SOCCER IS
CULTURE

Among the most devoted soccer fans are Brazilian artists. Some of Brazil's best writers, painters, composers, movie directors and playwrights have also put on their green and yellow shirts to celebrate futebol and the World Cup. 

From June to July 12 the work of painter Rubens Gerchman will be shown in the Esthétique du Football expo to be held at the Jerôme de Noirmont gallery at the upscale Avenue de Matignon in the heart of Paris. For close to 40 years now Gerchman has been fascinated by the world of kicks and goals.

For this exhibit he has drafted his own team, which includes present and past soccer idols from Brazil and overseas, names like Denílson, Romário, Ronaldinho, French Zinedine Zidane, and the old legends Beckenbauer, Cruyff, Didi, Garrincha, Pelé, Platini, Puskas, and Zico.

Paris will be holding at least two other expositions dealing with futebol and counting with Brazilian artists. One will be at Galérie Navarro, the other one at the Louvre's Carroussel from June 6 to June 30. The latter called Football Art will have besides Gerchman other renowned Brazilian painters, namely Antônio Henrique do Amaral, Siron Franco, Nélson Leirner, Roberto Magalhães, Cildo Meirelles, Glauco Rodrigues, Daniel Senise, Carlos Vergara, and Cláudio Tozzi.

On the Shelves

Although extremely popular, soccer has inspired just a handful of fictional or non-fictional books on the subject. The panorama has improved in the last few months though. Eighteen new and re-released titles dealing with futebol were at hand at the just held São Paulo's 15^th Bienal do Livro (Book Biennial). Among the titles shown there was Enciclopédia de Todas as Copas do Mundo (Encyclopedia of All World Cups) by Orlando Duarte, De Édson a Pelé - A Infância do Rei em Bauru (From Édson to Pelé - The King's Childhood in Bauru), a biography by Luiz Carlos Cordeiro of the early life of Pelé, who decades after leaving Brazilian fields is still known as the King of Futebol.

Journalist João Carlos Assumpção and Eugênio Goussinsky tell the history and stories of all the Brazilian national teams since 1914, the year of the first World Cup, in Deuses da Bola (Ball's Gods). In Viagem ao País do Futebol (Journey to Soccer Country), reporter Mário Magalhães brings to life 15 stories portraying the little-known world of soccer players struggling to survive outside the wealthy Rio-São Paulo axis.

New York-based journalist and musical producer, Nélson Motta, wrote Confissões de um Torcedor (Confessions of a Fan). It is not a book about names and scores, but more like a backstage-action diary of a soccer aficionado, who has followed the world cups since 1966 and knows the underbelly of the beast and the way sex and drugs shape the event.

O Canto dos Meus Amores (The Song of My Loved Ones) by Armando Nogueira is a collection of 101 columns about sports published by the author in the last five year at Jornal do Brasil, a newspaper from Rio de Janeiro.

The soccer motto has also inspired psychologist Suzy Fleury to write Competência Emocional - O Caminho da Vitória para Equipes de Futebol (Emotional Competence - The Winning Way for Soccer Teams).

In the fiction field there is Onze em Campo e um Banco de Primeira (Eleven on the Field and a First Rate Bench), a selection of futebol-inspired short stories signed by such literary stars as Rubem Fonseca, Hilda Hilst, Carlos Eduardo Novaes, João Ubaldo Ribeiro, and Sérgio Sant'Anna.

"Some of the tales are from the '30s and '40s, as the ones by Orígenes Lessa and Alcântara Machado, when soccer was barely starting in Brazil," says Alberto Schprejer, the owner of Relume Dumará, the publisher of the book. "Everybody reads about sports and there are several authors who write about the subject. This only can enrich our culture," he adds.

Also from Relume Dumará is Futebol é Bola na Rede (Futebol Is Ball in the Net) by diplomat Márcio Ramalho. The volume discusses and presents solutions for what the author sees as the present crisis of creativity in the Brazilian soccer.

Futebol Arte covers an even larger portion of the literary spectrum reuniting under its cover novelists, poets, composers, social scientists, and newspaper columnists. The close to 300-page work is being released by São Paulo's publishing house Empresa das Artes and presents authors such as Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Paulo Mendes Campos, Gilberto Freyre, Chico Buarque de Holanda, Roberto da Matta, and Nélson Rodrigues. TV show host Jô Soares and journalists Juca Kfouri, Sérgio Sá Leitão, Armando Nogueira, and Sérgio Noronha, put together their own soccer dream team. something most Brazilians seem to have equally done. The book also shows how intellectuals like Oswald de Andrade and Lima Barreto reacted to the introduction of soccer in Brazil.

Another work is Brasil Bom de Bola (Brazil Good With the Ball), a picture book that skips the soccer idols to concentrate on anonymous faces and lives. In a moving way it presents Brazilians' passion for soccer even in the poorest and most desolate areas. Brasil Bom de Bola will be released on June 15, five days after the start of the World Cup, at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

The work is part of the É Tempo de Brasil (It's Brazil's Time) photo-expo that will also be shown in Great Britain, Holland, Spain, and Portugal.

Photographer Ed Viggiani coordinated the work that counted with 11 photographers and 11 writers including Luís Fernando Veríssimo, Ariano Suassuna, Aldir Blanc, Rita Lee, and Marcelo Rubens Paiva, among others. Pelé wrote the preface.

On the Screens

Rare films have been made about Brazil's soccer passion. Asa Branca _ Um Sonho Brasileiro (Asa Branca — A Brazilian Dream) by Djalma Limongi Batista—a filmmaker from Amazonas state—, released in 1981, is one such exception.

