When on June 12th the Estadio Sao Paolo played host to the opening match of the 2014 FIFA World Cup between the tournament hosts, Brazil, and an impressive but eventually eliminated Croatia side, the game stood for far more than the mere inauguration of a tournament can lay persuasive claim to be considered the most prestigious in global sport. Rather the fixture marked the culmination of seven years of flux, controversy, and frenzied media speculation that posed very serious questions pertaining to Brazil’s suitability and capacity to host the event.
The period that followed Brazil’s awarding of the World Cup in 2007 was characterized by the emergence of allegations of corruption and bribery that inculcated many of the most prominent members of the FIFA host selection committee as well as leaders of the Brazilian host country bid. In 2012 the resulting FIFA led internal investigation forced the resignation of the man at the head of the Brazilian Football Confederation since 1989, Ricardo Teixera (citing ill-health), and a year later the FIFA Vice President, Jack Warner, a man for a long time considered as the natural heir to Sepp Blatter’s throne, was similarly made to resign his position.
The years since 2007 also saw the birth of a widespread and popularly supported protest movement in Brazil, one that opposes the World Cup. The agitation which emanates from the grass-roots of the country’s favela constituency has seen Brazil’s poorest and most socially disenfranchised citizens react against what they perceive to be gross miss-spending of public monies on stadium and transport infrastructure that will be of little use to the tax-payer subsequent to the tournament’s conclusion.
This movement reached its peak during the 2013 Confederations Cup, occupying much of the attention of the international media as it did so, and served to overshadow Brazil’s triumph on the pitch. The famous banners reading “a doctor is worth more than Neymar,” produced just subsequent the striker’s €70 million transfer from Brazilian club Santos to Barcelona in Spain, distilled with a powerful eloquence and precision the gross inequity of a sport flaunting its vast wealth during a tournament held against a backdrop of crippling poverty.
The juxtaposition was glaring and in the months leading up to the World Cup the Brazilian people appeared to be experiencing a rapid and collective loss of faith in their national football team. The averous and contempt for the working poor displayed by the administration in charge of what was for a long time the country’s most beloved public institution made the drawing of a distinction between support for the players representing Brazilon the pitch and those doing so in the hallways of the FIFA headquarters in Switzerland a very difficult task indeed.
Yet when the Brazilian national anthem was sung in the Estadio Sao Paolo the protest movement seemed a very far removed phenomenon indeed. The final verse was sung a cappella by players and fans alike, disregarding FIFA’s stipulation limiting the time that each anthem can last. More than a few present in the stands and on the pitch were moved to tears. There were no clashes between protesters and police on the streets outside the ground as there had been during the Confederations Cup; instead the whole of Brazil was gathered around television screens for the start of the biggest event in world football. The country felt united in mourning when Marcelo turned the ball into his own net after just ten minutes of play and there was a similar sense of collective joy and release as Neymar, a young-man currently in possession of a god-like status in Brazilian society, inspired their comeback.
Brazil’s triumph over Croatia established a lasting and optimistic paradigm for the subsequent course of a compelling group phase of a tournament that is already well on course to be the greatest in World Cup history. We have already seen the reigning World and European Champions, Spain, sent home along with luminaries like Italy and England. Simultaneously we have witnessed the emergence of some of the most dynamic and attacking young sides in the recent history of international football: notably Chile, Columbia, Belgium, Nigeria, and Switzerland. Old stalwarts of the international game have not disappointed either: Messi has flourished for the Argentines, Benzema has starred for France, Robben and Van Persie have spearheaded the Dutch challenge, and Ozil et al look determined to at last push this fabulous generation of German footballers over the line at the biggest tournament on earth.
Football, for all of its flaws and failures, constitutes a social force of massive emotional power. The aphorism “opiate of the masses,” however, is one all too easily thrown around in relation to the tranquilizing effect that the World Cup seems to have had on the Brazilian population in the last three weeks. Indeed, the social inequities that the massive government spend on the tournament has exposed is seen by many to have catalysed a widespread socio-political maturation among the Brazilian people. The public’s patience in waiting to express their angst in the ballot box rather than on the streets after having carried off one of the great World Cups in the competition’s history constitutes a powerful demonstration of this development.