Soccer in Sun and Shadow

Bombs

While war tormented the world, Rio de Janeiro’s dailies announced a London blitz on the playing field of the club Bangu. In the middle of 1943, a match was to be played against São Cristovão, and Bangu’s fans planned to send four thousand fireworks aloft, the largest bombardment in the history of soccer.

When the Bangu players took the field and the gunpowder thunder and lightning began, São Cristovão’s manager locked his players in the dressing room and stuck cotton in their ears. As long as the fireworks lasted, and they lasted a long time, the dressing room floor shook, the walls shook, and the players shook too, all of them huddled with their heads in their hands, teeth clenched, eyes screwed shut, convinced that the World War had come home. Those who weren’t epileptic must have had malaria, the way they were shaking when they stepped onto the field. The sky was black with smoke. Bangu creamed them.

A short while later, there was to be a match between the Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo teams. Once again, war clouds threatened and the dailies predicted another Pearl Harbor, a siege of Leningrad, and other cataclysms. The Paulistas knew that the loudest bang ever heard awaited them in Rio. Then the São Paulo manager had a brainwave: instead of hiding in the dressing room, his players would take the field at the same time as the Cariocas. That way instead of scaring them, the bombardment would be a greeting.

And that is what happened, only São Paulo lost anyway, 6–1.