That’s soccer to us gringoes. The FIFA World Cup 2014 matches get under way in São Paulo on Thursday in an opening match between Brazil and Croatia. It’s a time of celebration and reverie in Brazil, whose national team won the cup five times and is gunning for a sixth. The last time World Cup soccer came to Brazil was in 1950 and the last time they won was in 2002 against the Germans. Everyone is living and breathing the “beautiful game” right now. It is larger than life. But not more important than life itself, a soccer legend reminded Brazilians this week.
The sport’s biggest legend, Pelé, said on Monday that there is “more to life than football”, something thousands of protesters in Brazil have been saying since last year. Even the police want to hear what these protesters have to say about things like better public schools, affordable public health care and government corruption. Or better yet, where they plan on causing chaos this week.
The civil police in Rio de Janeiro rounded up about four activists on Wednesday to see what they had in store for anti-FIFA marches. FIFA will be in town until July 13.
Last week, protesters managed to shut down the São Paulo metro station. The local authorities don’t want an already fairly thin subway system to be held hostage to protesters. This would make the city look unfit to host the games. What are they going to do in two more years, when the Olympics come to town. (Okay, the Olympics are in Rio. But they have LA sized metros there too. Meaning, small and borderline useless.) On Thursday, the police and Army said they will be guarding the São Paulo metro stations all day long.
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