Therein lies the rub, caralho,
as some old goat once said.
Only the sweet tedium of life in Goiânia can explain
the giddiness with which, in December last year, as soon as tickets for the unlovely
beast that is the Copa das Confederações
went on sale, YLIAI whipped out his
credit card (a copper-bottomed bargain at a mere 122% interest p.a.) and
promptly handed over the price of a couple of PatekCaliber 89s, all for the pleasure of attending three Confederações games in Belo Horizonte this
June.
Ah, what fevered nights YLIAI passed between then and now, fitfully tossing and turning,
mind racing as he imagined the treats that lay in store! Perhaps he would see
Spain, and their diminutive midfield whizzes! Perhaps he would be treated to
the homoerotic joys of those chisel-jawed Italians, not to mention the King of Bahia,
the magnificent Mario Balotelli! Perhaps he would get a glimpse of the Seleção itself, and be left wordless by
the glorious sight of Hulk´s gigantic gluteus
maximus!
Not quite. The lottery of life, or FIFA, gave YLIAI not so much the short straw as the
raised finger. Tahiti x Nigeria was a laugher in both the literal and idiomatic
sense, but once the chuckles had worn off, with only 20,000 rattling gloomily round
the Mineirão, it was hardly the stuff of which YLIAI´s dreams are made. Still, YLIAI
suspects that compared to the stultifying fare that is likely to be Mexico
x Japan today (no offense to this blog’s vast Mexican and Japanese fan base
intended), Tahiti x Nigeria will soon come to represent some kind of
footballing golden age.
But he will
never know, for he (gasp!) shall not be in attendance.
Because in the middle of the tsunami of protests currently sweeping his adopted home, it feels to YLIAI like the Copa das
Confederações has been swept away like a house made of straw. Before, the talk of the country’s bar-room bores (and YLIAI proudly counts himself among such ranks) was of Cavani’s
luxurious tresses, Pirlo’s sculpted chin, Neymar’s ragamuffin charm and faint
whiff of sexual deviancy, and absurdly expensive new football stadiums. Now it
is of Feliciano’s faint whiff of sexual deviancy, Calheiros’ sculpted chin, PEC
37’s luxurious tresses, this, and absurdly
expensive new football stadiums.
While YLIAI
has enjoyed odd moments of the Confederações,
and would even venture to say that the football on display has occasionally
been spectacular, it is clear that the rather 40 watt importance of the tournament
has been obliterated by the sound and fury in the streets outside the grounds.
And even when the stage has been grand, the protests have taken over. The
Brazil x Mexico game in Fortaleza was surely more notable for the crowd’s rousing
and prolonged signing of the national anthem, than for anything that happened
on the pitch (Neymar’s ragamuffin charm and faint whiff of sexual deviancy, and
the magnificent beast that is #JôSeleção, aside).
And there’s more. While the urban myths of just
what happens when the FIFA alien mothership touches down on the soil of the
lucky, lucky country that gets to host a World Cup are legend, not much
prepares your common or garden merry luddite football fan (such as YLIAI) for the true
claw-the-skin-from-your-face-horror of attending such games.
As previously mentioned, on Monday YLIAI attended the Tahiti x Nigeria game
in Belo Horizonte. All started normally enough – the traffic was awful and the
driver of the specially laid on “fan bus” got lost and dropped YLIAI and his fellow passengers off in
the wrong place. Which was where the fun began. As YLIAI started to walk down Avenida Antonio Carlos in the direction
of the stadium, he was prodded in the chest by a surly member of the local
municipal guard.
“You can’t walk down this pavement,” he said.
The pavement lay enticingly ahead of YLIAI,
gleaming, pristine, tantalisingly out of reach.
“Why not?” YLIAI
queried.
“You have to walk down that pavement,” the
guard said, pointing to the pavement in the middle of the avenue, flanked by
three lanes of roaring traffic on either side. This pavement had been fenced
off to form a kind of cattle run. The cattle run led onto to a flyover, which
curled up and over Antonio Carlos, then descended from a dizzying height to the
left, joining Rua Antonio Abrahão Caram, the road that leads to the Mineirão. YLIAI is no mathematician, but he
estimated that the cattle run and the flyover, from which there would be no
chance of escape until he reached the gates of the stadium itself, looked about
twice as long as simply walking down the pavement in front of him, and then
turning left.
