Futebol

Here is my very late latest post, about FUTEBOL! But a richer story was born out of this story's photo acquisition mission, which isn't included there. Here it goes:

In order to get the photos for this post, I had to go to a game at Maracaná. Igor and I went on Sunday, and corresponding fails ensued, continuing through the next day; all hilarious.

When I woke up Sunday morning, Igor, all excited and whatnot, showed me a bunch of Flamengo jerseys he intended to get signed before going to Italy the next week and giving them as gifts to various amigos there. He pulled them all, including a fancy fabric-signing marker, out of a bag, to demonstrate the gravity of the task. It was rather amusing, yet not at all surprising.

We met later in the day, in some intense Sunday afternoon wind and rain, mind you, to embark on our respective missions: me to get the necessary photos of fanatical Flamengo fans for my story, and him to get the jerseys signed. We both were wearing Flamengo shirts of our own (he got one for me, presumably because he knew I'd never take the initiative myself), and we even painted our faces all black and red (I was a cat in honor of Courtney Parkin.)

All went well. Except for the part where São Paulo scored first, and then Flamengo only responded with one goal of their own, ending the game in a tie. But I got my photos, and we stayed relatively dry. It was fun too, and there was a section of fans with drums, which was rad. Love for drummmzz:

After the game, it was Igor's turn to try his hand at success. We wandered out and figured out from which of many Maracaná orifices the team would exit, proceed to board their big fancy bus and book it outta there. By the time they were done with whatever post-game chatting and putting on of the faces they had been up to, we were ready for action. From behind the fence surrounding the bus, Igor commanded me to put my woman voice to use and call one player, whose name I forgot immediately. He came right over, along with some short guy in ridiculous, tight, acid-wash cargo pants who works with the team, and was down to sign the shit. In a frenzy, Igor removed the goods from his backpack. With all the jerseys blank and ready to be marked up, he had only to procure the marker. But it was nowhere to be found. He searched every nook and cranny of every goddamned pocket 9 times, repeatedly proclaiming in a panic that it was there! It had to be there! But it wasn't. FAIL.

Eventually losing interest, the player gave up on him. Mr. Ridiculous-Acid-Washed-Tight-Cargo-Pants man could sense Igor's profound sadness and apparently felt for him. We were, after all, an indisputably dedicated duo, in our matching jerseys and face paint, waiting outside the gate in the rain like a couple of pathetic, starving puppies. He told Igor not to fret; he could come to Flamengo's practice the next day at the Clube de Regatas do Flamengo for the signatures. The Clube is only in Gávea, just a van through a tunnel away from São Conrado and Rocinha. He said it would be a perfect day for it - a relatively tranquil practice. Furthermore, the player whose signature he most wanted wasn't even at the game on Sunday because he was injured. Not a complete fail.

The problem was this: Igor works all day Mondays (and every weekday). And I was obviously incapable of doing it myself, because I lack the lifelong obsession with Flamengo that would make me more proficient in the mission. What a fail I'd have been myself, calling over players whose names I didn't know to sign jerseys that represented players that I didn't know. Giving up for the night, we left Maracaná, and spent the Metro ride home brainstorming a way Igor could get out of work early the following day to conquer the task that still lingered at hand. It is telling that the worst option was honestly; his boss is an avid Botafogo fan - in other words, an avid Flamengo hater! After a variety of ideas, the only that sounded plausibly functional involved "personal reasons." The glorious vagueness would just have to function.

We finally got back to Rocinha in some intense fall rain and wind, and I fled home to get warm, work on my story and fix up my photos, which would ideally have been submitted four days earlier, but I was settling on that night. After hours of failing at understanding entirely the ridiculous combination of coinciding futebol tournaments and championships that occupy fans and players of this crazy sport throughout the year, I drifted off to sleep. In the morning, I awoke to the continued need to finish everything. I set up with my view of the windy day through my wall of glass doors in my room and got to work. (Soundtrack of the morning notable: Animal Collective, Dirty Projectors, Deerhunter, El Guincho, Empire of the Sun, Fruitbats, oldschool Incubus, Andrew Bird, Ramona Falls, Basement Jaxx, The Ruby Suns, Wild Beasts, new Crystal Castles, The Kills, and some Shins. So much glory!)

Anyway, Igor got a hold of me and told me that he pulled the "I-Need-To-Leave-Early-For-Personal-Reasons" bullshit successfully, and would be rolling out at 3. And yes, I was down to accompany. It would be my only non-writing/studying/teaching for the day.

So we caught a van over to the Clube de Rigatta do Flamengo in Gávea, and when we arrived, we went to the main entrance. The middle-aged soccer moms behind the counter didn't seem too threatening - I could have taken any one of those hoes - but Mr. Big-Muscle-Shaved-Head-Security-Human in the background was rather intimidating. He was keeping watch over the devoted Flamengistas who had already paid to enter the Clube and watch the practice. But paying is for losers. We had a better way: Mr. Ridiculous-Acid-Washed-Tight-Cargo-Pants man.

But problem reeled around this corner as well. Neither Igor nor I had any credits on our phones, and were helpless in our attempts to reach this guy. In retrospect, it was hilarious to be present while Igor called cobrado (the Brazilian version of collect calling) 6 times in a row only to be ignored every time. FAIL.