Now there is Boleiros _ Era uma Vez o Futebol (Ball Players — Once Upon a Time Soccer), a film that gave the initial kick late April on a series of full-length and documentary movies on futebol. "There so much to tell about soccer, that the subject would inspire at least 50 other stories," said Ugo Georgetti, the Paulistano (from São Paulo city) who directed the film and whose critical acclaimed work uses the memories of former soccer idols chatting on a bar as the conducting thread for their funny and moving stories.

The film features some of Brazil's best-known TV and movie stars including Antônio Grassi, Flávio Migliaccio Lima Duarte, Cássio Gabus Mendes, Marisa Orth, and two former soccer players: Luís Carlos (ex-Flamengo and Botafogo) and Zé Maria, who was in the 1970 winning national team.

Another Paulistano, Antônio Carlos da Fontoura, known for Rainha Diaba (Devil Queen), has used Zico, one of the most popular soccer heroes of the past and today the technical coordinator of the seleção, to make Uma Aventura do Zico (A Zico Adventure), a story in which the former striker appears in two roles: himself and that of a dangerous clone. Zico is scheduled to have its premiere in Paris on June 12.

On another front, GNT, a Brazilian pay channel, will present a three-part documentary by directors Arthur Fontes and João Moreira Salles with soccer former idols and promising stars. And Ronaldinho, for two years in a row considered the world's best soccer player, is the subject of another documentary: Ronaldo: Manual de Vôo (Ronaldo: Flight Manual) to be shown on ESPN Brasil.

A movie about ace Romário is also on the works, but it will not be released before 1999. The Brazil-USA coproduction with a budget of 8.5 million will be directed by American John Avildsen, the 1977 Oscar winner for Rocky.

Singing the Ball

Since Pixinguinha, Brazilian musicians have contributed their talents to celebrate soccer's national team. Legendary composer Pixinguinha created "1 a 0" (1 to 0) to celebrate the first international title won by the Brazilian team, when it played against Uruguay in 1919. Lamartine Babo, another treasure of Brazilian music, has composed a series of tunes about futebol. The tradition continues. "No Fim Desses 90" (At the End of These '90s), a reference both to our time as well to the 90 minutes that a soccer game lasts, is a frevo composed by Moraes Moreira and just one of a series of tunes being rushed into the market as a contribution to futebol fever. SporTv, a pay channel, is using the song as the Cup's musical theme.

"This is my way to help the national team," said Moreira. "I would rather stay in Brazil and party here. I will be going out in a trio elétrico (wired-for-sound truck used during Carnaval in the Northeast) after every Brazilian victory. Veteran Moreira, who raised to fame in the '70s as one of Os Novos Baianos, is not new at this game. In the 1982 Cup in Spain he composed "Sangue, Suingue e Cintura" (Blood, Swing, and Waist) and repeated the dose in partnership with Pepeu Gomes for the Italy Cup in 1990.

Three CDs with funk, rap, and rock tunes are also being released. Agita Brasil (Stir Up, Brazil) from Sony, with an initial pressing of 500,000 copies is one of them. It brings Ara Ketu ("Agita Brasil"—Stir Up, Brazil). Gabriel O Pensador ("Brazuca"), J-Quest ("Pra Frente Brasil"—Forward, Brazil), Jorge Ben Jor ("Fio Maravilha"—Amazing Fio, an old classic), Mestre Ambrósio ("1 a 1"— 1 to 1), Planet Hemp ("Camisa 10 da Seleção"—National Team's Number 10 Shirt), and the band Skank ("It's a Soccer's Match", in English). Getting into step ska band Los Djangos (former Kamundjangos) is releasing its first CD whose entrée is called "O Futebol".

Warner is betting that nostalgia will sell and prepared the album Paixão Brasileira with traditional favorite tunes sung by bands like Katinguelê, Molejo, and Sem Compromisso. The CD comes with 13 tracks. "This is on purpose," says Warner's marketing manager, Marcelo Maia. "Thirteen is the lucky number for master Zagallo (the Brazilian coach)." The initial release is 250,000 copies, but WEA expects to sell as many as one million CDs if Brazil wins the Cup.

BMG is launching Rumo ao Penta (Fifth-Time-Bound). The album contains new tunes by Chiclete com Banana, Carrapicho, Neguinho da Beija-Flor, Ricardo Chaves and two older tunes: "Voa Canarinho, Voa" (Fly, Little Canary Fly)—a reference to the yellow shirt of the national squad— and Elba Ramalho's jingle for Rider.

French Sony is going the extra mile, using the Cup to promote its singer, Baiana (from Bahia) Daniela Mercury. A special musical clip shows the crooner in Arembepe (Greater Salvador, state of Bahia), a hippie village by the beach, and in the streets of Pelourinho, historic center of Bahia's capital. Mercury appears dancing and singing "Rapunzel", a track from Feijão com Arroz (Beans and Rice), her latest CD. The one-million-dollar campaign will guarantee that the Baiana crooner is seen in France every time Brazil plays.

The close-to-four-minutes clip will be shown at France 2, the channel with the exclusive rights to transmit the Cup matches in France. "We are betting in Daniela as France's next summer artist," said Sony's Raoul Castaing, the man in charge of promoting Latin artists in France.

Other Brazilian musicians will also be invading France. They will be taking part in official and less formal shows across French land. Among them É o Tchan, Skank, Paralamas, Banda Eva, Tribo de Jah, Fernanda Abreu, and Gilberto Gil.