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I’ve been to hundreds of football matches in my life but without doubt the 2006 Copa Libertadores match between Corinthians and River Plate was one of the most unforgettable.
Kia Joorabchian’s Corinthians had Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez in their ranks and were favourites to overturn a 3-2 deficit from the first leg.
Instead they went down 3-1 amid sensational scenes at the Pacaembu stadium. Several irate fans invaded the pitch to remonstrate with Corinthians players and as frustration boiled over into fury police fired stun grenades to hold back angry fans.
I was in the press box and watched open-mouthed as fans hurtled down the terraces in waves to try and get on the pitch. It was like those scenes you saw on British TV in the 1970s from Liverpool or Manchester before crash barriers went up.
There were a dozen or so police with batons hitting everything that moved as fans on the other side of the fence tried desperately to tear it down and get on the pitch (see the footage below). It was incredible.
I realized there and then just how deep Corinthian’s obsession with winning the Libertadores is. I also realized that desperation can do more harm than good.
(I try and explain the phenomenon in more detail here in my Reuters piece.)
As one Corinthians fan said to me yesterday outside the Pacaembu, Imagine you have thousands of people looking at you as you do your job just waiting for you to screw up. You’d be too scared to do anything.
Corinthians play Emelec tonight in the second leg of their last 16 Libertadores tie. The score stands at 0-0.
I fancy Corinthians to squeeze into the quarter finals with their usual struggle. But if they don’t, their fans probably won’t lose it like they did in 2006. That game, given the participation of Tevez and former Corinthians manager Daniel Passarella, was very highly charged.
But if it all goes wrong there will be a lot of unhappy campers. And I wouldn’t rule anything out.
There are a few great statistics knocking around that illustrate just how the strong real is enabling Brazilian footballers return from Europe and how that football is becoming better managed.
For example: In 2005, 804 Brazilian footballers left the country to sign for foreign clubs. In 2008 that number had risen to 1,176. It started to fall the year after and has been falling ever since. At the same time, the number of athletes coming home has risen every year since 2006, when 311 returned.
Here’s another: Corinthians are seriously offering around 40 million pounds to sign Carlos Tevez from Manchester City, one of the richest clubs in the world.
Just three or four years ago it would have been unthinkable that a Brazilian club could afford to sign a player at the height of his career like Tevez.
Of course, this could not happen with any top star. It is only possible because Tevez supposedly wants to be in South America, where he is closer to his family and where standards of professionalism are not as high as in Europe.
But it would be fantasy if Tevez wasn’t able to earn almost as much in Brazil as in England or Spain or Italy, thanks to the strength of the Brazilian real, which earlier this month reached its highest level against the dollar since 1999.
It is also because at long last serious administrators are replacing the corrupt dinosaurs who ran Brazilian league clubs as I point out in today’s Financial Times.
The new generation have put into place season ticket schemes that guarantee them income, struck new deals that in some cases have tripled their annual revenue from television, and signed significantly bigger sponsorship deals with companies that bank new signings.
Sponsors, for example, pay 75 % of what Ronaldinho Gaucho earns at Flamengo and 800,000 reais of Neymar’s 1 million-real-a-month deal with Santos.
“Of that 1 million, we pay 200,000 and the difference comes from image rights,” Alvaro de Souza, a former Citibank executive who now works for Santos, told me. “We get companies interested in using Neymar to sell their products and that goes towards paying his salary. He gets 70 percent of the contract and Santos gets 30 percent. The consumer market is bigger now and that means more brands looking for a piece of the market. Our shirt is very valuable because we have more exposure than before.”
Having said that, clubs like Santos and Flamengo are still a long way from earning the kind of money made by Manchester United or Barcelona.
Brazilian teams pay little attention to potential overseas income and are largely unknown in markets such as the US and Asia, even compared to neighbours Argentina. (Walk through the centre of any major city outside Latin America and there’s a decent chance you’ll spot someone in a Boca Juniors or River Plate jersey; there’s almost no danger of seeing a non-Brazilian wearing a Brazilian club shirt.)
