Soccer in Sun and Shadow

God and the Devil in Rio de Janeiro

One very rainy night while the year 1937 was dying, an enemy fan buried a toad in Vasco da Gama’s playing field and called down a curse: “Vasco won’t win a championship for the next twelve years! They won’t, if there is a God in heaven!” He was a fan of a humble team that Vasco da Gama had beaten 12–0; Arubinha was his name.

For years, fans and players alike searched for that toad on and around the field. They never found it. The playing field was so pockmarked, it looked like a moonscape. Vasco da Gama hired the best players in Brazil, put together sides that were veritable powerhouses, but they kept on losing.

At last in 1945, the team won the Rio trophy and broke the curse. They had not been champions since 1934. Eleven years of drought. “God gave us a little discount,” the club president commented.

Much later, in 1953, the team with problems was Flamengo, the most popular club not only in Rio de Janeiro but in all Brazil, the only one that is the home team wherever it plays. Their fans, who are the most numerous and fervent in the world, were dying of hunger. Then a Catholic priest, one Father Goes, offered a guarantee of victory as long as the players attended his mass before each match and said the rosary kneeling before the altar.

Flamengo won the championship three years in a row. Their rivals protested to Cardinal Jaime Câmara: Flamengo was using outlawed weapons. Father Goes defended himself claiming all he did was show them the way of the Lord. The players continued saying their rosaries of black and red beads, colors that are not only Flamengo’s but also those of an African deity who incarnates Jesus and Satan at the same time. The fourth year Flamengo lost the championship. The players stopped going to mass and never said the rosary again. Father Goes asked the Pope in Rome for help, but he never answered.

Father Romualdo, on the other hand, obtained the Pope’s permission to become a partner in Fluminense. The priest attended every practice session. The players did not like it one bit. Twelve years had passed since Fluminense had last won the Rio trophy, and it was bad luck to have that big black bird standing at the edge of the field. The players shouted insults at him, unaware that Father Romualdo had been deaf since birth.

One fine day, Fluminense started to win. They won one championship, then another and another. Now the players would only practice in the shadow of Father Romualdo. After every goal they kissed his cassock. On weekends the priest watched the matches from the box of honor and babbled who knows what against the referee and the opposing players.