Every four years, millions of Brazilians turn their gaze to televisions during World Cup matches. Streets and houses are decorated in green and yellow, shirt sales are in full swing, the most searched subject on digital media is the World Cup. This could be the scenario in the country exactly this Wednesday (13th), one day before the opening of the biggest sporting event on the planet. However, not even the good performance of the current team led by Tite – which qualified easily in the Qualifiers – is reflected in enthusiasm among the population. Apathy was confirmed in some opinion polls. O Datafolha published, at the beginning of June, that 53% of Brazilians claim to have no interest in the event – in 1994, when Brazil won the tetrad, this number was no more than 20%. On the streets, traders complain about poor sales of festive paraphernalia and decoration and clothing items. Corruption, truck drivers' strike and pre-candidates for the Presidency of the Republic were the most talked about topics on Twitter in the first week of June - twice as many mentions of the World Cup - according to research by Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV).
The reasons seem to go beyond the fateful “7x1” result against the German team, which knocked the Brazilian team out of the 2014 World Cup. The event, in fact, held in Brazil, involved exorbitant investments in works, several of which were overpriced, not completed or underutilized. The political and economic scenario of crisis, discouragement due to the corruption of football itself, the need for renewal of sport management and the lack of identification on the part of society with the current meaning of the green-yellow shirt are possible causes of the unprecedented apathy for the first “national passion”. ”. Three Unicamp professors, from different research areas, comment on this context and expectations for the championship, in the light of sports pedagogy, sociology and performance analysis of a team that, combining young and experienced athletes, is fully capable of “ fight” for the title.
Lack of interest reflects maturity of Brazilians
Alcides Scaglia, professor of Sports Science at the Faculty of Applied Sciences (FCA), observes that football from twenty years ago is no longer the same and this perception on the part of fans can be positive. For him, the time has come for a turning point methodological and management aspects of Brazilian football, often overlooked by the public, which expanded the audience for international championships, such as the European Champions League. “We have quality games, but we expect better management and organization, with player training not only on the field. We have an outdated model in Brazil and advancing methodologies is a priority”, he analyzes. Regarding the World Cup, “the challenge is to unite the athletes in a team spirit, in order to defeat European favorites for the title, such as France, Germany and Spain”, continues the coordinator of LEPE (Laboratory for the Study of Sports Pedagogy), expect more intense transitional games.
Regarding the political aspect, the professor comments that the jingoistic nature of the competition in the past, which could hide the country's serious problems, no longer exists. “I consider it wrong to attribute mass alienation to football. What we see today is the maturity of Brazilians in demonstrating discomfort with various issues and asking for changes”, considers Scaglia.
Commercialization changed the meaning of football in Brazil
Roberto Donato, sociologist and professor at the Common Basic Core of the Faculty of Applied Sciences (FCA), considers that football traditionally plays a role as an “equalizer of forces”, where inequalities in other fields seem minimized, when what counts with the ball in Game is skill. “We see in the field what we call a manifestation of the excluded. Passion also lies in this inversion of things, which characterizes the political dynamics of football”, considers Donato. However, the process of commercialization and million-dollar club deals have changed the direction of sport in the country in the last twenty years. Learning the freer, more playful sport on the streets gave way to more formal teaching, close to the professional training model, within football schools. “All this, combined with globalization and corrupt practices within the CBF and FIFA, distances people from sport. We reached the peak of the phenomenon in 2018, with the intensification of critical discourses about football like bread and circuses”, he analyzes.
The political-social manifestations of the last five years have accentuated the polarization between left and right and have also reverberated in the world of football. The symbolism of the yellow-green shirt, sold and used widely in other World Cups, has changed. “The use of the piece by people with a certain political stance, especially those calling for the impeachment of then president Dilma Roussef, distanced part of society from the real identity of yellow-green and its historical significance, ceasing to be an element of unity and nationalism” . The professor also remembers the transformations in the political role of the Brazilian team over time. In the 60s, it became a symbol of resistance to the dictatorship in the figure of the avowedly left-wing coach João Saldanha. He was fired three months before the 1970 World Cup and replaced by Zagallo.
Donato considers a third factor as a possible explanation for the lack of interest in the World Cup: the distance between fans and players, who have spent their careers abroad since they were teenagers, unlike in a few decades, when athletes still established themselves on Brazilian soil, like the idols Zico and Falcão. . “With rare exceptions, the players are illustrious unknowns in Brazil and vice versa, the style of play itself is more European, with aesthetic and tactical differences, further away from national identity”, comments Donato.
Inaugural whistle can change the feeling of discouragement
In the view of professor Sérgio Cunha, from the Department of Sports Sciences at the Faculty of Physical Education (FEF), apathy will give way to interest from the first game onwards, when the ball starts rolling. “Stop supporting will not improve the political situation, so let’s take the opportunity to work on issues of respect, tolerance, diversity and so many cultural aspects of the World Cup”, says the professor. Watching the World Cup games – all of them, in fact – is one of the activities planned for the teacher, who will record and analyze the matches. The proposal is to study the efficiency of dribbling and make comparisons between Brazil and Europe. “The contemporary South American game is creative, but has a more individualistic style, with less exchange of passes”, assesses the researcher.
Cunha predicts one of the most competitive World Cups in recent times, with eight favorite teams balanced and studious about their opponent's strategies. However, he is cautious about simulations of potential champions based solely on artificial intelligence. “It is necessary to combine technical, physical and tactical aspects, from a scientific perspective, with highly reliable data for this type of forecast”, warns the professor, who currently coordinates, together with professor Ricardo Torres, from the Unicamp Computing Institute, the Fapesp thematic project “The secret of playing football – Brazil vs. Holland”. Researchers from various institutions (FCA Unicamp, USP Ribeirão Preto, UEL-Londrina and Groninger University, in the Netherlands also participate) must calculate dribbling, finishing, passing, attack and defense positions, game intensity, to contribute to the adequate training of players, using high-precision radio frequency equipment - Local Position Measurement System (LPM) - for subsequent mathematical modeling.
Football and universities: rapprochement is still a challenge in Brazil
The thematic project must include a sample of 300 Brazilian club football matches. As soon as the equipment arrives in Brazil – the forecast is for the second half of this year – measurements will begin, specifically on the São Paulo team, according to Cunha, one of the few who has opened the doors to academic research. For 30 years, the professor has dedicated himself to research into player positioning, speed ranges and game systems. Research information can, for example, help minimize the risk of injury to athletes and improve performance rates, but the professor confesses that he finds it difficult to work in partnership with coaches, clubs and federations. “The results not only go to journals and conferences, but are shared on specific club platforms, which can decide strategy, analyze team and individual player behavior. However, there is a lack of initiative to bring universities closer together in Brazil”, says the professor. He recalls, within the scope of the World Cup, that “European teams, such as France and Belgium, form new generations with strong work in the youth categories in conjunction with universities, which can be a differentiator in the competition”.
Alcides Scaglia agrees with the necessary rapprochement between sport and Brazilian universities, citing two examples. One of them is the training of coaches, despite the high level of training of players. Unicamp was a pioneer, in 2013, with a specific undergraduate discipline to train coaches within the Sports Science course. “We don’t just address technique but people management”, explains the professor. He also cites as an example the performance analyst in technical committees, a new role in the country and still in the structuring phase in several clubs in Serie A itself. “This professional must master new technologies and have university education, which gives great responsibility to the institutions of teaching and research”, he concludes.