“Can´t I just walk down here?” YLIAI asked. “It’s a lot quicker.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Just can't.”
No match for such sharp wit, a defeated YLIAI trudged forlornly down the cattle
run. And kept on trudging. And trudged some more. In total, it was about 30
minutes of trudging until the Mineirão. And YLIAI
is a fast trudger. Along the way, shops, bars and restaurants were
shuttered tight, victims of FIFA’s no-fly zone. Not that it would have mattered
– YLIAI couldn’t have escaped from
the cattle run to buy something even if he’d wanted to.
Still, the Mineirão itself looked pretty
spiffy. As did the Emirates Airline stalls (handy if YLIAI had recklessly decided “Tahiti x Nigeria be damned! Fly me to
Dubai this instant!”) and a rather alarming Budweiser bar, which looked like a
cross between Castle Grayskull and a nuclear warship, and poured forth pumpin’
euro trance as well-dressed youngsters lolled smugly outside. YLIAI considered the idea of sipping on
a chilled “Bud” with the peachy skinned young people, and perhaps even “cutting
a bit of a rug” to the pumpin´ euro trance, but then thought that perhaps there
might be a FIFA spy or two lurking nearby, who would immediately identify YLIAI as a “weird old fart” and eject
him from the premises.
For similar reasons, YLIAI thought it best to skip the rather terrifying looking
“interactive fan experiences” dotted around the ground, and which looked like
good places to lose an eye or two. Instead, he hurried through the airport
style metal detectors (“keys and cell phone in the tray please sir”) and on into
the stadium. He did not stop for a R$12 beer or a R$10 ice lolly.
Inside the ground, YLIAI was relieved to find things were much like they usually are
in Brazilian football – a big rectangle of grass, 22 players, a half empty
stadium. He also made a mental note to congratulate FIFA on their decision to
make all stadium announcements in English first, then in Portuguese. He
imagined briefly the cries of “O que
significa “Fire! Fire! Please evacuate the stadium immediately?”" from
Brazilian fans, the flames licking their boots, as their gringo neighbours
clamber over them in the race to escape. Then it was on to the game, which has
been previously discussed, if not at great length, then certainly as much as
it’s going to be.
Taking all of the above into account, then, YLIAI has decided not to sample the
pleasures of today’s fixture. This is however, unlikely to be one of history’s
great rebellions. YLIAI is no grotty-bearded
activist, no tub-thumping rabble rouser, no great leader of the people like
Guevara or Paisley. He is not against the Copa das Confederações per se, and would
would even go as far as to say that the World Cup is perhaps a symptom, rather
than a direct cause, of Brazilian society’s eternal woes. In fact, if Mexico x
Japan didn’t look like being such a turgid affair, he’d probably even go to the
game. But with these blowing outside the stadium
(YLIAI loves his German soft rock),
the idea of spending the afternoon at the FIFA World of Fun Theme Park would
seem to be a joke in very bad taste. To wit:
YLIAI (on the streets, chanting Vem Pra Rua! Vem Pra Rua!): “Great
protest, companheiro!”
Grotty-bearded political activist/student to YLIAI´s left: “Yeah! Let’s change
Brazil!”
YLIAI: “Yeah! But, um, can we do it this
evening? It’s just I´ve got to head off to the Mineirão for Mexico x Japan. But
I’ll be back later! See ya!”
Not good protesting etiquette, YLIAI imagines.
Afterword: YLIAI
has given his ticket away to a friend, who shall remain nameless. In
return, the friend will make a R$60 donation to a Belo Horizonte dog’s home. YLIAI, who likes dogs quite a bit more
than he likes football, will top up the donation to R$100 (meaning he’s taken
quite a financial bath on the whole affair, but hey ho).
Viva La Puppy Revolución!