Soccer in Sun and Shadow

The 1938 World Cup

Max Theiler was discovering a vaccine for yellow fever, color photography was being born, Walt Disney was launching Snow White, and Eisenstein was filming Alexander Nevsky. Nylon, invented not long before by a Harvard professor, was being turned into parachutes and ladies’ stockings.

The Argentine poets Alfonsina Storni and Leopoldo Lugones were killing themselves. Lázaro Cárdenas was nationalizing Mexico’s oil and confronting a blockade and other Western furies. Orson Welles was broadcasting a Martian invasion of the United States to frighten the gullible, while Standard Oil was demanding a real invasion of Mexico to punish the heresy of Cárdenas and put an end to his bad example.

In Italy Manifesto on Race was being written and anti-Semitic attacks were on the rise. Germany was occupying Austria; Hitler was hunting down Jews and devouring territory. The English government was ordering people to stockpile food and teaching them to defend themselves against poison gas. Franco was cornering the last bastions of the Spanish Republic and receiving the recognition of the Vatican. César Vallejo was dying in Paris, probably in the pouring rain, while Sartre was publishing Nausea. And there, in Paris, under the darkening shadows of the war to come, where Picasso’s Guernica was on display to denounce the time of infamy, the third World Cup was getting under way. In Colombes stadium, French president Albert Lebrun made the ceremonial kickoff: he aimed at the ball, but cuffed the ground.

As with the previous Cup, this was a European championship. Only two South American countries joined eleven from Europe. A team from Indonesia, still called the Dutch East Indies, came to Paris as the sole representative of the rest of the planet.

Germany’s side incorporated five players from recently annexed Austria. Thus reinforced, with swastikas on their chests and all the Nazi symbols of power at hand, the German squad came on strong, claiming invincibility, only to trip and fall to modest Switzerland. The German defeat occurred a few days before Aryan supremacy suffered another rude blow in New York, when black boxer Joe Louis pulverized German champion Max Schmeling.

Italy, on the other hand, pulled off a repeat of the previous World Cup contest. In the semifinal, the Azzurri defeated Brazil. One penalty was questionable, but Brazil protested in vain. As in ’34, all the referees were European.

Then came the final: Italy against Hungary. For Mussolini, winning was a matter of state. On the eve of the match, the Italian players received a three-word telegram from Rome, signed by the Fascist leader: “Win or die.” They did not have to die, because Italy won 4–2. The following day the victors wore military uniforms to the closing ceremony, presided over by Il Duce.

The daily La Gazzetta dello Sport exalted “the apotheosis of Fascist sports symbolized by this victory of the race.” Not long before, the official press had celebrated Italy’s defeat of Brazil with these words: “We salute the triumph of Italic intelligence over the brute force of the Negroes.”

But it was the international press that chose the best players of the tournament, among them two black men, Brazilians Leônidas and Domingos da Guia. With seven goals Leônidas was the leading scorer, followed by the Hungarian Zsengellér with six. The most beautiful goal scored by Leônidas came against Poland. Playing in a torrential storm, he lost his shoe in the mud of the penalty area and made the goal barefoot.