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Sunday, Feb 12, 2012 - 00:38 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Bolbolbol

While I have yet to find an opportunity to heave my new ball about, the WP's response to their guy's waving it about has been somewhat disenchanting; they swept it under the carpet while proferring no explanation at all, which will sadly hobble them for a long time on the issue of transparency and accountability - and this may not even be the end of it.

There was a lot more noise elsewhere, as some parents kicked up a ruckus at a briefing session a top local high school held to justify the S$700 per-student cost of iPad 2s. From what I can gather, there are two main objections: the (Apple-standard) exorbitant pricetag, and the possibility that their impressionable snowflakes might, ahem, access unsuitable material on the Big Bad Internet.

Last things first, the second point is one that the parents can relax about, if only because said undesirable material has probably already been consumed by their precious innocent younglings through other sources (especially as the adults were tech-challenged enough to ask); as one of the kids helpfully pointed out elsewhere, "... the boys in (the) school watch porn on their iPhones all the time. In the classrooms."

Given that we badly need people, the lads might be praised for their initiative in preparing for their future discharging of duties for the nation, an expression of patriotism that teenaged boys have never been lacking in, it has to be said. At the very least, it should help them get it out of their system before they enter politics (sleeping on the job doesn't sound so bad now, does it?)

I suppose if the school were really serious about stamping out such abuse (at least at a higher definition than currently achievable), they could of course have the iPads' Internet functionality completely disabled, though that would kind of defeat the entire purpose and probably just result in a lot more Angry Birds being furiously whacked - and the kitties may just get into the act.


If he's good enough, he's old enough!
(And in all honesty, he got decent elevation on some kicks)


Unhappily, there is no such easy resolution for the cost, though hopefully Apple offers an educational *cough*, or at least bulk, discount. Kind of makes one wonder whether the administration had considered cheaper alternatives... maybe there are some leftover JooJoo stocks in some warehouse somewhere?

My intention to sleep at twelve yesterday (though sleeping early might not be ideal?) was foiled after I reached for Alex Bellos' Futebol - Soccer, The Brazilian Way, and ended up leafing through it till two-thirty. Recall Soccernomics, which I reviewed two years back? Futebol is more or less diagrammatically opposed to that - where Soccernomics analyzes, explains and predicts, all with a heavy dose of statistics in the background, Futebol is happy to entertain, to show, to dance and to play - which, after all, is the quintessential Brazilian Way.

At least until it comes to World Cups. Other countries might see it as an achievement to reach the final (or even participate... well, there's always Russia 2018), but not the Seleção, who see being Champions of the World as their birthright. The book mentions that this attitude has made "Brazilian footballer" have as large a cachet as "French chef" or "Tibetian monk", to the extent that when a Faroe Islands club came into some money and wanted some quality, they went Brazilian.

Brazilian flair and flamboyance has partly attributed to cultural history - black players were once persecuted if they made physical contact with whites, so they had to compensate with guile, and not some little individualism (this racism has happily gradually subsided, much credit going to the Portuguese men who favoured darker-complexioned ladies)

This has however caused some positions to be held in far greater esteem than others - forwards and wingers are beloved, less so defenders (who seldom get a nickname unless they rampage down the flanks), and by far the least, goalkeepers, a legacy of Barbosa's supposed culpability in Brazil's psyche-scarring defeat to Uruguay in 1950 (when they were yet to achieve their first World Cup trophy)

Although Barbosa might have gained some form of closure through hosting a barbeque by burning the goalposts from that fateful day, the stigma never quite disappeared, and it was nearly half a century before one of his ilk finally obtained a diminutive - which, famously in the case of Ronaldao, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Ronaldinho Gaucho, can be passed on such that a player may be known by several names during his career - a practice not unknown in other cultures.

This creativity has extended to naming in general, and two-time World Cup winning goalkeeper Gilmar got his name because his father was called Gilberto and his mother, Maria (which recalls the slightly less glorious story of Marjoe). Quite a few babies were named in his honour, and one of them quickly found out that he was as a consequence not allowed to play anywhere other than in goal. It did work out for him in the end, as he was part of the 1994 World Cup-winning side.


Not many know that then-captain Dunga's nickname means Dopey


Going by the huge part that superstition plays in Brazilian football, it might be fortunate for the current national goalie that the side is not under somebody like Botafogo's Carlito Rocha, assuming that he likes his given name; Rocha spread sugar at away grounds, had his defenders put pieces of paper with the name of the opponent they were to mark in their boots, and after his team won an important match after their lucky dog mascot peed on a player's leg before kickoff, had the dog relieve himself on the same leg before every game after that! They did win the state championship that year...

But I find it hard to dislike these practices too much; while Brazil is predominantly Roman Catholic, and they are in fact the country with the largest Catholic population, they tend to be remarkably happy-go-lucky about the whole shebang, and it is not uncommon at all to find local deities and spirits overlaid with orthodox dogma (sometimes going out of their way to create correspondances between Catholic saints and African gods), which strikes me as a refreshingly hospitable and honest worldview, especially when they acknowledge that God can only do so much - "There is a practical side too. You have to have a team. You have to have talented players."

That hasn't stopped clubs from quietly keeping macumba priests on their payrolls, who dutifully perform little everyday responsibilities such as sacrificing bulls (when animal welfare groups are looking the other way), propitiating native gods with booze and cigars (instead of merely empty words, as is distressingly the norm nowadays), and ripping up the entire pitch in search of voodoo frogs (come on, it's not like curses and counter-curses aren't part of sports elsewhere)

The fans certainly don't mind too much, especially when their side is winning (if not, some of the more passionate groups have been known to ambush the team bus and pelt it with hard objects), and they (and the players - see, for instance, Chicharito and Tim Tebow) can, and do, pray to Our Lady of Aparecida (the local black incarnation of the Virgin Mary) on one hand while bribing Exu (a Yoruba deity closely associated with the Devil) on the other, covering all bases, as it were.