Igor came up with a new plan. We exited and walked around the giant red and black painted wall surrounding the sports complex to another entrance, where kids, their parents, and athletes old enough to come without their parents flashed membership cards at two nodding middle-aged humans. The Clube de Regatas do Flamengo includes, among many a futebol field, a swimming pool and courts for volleyball, basketball and tennis. Actually, if I were in PUC’s swimming class, I’d hit up the Clube regularly. Furthermore, Igor apparently played basketball there at one point.

So his incredibly clever plan played out like this: He approached the nodding-middle-aged-gait-guarding humans and pled. He said that he had a basketball tryout or something and that he was arriving late and that the coach was waiting inside. While gait-guarding woman was busy allowing membership-holding honest folk past, gait-guarding man was not buying the BS excuse. After a little more pleading and attention from both gait-guarding humans, the two of them, with grumpy, skeptical looks on their faces, agreed to allow Igor to enter, go strait to the courts for whatever he “had to do,” and return.

Igor, making like he was in the hurry that he invented, set off striding toward the courts. When I hurriedly followed, I was held back. They apparently had told him he could go alone and that I was to wait there. Well I was feeling pretty fail for not having understood the logistics of the agreement. But I guess my “I feel incredibly inferior!” face and any other given girl’s “oh no don’t leave me here alone!” face are quite similar, and, without argument but with eye rolls, the gait-guarding-humans allowed me to accompany.

Great success! Except that the basketball courts aren’t the futebol fields. Neither are they close. Like obviously would happen to Igor, he ran into a guy he knew. He explained our fugitive status and the greater situation, and this basketball human agreed to cover for us if the gait-guarding humans were to come searching. The next obstacle was the same as the last: the only way to go anywhere from the courts was to walk strait back toward where we had just entered and turn in view of the gait-guarding humans. I reasoned that the guards were paying more attention to the entering humans from outside, rather than to what was occurring inside the red-black cinderblock-enclosed Clube. And Igor reasoned that if they said anything he could lie that the coach wanted him to wait a little while, and that he had chosen to wait in front of futebol practice.

Still, Igor took precautionary measures: by removing the sweatshirt he had been wearing upon arrival, he accomplished a two-fold blending in. First, he was no longer That Tall Guy in the Yellow. Second, by revealing the Flamengo jersey underneath, he became just another fan in the crowd. Had it been more necessary, I’d have dubbed the move “genius.” I’m dubbing it “frivolous.”

After a cautious, suspenseful walk across the Clube, we arrived at the side of the practice field. Soccer kids, their moms and miscellaneous fans speckled the sidelines. Oh yeah, and a bunch of camera crews and TV journalists. We had only to wait for practice to end. Three notable things happened while we waited:

1. Mr. Ridiculous-Acid-Washed-Tight-Cargo-Pants man, who had just ignored Igor’s repeated collect calls, appeared wearing the same goddamn tight acid-washed cargo pants he had worn to the game the day before. (Same t-shirt, too, which would be more offensive – hygiene-wise – were those ridiculous pants not so ridiculous.) He commented on the fact that we had managed to get in, chatted a bit, and bounced soon afterward. Sneaky little chap.

2. A little later in the practice, the second notable happening went down. The next day was the day that the Brazilian World Cup team would be selected. Due to Flamengo’s recent nationwide awesomeness, a few of its players were expected to be chosen. One TV network was covering the day-before-selection suspense, and was interviewing some fans at the practice. Igor got interviewed. He gave his predictions about the selection and that was that. I loved imagining his boss watching it on TV later.

(Kléberson was the only who ended up being chosen. In fact, what seems really ridiculous to me is that only three players chosen for the Brazilian team currently play for Brazilian teams. Most play for Italian, Spanish, or German teams.)

3. Igor made sure he had all the jerseys and the marker this time. I tested out the marker by drawing a fish on my hand. It turned out to be a red fish. The jerseys are black and red. FAIL. Luckily it wasn’t long before we spotted some Flamengista goober with his little brother and a black marker waiting for signatures too. We could easily trick the little bugger into hooking a brother up with some ink.

By 5:30, practice should have ended, and I should have been on my way back to Rocinha for my English class. But a bunch of players, namely Adriano and Vagner Love (for whose autographs Igor most direly yearned), continued to practice penalty kicks for another half an hour:

(Vagner Love is on the right. You can tell because he dyed his long cornrows red in honor of his team.) When they slowly began to seep off the field, they were absorbed immediately into the locker rooms. And upon seepage back out again, the TV crews intercepted them. By the time we got the chance to call them over, they had presumably had it with the attention. The only players who ended up coming over were this douchey bench-warmer bro with a gold chain, spiked hair and too much cologne, and I think the only current non-Brazilian starter on the team – a Chilean. Neither was particularly histrionically convincing when it came to fan dedication.

When Adriano and Vagner Love were leaving, we (maybe 7 fans by this point), called for them in vane. Adriano even shot a piquant tease of a glance our way before turning his back and rolling out like a cocky, pompous ass. His attitude was next to the British phrase, “caahn’t be bohhthuuhd” (‘ka:n’t bi: ‘bɒthʊərd) in the dictionary.

Quite disappointed, we finally slunk out of the club. No amount of reasoning (you still got two autographs!) would console Igor. It was as if life as he had always known it had been flipped upside down. His favorite players didn’t want to sign his shirts.

What a terribly dismal ending. Apologies. Check out this crazy Flamengista's tats though!