Soccer in Sun and Shadow

The Sources of Misfortune

Everyone knows it is bad luck to step on a toad or on the shadow of a tree, to walk under a ladder, to sit or sleep backward, to open an umbrella indoors, to count your teeth, or break a mirror. But in soccer that barely scratches the surface.

Carlos Bilardo, coach of the Argentine team for the World Cups in 1986 and 1990, did not let his players eat chicken because it would give them bad luck. He made them eat beef, which gave them uric acid instead.

Silvio Berlusconi, owner of Milan, forbade fans from singing the club’s anthem, the traditional chant “Milan, Milan,” because its malevolent vibrations paralyzed his players’ legs; in 1987 he commissioned a new anthem, “Milan Nei Nostri Cuori.”

Freddy Rincón, Colombia’s black giant, disappointed his many admirers at the ’94 World Cup. He played without a drop of enthusiasm. Afterward we learned that it wasn’t from a lack of desire, but an excess of fear. A prophet from Buenaventura, Rincón’s home on the Colombian coast, had foretold the results of the championship, which turned out exactly as predicted, and warned that he would break his leg if he was not very careful. “Watch out for the girl with freckles,” he said, referring to the ball, “and for the one with hepatitis, and the one covered in blood,” alluding to the yellow and red cards of the referee.

On the eve of that Cup’s final, Italian specialists in the occult declared their country would win. “Numerous evil spirits from black magic will defeat Brazil,” the Italian Magicians Association assured the press. The contrary result did not add to the prestige of the profession.