Nobody seems to have been the worse off for this flexibility, other than the time when an uptight Evangelical Protestant pastor, running true to form, kicked a statue of the Lady to bits on live television "because it was a false idol" and unable to see, hear or react, because it was made of clay (duh); presumably, his good work done, he went back to preaching under a symbol made of wood, about the judgment of a terrifying, all-powerful deity - whose mum he just beat up.

Religion is strange like that sometimes.

[N.B. Sinéad once did something like that, though she targeted a man, and as it turned out, she had a very good reason]

Brazilians do have a universal angel to call their own, however, and his name is Garrincha. That means "little bird" (or more specifically, wren), but this is not wholly accurate as he was born in Pau Grande (slang for, what else, "big bird") and given that he sired at least fourteen children, and possibly as many as thirty-six, his choice of birthplace was apt.


As it happens, I'm picking up a bit of Python - it isn't that far from Perl
(Source: mangafox.com)


A magical dribbler of his time, Garrincha was perhaps the polar opposite of probably the most famous, and some say best, player of all time, Pelé. Pelé was determined, professional, ambitious and reliable, and after his thousand goals and retirement, became a businessman and a politician. In Brazil he is justly revered, and called O Rei - the King.

Garrincha was... well, Garrincha. Simple, to the degree that he was mentally unqualified to be a bus driver, carefree, such that he left his money - when he actually got paid, which his club often "forgot" to do (a tradition that sadly recurs here all too often) - strewn about his house, and completely devoid of malice or tactical discipline - the national coach was resigned to telling him to do whatever he wanted, he was nevertheless world class at at least two things: football and women.

After his eight daughters with his first wife (his possible dalliance with a goat is not mentioned in polite circles), he went on to have two with an old girlfriend, one with a Swedish chick, and then hooked up with the samba singer Elza Soares, whose own story was sad enough; Garrincha somehow never managed to put anything away, and died at 49, an alcoholic. Tragedy had not had its fill of Garrincha, and both of his known sons in Brazil died young in car accidents, which leaves the improbably-named Ulf Lindberg, the outcome of his fling in Sweden, as the only male inheritor of his bloodline.

In death, as he was off the pitch, Garrincha was unassuming; his gravestone, unadorned, lies among that of common men, and indeed is overshadowed by that of an obscure footballer neighbouring it; but thousands attended his funeral, and millions mourned his passing, for where Pelé is revered, Garrincha is adored - the Little Bird was, and is always, Alegria do Povo, the Joy of the People.

His love for the fairer things of life has certainly been upkept by his countrymen, perhaps none more so than during the Big Kickabout, an amateur tournament with a twist - not only do teams submit a football roster, they also have to bring a beauty queen, and not just as cheerleader eye-candy; the top sixteen beauty queens earn their teams an entry to a parallel tournament, and the winner of that tournament goes straight into the quarterfinals of the main event. This system is not without its complaints, especially from teams not rich enough to bankroll a pretty girl (not too much unlike real life)

It's not that Brazilian girls aren't pulling their weight either, with the ball referred to in the feminine, and a children's book even having a goalkeeper marry his faithful ball. Among actual humans, Milene Domingues managed to do keepie-uppies 55187 times without dropping the ball, which took over nine hours and catapulted her to national fame, and since she was also a pretty blonde, allowed her to become the first Mrs. Ronaldo (the one who headlined the 2002 World Cup)

Brazilian innovation in football is certainly not limited to incorporating females, though. Even given that kicking stuff must be one of the oldest pastimes known to man - one of the major villians in Chinese history rose to prominence being a cuju star (modern football arguably has its fair share of these baddies), and countless variants (such as chapteh and sepak takraw) have been spawned all over the world - they have still managed to astound with their creativity.

On the tamer side of the invention spectrum, there's button football, which is similar to Subbuteo (I once did a version utilizing paper flaps), futsal, beach soccer and footvolley, which is basically beach volleyball combined with sepak takraw (and probably worth a try someday). It then goes on to bright ideas like autoball, i.e. football with randomly-exploding cars ramming a person-sized ball, essentially a demolition derby with goals, which came about after an earlier attempt with horses failed. And if even that is too wimpy, there's always footbull - vanilla five-a-side football, only with an enraged bull thrown into the mix just for fun. Pamplona? Please...


Recognizing a good thing when they see it, the Germans have revived the game of autoball
(Source: sueddeutsche.de)


Very unfortunately, domestic football in Brazil was possibly corrupt (Pelé himself alleged as much in 1993; us, we just do the fixing) and certainly disorganized - up till 2003, the format changed every year, and generally involved a league phase with regional groupings, followed by a knockout tournament for the top finishers. Yes, this happens to be basically what the people up north do for their various sports, but as always the Brazilians had their own twists, such as using ticketing revenue to help classify teams in 1974; all this led to poor attendances, a malady not alien to our very own S-League.

But that never quite mattered, has it? Brazil remains Brazil, and the Beautiful Game remains stunning as ever...



Mr. Ham (2082/2100 seeds): 100 seeds on Tottenham (-1.5) vs. Newcastle (at 2.20)

FAKEBERT (1963.5/2100 seeds): 100 seeds on Manchester City to beat Aston Villa (at 1.55)



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February 13, 2012 - 22:22 SGT     

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