Opening Day

6/12/14

The opening game didn’t start until 5pm, so we had all day to hang out with Fe and Filipe and meet their family. We visited them at work and drove around São José dos Campos a little bit to see their town. They have two adorable little girls, one is 5 and the other is almost 3 – both of which were enamored with Tío Nick the moment they met him, per usual. [Nick: Oh my, Isabela and Camila are so cute and so much fun. I would start making a whistling sound as kind of a warning that a tickle bomb was about to come down and then give them a quick tickle. Soon they had me running around the house tickling them; I was not 100% sure if maybe they were trying to get me to stop even though they were balls of giggles. But soon they were saying “De Novo” or “Again, again” and I would chase them some more. They proudly showed me their toy house, which was below a table covered in a cloth their grandma made to have a door and windows, and they taught me Portuguese and I taught them English and Spanish. I loved it.] The girls are awesome and we had so much fun swapping player cards and watching the game with them. The girls were so excited to watch the game – it’s been building up for them, as you can imagine: their first Copa! The oldest loves Neymar and was dressed in his uniform. The little one has short, curly blond hair and everyone calls her David Luiz for the shared trait. So when he missed a shot on goal, she turned to her mom and said “I didn’t make it.” It was the cutest f’ing thing! [Nick: Isabela was really into the game, but Camila, being too small just wanted to stuff herself with chips and candy. Then she went and sat on her Daddy’s face a blocked his view.]

Nick's excited it's game day!

Our gracious host, Filipe

Fernando modeling Nick's tshirt.

Filipe & his girls enjoying the game (that's Neymar on tv).

I have to admit, we were a little worried about Brazil in the beginning, but they clearly pulled ahead. And every time they scored, we ran to the windows and shouted and cheered with everyone else in the neighborhood as horns and fireworks went off and people cheered for their national team. A unifying happiness and communal support/belief, whatever you want to call it, that I have never experienced before and am not quite sure even exists in the U.S. It was a fun game made even better by the shared company and overwhelming spirit of Brazilian soccer.

Sadly, when we went out into the street afterwards, there were no large crowds gathered to celebrate; no decorated buildings or street corners. It was pretty subdued but, as I’ve been told, that is to be expected with the political atmosphere being what it is here right now. The anger and frustration that many middle and lower class Brazilians feel about all the money that’s been spent and rumored corruption over FIFA’s dealings down here. [Nick: Ironically the government is populist, so they never had the supporters of the upper classes, but their current actions are hurting their base.] I guess there are also rumors that Brazil might actually give up hosting the Olympics in 2016 since there have been so many protests about it – however, that’s just a rumor. But clearly tensions are high enough that it’s been rumored the Brazilian president declined to attend the closing ceremony in Rio, which is unusual for a host country. I can imagine that she doesn’t want to be booed by her own countrymen.

I was hoping that the love of the game would overcome the unrest in the most soccer-crazed country on Earth, at least once the Cup actually started; but clearly not. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all doom and gloom – we haven’t witnessed any protests or angry mobs aside from what you see on TV. It’s just a more subdued celebration than what I had expected. [Nick: I think partially this is also because of previous success. Brazil expected to beat Croatia and so it is not a big deal to have another first round win under their belt, even if it is the opening game in their country.] The day after the opening game, we did see flags on cars and draped in windows around town; so people seem to be warming up now that the Cup is underway. We’ll see how it goes as things ramp up.