The Black Man in Brazilian Soccer

369 Pages·2021·4.688 MB·English

by  Mario Filho

The Black Man in Brazilian Soccer
This book was sponsored by the Consortium in Latin American and Ca rib bean Studies
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University.
A book in the series Latin Amer i ca in Translation / en Traducción / em Tradução
The Black Man in Brazilian Soccer
Mario Filho
Translated by Jack A. Draper III
The University of North Carolina Press
Chapel Hill
© 2021 The University of North Carolina Press
Portuguese- language original © 2003 Herdeiros e sucessores de Mario Rodrigues
Filho and was published by MAUAD Editora Ltda. (http:// www . mauad . com . br)
All rights reserved
Set in Minion by Westchester Publishing Ser vices
Manufactured in the United States of Amer i ca
The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the
Green Press Initiative since 2003.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Rodrigues, Mário, 1908–1966, author. | Draper, Jack A., III, 1976– t ranslator.
Title: The black man in Brazilian soccer / Mario Filho ; translated by
Jack A. Draper III.
Other titles: Negro no futebol brasileiro. En glish | Latin Amer i ca in translation/
en traducción/em tradução.
Description: Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 2021. |
Series: Latin Amer i ca in translation/en traducción/em tradução |
Translation of: O negro no futebol brasileiro. 4a. ed. Rio de Janeiro :
Mauad, 2003.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020035407 | ISBN 9781469636979 (cloth ; alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781469637006 (paperback ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781469637037 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Soccer— Brazil— History—20th  century. | Soccer— Social aspects—
Brazil. | Athletes, Black— Brazil. | Discrimination in sports— Brazil— History—
20th  century. | Brazil— Race relations.
Classification: LCC GV944.B7 R6213 2021 | DDC 796.3340981— dc23
LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2020035407
Cover illustration: Sabará (Onofre Anacleto de Souza), 1953. Public domain/
Arquivo Nacional Collection, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Contents
Translator’s Note to the First En glish Edition, vii
Author’s Note to the Second Edition, xi
Author’s Note to the First Edition, xv
Chapter 1 Nostalgic Beginnings, 1
Chapter 2 The Grass Field and the Empty Lot, 48
Chapter 3 The Rebellion of the Black Man, 107
Chapter 4 The Social Ascension of the Black Man, 161
Chapter 5 The Trial of the Black Man, 213
Chapter 6 The Black Man’s Turn, 271
Acknowl edgments, 331
Notes, 333
This page intentionally left blank
Translator’s Note to the First En glish Edition
Published here for the first time in En glish, The Black Man in Brazilian Soc-
cer is an astoundingly rich pa norama of anecdotes from soccer and daily life
in Brazilian society from the early twentieth century through the 1960s. The
language of Filho’s text, the first four chapters published originally in 1947 and
the latter two in 1964, is vibrant and surprisingly modern in style, while shift-
ing between more lyrical, epic moments and lighter sections featuring Filho’s
by turns ironic and sympathetic take on the vicissitudes of the strug gle to
break down class and racial barriers in the game of soccer.
Mario Filho’s narrative can also be read as a treatise on the democ ratization
of Brazilian culture in the context of its massification. He emphasizes the im-
portance, for those who wish to understand the history of the sport (espe-
cially in the de cades of the 1920s–40s, when major class and racial integra-
tion occurred among Brazilian soccer teams), of considering the spatialized
class divides of the empty lot versus the club field for players, and general ad-
mission versus the grandstand for fans. T hese spatial dualisms paint a pic-
ture of a hierarchical society with a large divide between a power ful economic
and po liti cal elite and the g reat mass of the remainder of the population. They
also echo sociologist Gilberto Freyre’s division of Brazilian society in its early
history into the big h ouse of the master versus the slave quarters.1 Further,
they anticipate Roberto DaMatta’s more modern division of Brazilian soci-
ety into the spaces of street and h ouse and, in par tic u lar, his discussion of
carnival, in which he notes the division of samba school headquarters into a
close equivalent of the grandstands and general admission sections initially
featured by Filho here, in the context of soccer.2 The story of class and racial
integration of Brazilian soccer w ill be a story of the interaction and interpen-
etration of t hese spatial dyads si mul ta neously coded by class and race.
Gilberto Freyre himself was a g reat supporter of Mario Filho’s writings and
wrote a laudatory preface to the 1947 edition of this book. T here and elsewhere,
Freyre described the development of a Brazilian soccer style as a fusion of “Di-
onysian” impulses in Afro- Brazilian culture (ludic, irrational forms of indi-
vidual dance, movement, and improvisation) with the originally “Apollonian”
Eu ro pean sport (focused on more rational team strategy and tactics) to form
a unique national hybrid.3 Without going into a more detailed analy sis of
Freyre’s formula, what I would like to emphasize here is that this par tic u lar
dyad focuses on a distinction between the non- European ele ments of Brazil-
ian culture on the one hand, and Eu ro pean culture on the other, in order to
emphasize a kind of national synthesis or unity of Brazilian soccer identity.