The moment is also dependent on the continuing strength of the real, which many economists believe is overvalued (see this excellent Bloomberg piece). If it weakens, clubs will once again find it harder to match their European rivals.
Nevertheless, the structural changes taking place today are similar to the revolution in English football in the 1990s after Sky TV injected hundreds of millions into the game and stadiums were modernised following the Taylor report.
There is still a long way to go. But they are heading in the right direction.
Corinthians’ still to be built Itaquerão stadium will host the opening match of the 2014 World Cup.
FIFA are yet to formally make the announcement but it seems like a done deal, with SP Mayor Gilberto Kassab confirming it was imminent.
So, Itaquerão it is. (See images of the proposed stadium here.)
Questions still remain. Will it be ready in time and just what are the chances it will come in on or under its stated budget of approx. 820 million reais?
Slim, and none, if you ask me.
More details here in my Financial Times piece.
The jury is still out on whether Romário will be an MP who uses his fame for positive means or whether he’s one more celebrity politician content to rest on his laurels and pick up a fat pay check.
But O Baixinho, or “the little one,” as he is known here in Brazil, had some interesting things to say about Brazil’s World Cup preparations today.
In an interview with the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper, the former Vasco da Gama, Barcelona and PSV Eindhoven star moved way from earlier statements declaring that the 2014 tournament would be the best ever staged.
He said that while Brazil was still capable of making a decent job of hosting the competition, it will take divine intervention for Brazil to prepare a truly great Cup.
“If (Jesus) comes back to earth sometime in the next three years, then it’ll be possible,” he said.
Romário also criticised Ricardo Teixeira, the all powerful head of the Brazilian Football Confederation, and suggested the 64-year old hand over the tournament organisation to a younger man.
“It isn’t good for him, maybe even because of his age,” he said. “I’d put someone else in there, like they did with Henrique Meirelles for the Olympics.”
Romário also said he would pressure Teixeira to come before Congress and explain accusations made by the English FA that he solicited bribes in return for Brazil’s backing for the 2018 tournament.
“There’s a new allegation every day and it’s getting stranger and stranger,” he said. “If I was Ricardo Teixeira, I’d come here and respond. Even if he isn’t the one responsible for any irregularity or for the slowness in preparations, his is face of Brazil’s World Cup and he has to make himself available. If he doesn’t answer then I will not only not take my name of the list of deputies seeking a Congressional enquiry, I will work to get other deputies to put their names on it too.”
Romario’s statements comes as concern grows over the slowness of preparations, particularly at airports and at stadiums in São Paulo and Natal. The country’s airports are so bad that Pele called them “frightening.”
Meanwhile, pathetic infighting and personal vendettas led by Teixeira meant that São Paulo abandoned the idea of using the Morumbi to host the opening match and instead decided to host it at Corinthians new stadium. However, the stadium has yet to be built and costs have been estimated at over 1 billion reais.
Brazil waited a whole year before it even decided which cities would host the matches and it eventually chose more venues than is normal in a bid to curry favour with more mayors – and cynics would say earn more in kickbacks.
The former striker’s comments were made just days after the government tried to push through a law that would enable it to keep World Cup spending secret. It was widely seen as the clearest attempt so far to abrogate its past promises that it would not channel public funds into paying for games infrastructure. After a small outcry and Senate vows to veto the bill, the government withdrew it.
As a player, Romário was well known for his controversial and sometime witty statements. But he has been failry reserved since taking office as a Congressman earlier this year.
He clearly knows football – he scored close to 1000 goals in a career that spanned almost 20 years – and doors will open for him because of his standing in the game.
It’s nice to see him speaking out against Teixeira, the most Machiavellian of all Brazil’s politicos. I hope he continues to beat the drum for more transparency. I am not holding my breath.
