About Brazil and the World Cup

At eternity's gate, by Vincent van Gogh

This is just a short commentary written right after France won against Morocco in the quarter finals of the 2026 World Cup with a goal scored by Mbappé and another scored by Dembelé. Thankfully, France was going against Marocco, not "VARgentina." Otherwise, the VAR would find any excuse to nullify one of France's goals and give penalty kicks so that Messi could try and score. 

I'm getting old. I was 11 in 1994 when Brazil won against Italy in the penalty shootout after the game ended without anyone scoring a goal, both during regular time and extra time. It was crazy for a kid to witness that, especially in a nation that has as one of its defining features the game of football. I still remember, although less clearly, when Brazil lost in 1990 against Maradona's Argentina in a round of 16 match. Even more clearly, I remember when Brazil lost by 3 goals to Zidane's France in 1998, I was 15. And then came 2002. During the round of 8, England scored first against Brazil. Brazil tied with a goal by Rivaldo, then, in the second half, Ronaldinho scored the greatest free kick goal in World Cup history, turning the tide and securing the win.

Then came the final match against Germany. Ronaldo, who had faltered in 1998, scored two goals and the rest is history. That was the last time "the seleção" won, I was 19 years old. Since then, I've lost all of my grandparents, and I've lost my hair, too. By losing against Norway in the round of 16 during this current 2026 World Cup, Brazil has officially entered its longest drought without winning a title in the history of the tournament. It was bound to happen, of course. Uruguay has two titles. The last one was in 1950, won against Brazil, right here in the Maracanã stadium close to my house, close to where I'm typing these words. I might be mistaken, but I think the closest Uruguay has gotten to a title since then was when it got third place in the 2010 World Cup.

I had a dog from when I was 10 until I was 23. We had to euthanize him due to a painful, incurable cancer, right in the middle of the 2006 World Cup. I really didn't give a fuck about Brazil winning or losing after that. It lost against Zidane's France, again. France would end up losing to a much weaker Italy in the penalty shootout, since none of teams scored a fucking goal. Zidane headbutted Marco Materazzi and got a red card. It was a glorious mess. My relationship with the World Cup event changed after my dog died that year, it was noticeable. I didn't care about losing in 2010, and in 2014 I laughed so hard at that whole fiasco my mother got pissed with me. For the very few of you who might not know what I'm talking about, I'm referring to semifinal game where Brazil lost to Germany by 7 goals against 1. I didn't care Brazil losing to Belgium in 2018, I wasn't even awake when Brazil lost to Croatia in 2022.

I did however celebrate when Brazil won against Japan in the round of 32 a few weeks ago. My mother was so happy. So was I. But I knew it wouldn't get far. Our players aren't that great anymore. It's no use bringing the victorious Real Madrid's coach Carlo Ancelotti. He isn't a miracle worker. Also, who's to say he's the right man to coach the seleção anyway? So Haaland scored two, Neymar was a pathetic fiasco as has been his role for the past 10 years at least, and Brazil got f'd in the A on a Sunday. The rest of the team has some good players, but none of them can be said to play at the same level of Norwegian, English, Spanish, Belgian, French, Argentinian, etc, players.

Several narratives are being thrown around for why Brazil can't be said to figure among the top 15 national teams, and that's if we're being generous. One that I like is how the country is slowly going from a non-practicing Catholic nation to a neopentecostal evangelical nation. Of the 26 players that were called to play this World Cup, only 3 weren't evangelicals. Neymar get's the fame of throwing his evangelical religion around while having several children with different women every year even though he's married, but even Vinicius Jr. is evangelical.

But WHY would that matter? While I'm never going to be able to prove this, I like to think that matters because our neopentecostal evangelicalism (which has been sold to us since the 1960's from the great USA) has a very caricatured Calvinist theology, one that teaches it's faithful to lower their heads to the rich and powerful, because the rich and powerful owe their wealth and power to God's will. It doesn't matter if they're not Christians, it doesn't matter if they're corrupt and enslave and kill poor people for fun: they're winners because God wished them to be, and so they must be obeyed. If these rich and powerful fall from grace eventually, this has to be the work of God, not men.

Well, I can see that, while playing football, our "true Christian" players see white Europeans from historically protestant nations like Holland, Germany, Belgium, and Norway score goals and feel deep inside their souls that God must want them to win. So, scoring goals against these God-fearing opponents would be sacrilegious. Trying to tie or turn the game around is satanic. It was easier to do so against Japan during the round of 32, because in their minds Japan is a nation of heathens. And it was easy to so against England in 2002 because back then evangelicals were still a somewhat quiet minority in Brazil. They're still the minority, but they're not so quiet anymore. Oh, no.

All of that is bullshit, of course. It's a ridiculous joke. But it's in my head canon, now.

by Fernando Olszewski