The key point being that difference, with regard to Brazilian soccer and re-
lated culture and social relations, is projected externally.
However, the reader of The Black Man in Brazilian Soccer will find a fasci-
nating dialectic play out, which is more focused on internal difference within
Brazilian sports and society. This includes, first, the increasingly multiclass
and multiracial playing field, as class and color lines are overcome by poor,
working- class, and black players.4 The emphasis here is less on the produc-
tion of a Freyrean hybrid (mestiço, or mulatto) identity of the team or the na-
tion and more on the story of economic, social, and psychological strug gle
involved in the desegregation of soccer for black players over the course of
several decades— a strug gle I have analyzed in more detail elsewhere.5 Sec-
ond, Filho explores internal differences of identity and playing style even
among black Brazilians themselves, perhaps best epitomized by his contrast-
ing portrayals of two soccer g iants of the 1930s: Domingos da Guia and Leôn-
idas da Silva. Both Afro- Brazilian players— the former a defender and the
latter a striker— are discussed in tandem in chapter 4 by Filho in terms of their
differing temperaments, mindsets, and playing styles. On the one hand, Guia
is a rather phlegmatic, fastidious defender, delivering precise and intelligent
passes from the back line, all without breaking a sweat. Silva, on the other hand,
more closely matches the paradigm of the creative Brazilian dribbler and scorer,
moving to the tune of samba with an Afro- Brazilian swing or ginga, which Pelé
would only come to epitomize two de cades later (as detailed in chapter 6).
Filho’s portrayal of diff er ent players like these two emphasizes the diversity
within the community of black players itself. Departing from this emphasis on
internal difference, his larger tale of black Brazilians and how they helped
define the national soccer style, even as they strug gled against racism, com-
plicates and transcends Freyre’s more simplistic and homogenizing vision of
black players in Brazil.
In terms of the Brazilian World Cup teams, this divide between a more seri-
ous, calm, collected defender and a more creative, improvisational, emotional
attacker would inform virtually all the decisions as to which player would cap-
tain the side. More often than not, it would be the Domingos da Guia– like
player who would be selected as captain, proving that the “En glish” tempera-
ment continued to be very much respected and effective for a team leader on
the field. Just as Domingos da Guia himself was very much a Brazilian—
and Afro- Brazilian— player, despite not matching the iconic stylistic model
later perfected by Pelé, a solid defensive line would become a far less lauded
but essential part of all Brazil’s World Cup champion teams. Thus, Filho’s
viii Translator’s Note to the First En glish Edition
focus on t hese two players in the era of the 1930s, when Brazilian soccer fully
racially integrated and went professional, paints a picture of a balance be-
tween the Apollonian and the Dionysian in the Brazilian game. This balance
would prove fundamental to Brazil’s astounding success on the global stage.
Not only that, but we see in Filho’s history that black players, and to a more
limited extent black coaches, w ere contributing to all sides of the game, from
the tactical approach, to making offense and defense come together on the field,
to the individual improvisation and creativity— the “samba” on the soccer
field for which they would become most famous. Thus, it is quite prescient
when Filho writes, in chapter 4, that Leônidas and Domingos are “the symbols
of Brazilian soccer.”
In closing, a few general notes about my translation. Every translator must
make innumerable choices in a work as extensive as this. Here I will empha-
size that I have attempted to preserve as much as pos si ble Filho’s colloquial
syntax and punctuation. Filho’s free- flowing, journalistic style is one key way
in which he enables himself to quickly jump between the viewpoints of play-
ers, coaches, fans, club presidents, management, and even presidents of Bra-
zil, in addition to his own perspective and that of the larger Rio de Janeiro
and national media he was a part of, and the international media he became
familiar with when Brazilian clubs or national teams traveled abroad. Fi nally,
it should be noted that Filho peppers his text with En glish terms, reflecting
his understanding of soccer or futebol as an import of En glish football, which
Brazilians would gradually make their own. When it seems particularly rel-
evant, I have indicated with italics that a term is in En glish in the original
text, especially earlier in the narrative, in order to highlight Filho’s own em-
phasis on the greater En glish influence in the first de cades of the sport’s his-
tory in Brazil. I have not done this in every case purely as a stylistic choice, to
avoid the redundancy of repeated italicization of the same En glish words
many times throughout the book. Where Filho uses other languages besides
his native Brazilian Portuguese (such as French or Spanish), I have reproduced
the language in the original, with an En glish translation in a footnote. Fur-
thermore, for any poems, chants, or songs cited by Filho, I have done my ut-
most to reproduce the original Brazilian Portuguese rhyme schemes in the
En glish translation. Lastly, in the remainder of this book, any bracketed words
in the notes are my own, while the rest are translated from the original.
Jack A. Draper III
Columbia, Missouri, 2020
Translator’s Note to the First En glish Edition ix