Photo from Folha de S. Paulo
Nice to see Corinthians fans protesting the team’s new third choice shirt yesterday, a wine coloured top that has little do with the club and sells for 190 reais, or a third of the country’s minimum wage.
Angry supporters invaded the pitch during their match against Coritiba and tried to give their traditional black and white shirts to players who were wearing the wine one for the first time.
Corinthians fans are known as the most passionate in Brazil and pride themselves on their moniker, a Band of Nutters (I translate gratuitously).
I’ve always had great respect for that passion and it was great to see them reacting against the rampant commercialism that we see all over the football world. I wish more fans did the same.
The club, or rather sponsor Nike, said the new shirt was in tribute to Italian club Torino, whose players were killed in a plane crash in Turin 50 years ago this year.
Why Corinthians need to mark the 50th anniversary of something that happened to another club a continent away wasn’t clear.
Other than it gives Nike the chance to appear empathetic. And sell more shirts to the gullible.
I don’t follow any particular team in São Paulo but I have always admired Corinthians, thanks largely to their supporters.
Corinthians fans are widely viewed as the most fanatical in the country and they get behind their team through thick and thin.
I lost a bit of that respect last week and not because a few fans went berserk and destroyed players’ cars after the team was knocked out of the Libertadores at the preliminary stage to unknown Colombian side Tolima.
Instead, I wondered what it took them so long to vent their frustrations.
The fans last week focused their ire on Ronaldo. Ronaldo is slow, overweight and a shadow of the player he once was. He was woeful in last Wednesday’s 2-0 reverse.
But Ronaldo has been taking the mickey out of Corinthians for the best part of a year now and Corinthians fans said nothing. They even voted him one of the club’s all time great players last year, which was a cringe worthy exercise in sycophancy.
Ronaldo has played just 69 times for Corinthians over the last two years, and he did not play the whole 90 minutes in the vast majority of them. He appeared in just 11 of Corinthians 38 Brazilian league matches last year.
In contrast, Roberto Carlos, who has been on the club’s books a year less than Ronaldo, has played almost the same number of games and impressed with his professionalism and willingness to buckle down and play for the jersey.
Why has Ronaldo played so little? Why is he still so overweight? And why isn’t the club demanding more of him?
Corinthians President Andres Sanchez is an astute man and said “Ronaldo wasn’t signed to play football.” Indeed, Ronaldo still brings in money to the club through his sponsorship deals.
His old injuries no doubt go some way to explaining his inactivity. But his lack of professionalism and commitment is perhaps a larger reason. He’s frequently photographed in nightclubs and on beaches and his rotund photo appears more in the news because of his celebrity friends than for his goals or dribbles. Corinthians fans deserve more and Ronaldo should be ashamed at his behaviour.
Football players are human and we all make mistakes. But there’s no excuse for not dedicating yourself 100 % to the job, especially when you are being paid fortunes to do so.
With Corinthians out the Libertadores, Ronaldo has nothing to play for now. His retirement, originally scheduled for the end of the year, will likely come sooner. Corinthians fans should demand it. Better late than never.
The Brazilian Football Confederation has announced that Corinthians as yet unbuilt stadium will host the opening match of the 2014 World Cup.
(This according to the Folha de São Paulo; the CBF’s own statement is poorly worded and more circumspect.)
It’s a scandalous and risky decision for a whole number of reasons, not least of which is that no one yet knows anything about the proposed arena.
Local media quoted Corinthians President Andres Sanchez as saying the stadium will have 48,000 seats. But FIFA states that the venue for the tournament’s opening match must hold 65,000 fans.
There’s also no guarantee that the stadium in Itaquera, on São Paulo’s East Side, will be ready in time or that it will meet FIFA’s strict criteria. The area will also need to update transport links, add car parks, and areas to host sponsors.
Experts say it takes around 30 months to build a new stadium from scratch, and that’s from the moment the first diggers move in. More time is needed beforehand to complete environmental impact reports, consult residents and do all the other preparation work.
The CBF urgently needed to make a decision about which stadium São Paulo would use, having dilly-dallied for far too long. In that sense, it’s action at last.
Corinthians, too, can be relieved they are at last getting the stadium they so desperately crave.
But this decision looks like one more capricious move by Teixeira. It’s based on personal friendships (with Sanchez) and vendettas (against São Paulo Futebol Club, owners of the Morumbi).
Mano Menezes agreed to leave Corinthians today and become the new Brazil manager.
It’s a significant move more due to the events leading up to his appointment rather than because a moderately successful, well-respected and unusually well-balanced coach has taken on the biggest job in football.
Menezes was the third favourite for the job and was only appointed after Luiz Felipe Scolari ruled himself out by singing a deal to manage Palmeiras and Muricy Ramalho refused to break his contract with Fluminense and accept the job he was offered on Friday.
The key issue here is that two of Brazil’s best managers turned down Ricardo Teixeira, the head of the Brazilian Football Confederation. That would have been unthinkable just a few months ago.
One of the main reasons is that the dictatorial head of the CBF has created lots of enemies recently.
He politicised the election for president of the Group of 13, the alliance of Brazil’s top clubs that negotiates television rights for the Brazilian league championship. Teixeira pressured several top clubs, Fluminense among them, into supporting his man. They didn’t and his man lost.
Teixeira has had it in for them ever since and that backfired yesterday when Fluminense refused to let Ramalho out of his contract. Fluminense were not just upset at losing the manager who has taken them to top spot in the league, they were reportedly also angry that Teixeira never even took the time to advise the club he was talking to their coach.
(Another club that opposed his choice to run the Group of 13 was São Paulo and Teixeira got his own back by ruling their stadium out of the 2014 World Cup, a ridiculous move given that the Morumbi is the biggest stadium in the biggest city in Brazil and was the clear favourite to host the opening match.)
With Teixeira looking weak following Ramalho’s principled stance, he turned to Corinthians, a club run by Andres Sanchez, the friend and ally who was chosen by him to lead the Brazilian delegation in South Africa. Teixeira knew there was little chance Menezes would refuse the job and none at all that Sanchez wouldn’t release him from his contract.
Menezes is a good manager, having taken both Gremio and Corinthians to the Second Division title. But he has lifted only one major title, the Copa do Brasil, which he won with Corinthians last year.
But he is at least well suited to the pressure, having managed the club with the most fanatical fans in the country. Moreover, he has dealt well with the competing demands of media and sponsors. And he is very likeable, an asset after Dunga, a bad tempered and ill-mannered coach who managed to alienate almost everyone.
The question for Menezes is what guarantees he will have regarding the 2014 tournament. It’s obviously the dream of every Brazilian manager to manage the seleção at home.
But Ramalho is said to have baulked in part because he was worried he was going to be a stopgap if everything did not go perfectly.
I think he was right to be worried. As I said in this post three weeks ago, I still think that Felipão will be in charge when the World Cup kicks off in Brazil. Menezes will have to have a pristine record in the years leading up to the competition if that is not to happen.
As for Teixeira, the refusal of Felipão and Ramalho to accept the job have weakened him and for the first time since a Congressional enquiry accused him of a host of corruption charges in 2001, he looks vulnerable.
Juca Kfouri, the journalist who has long campaigned against his corrupt reign suggested this could be the first cracks in his once-impregnable empire. I’d like to think that’s right but I fear it’s too early to say.
Much will depend on whether Teixeira can bring some semblance of order and organization to the troubled planning for 2014. He needs to get things done and get things done quickly.
His fate is also linked to the on-the-field success of Menezes. If Menezes can renew the aging squad and start playing (and winning) with style, as well as avoid fights and scandal, Teixeira will look good.
Today, though, Menezes is on the way up. Teixeira, we can only hope, is on the way down.
