Class Ethnicity and Color in the making of Brazilian Football PCQ

 

The Football of Brazilian Elites

This section of the reading brings back the idea that soccer was used as a way to help English settlers establish relationships with some of the locals around the colony. Football was a means of staying busy for English workers without the inclusion of any Brazilian players. Because the game was mainly played solely by the English it was easy to associate the game as something meant solely for the upper classes. People frequented the game in suits and ties similar to how baseball games originally became popular. The leisurely activities early on have always been linked to the elite classes because they could afford not to be working all day. The origins of football in Brazil seem to have begun as a spectacle where players and spectators went to see and be seen by members of their own social status.

“Players also frequented dances at the clubs; playing football regularly was one of the several characteristics of an elite lifestyle. Several football clubs were made up of university students, and access to law, medicine, and to a lesser extent engineering was a form of social reconversion. For the declining Brazilian rural aristocracy, or an expanded reproduction of the new scholarized urban elites.” (243)

This section of the reading seems to suggest that football was about more than just the sport itself and represented a lifestyle that only a select few could live, which drew attention to the sport and maintained a favorable audience. This section also talks about how although the right gear for football wasn’t expensive it was hard to obtain if you weren’t part of the right social group. Both the ball and the leather shoes had to be imported from England, something none of the working class could afford to have done.

“Bangu inaugurated the figure of the worker-players, a worker less known for his work inside the factory than for his performance as a football player on the factory team.” (245)

Football seemed to grab hold of the working class through factory workers, due to the positive image put forth by worker player teams factory owners encourage the game among certain players realizing it could be used as positive advertising. As more factories began to field teams in hopes of bringing more recognition to their factory, the worker players bean to be placed in positions that were less taxing on them so that they could preserve their energy for practicing and games. Although not yet considered a job football had started to impact the working world as factory teams became common place.

 

“The big clubs were quick in reacting; they set up a new football league that Vasco was not invited to join, allegedly because it had no stadium of its own.” (249)

Thought this quote was interesting due to the reason behind the exclusion of the Vasco football team. As the factory teams began to practice and become more organized it was only a matter of time until they would be able to compete against some of the more elite clubs in the area. This quote depicts the response of the lower class team Vasco winning a championship that had previously been held only by elite club teams. Instead of embracing the idea of better overall competition the elite groups looked to separate themselves by creating a league that excluded factory teams through certain rules and regulations.

 

Black Players and the Emergence of Brazilian Professional Football

This section of the reading illustrates the reasons behind Brazil’s amateur teams having to convert and become professional, or risk losing their top talent to European teams who were searching for top talent. Of course this process only began due to the promotion of Italian football by Mussolini and only the best players of Italian ancestry were allowed to play in the European clubs. The best players from Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil were being selected to join these teams in Europe, but Brazilian clubs couldn’t risk losing all their talent and slowly but surely they began to convert their teams into professional clubs locking their players in and maintaining a certain level of skill.

 

“Blacks, in turn, appeared to be “condemned” to “local” success, to be great local players indeed, to be Brazil’s greatest players.” (255)

Due to the fact that black players were not being picked to play for teams overseas the top black players in Brazilian leagues were instead becoming the top talent all together. It was black players who became the face of an emerging national Brazilian football identity. But blacks and whites still had different ideas of what it meant to be a professional football player. Whites believed that blacks were only playing the sport seeking ethnic emancipation and were forcibly stuck playing locally.

 

Recent Trends and Final Considerations

It took until the 1970’s for black Brazilian players to become highly coveted by European clubs, but over time they became included and left their imprint on the global football market. It wasn’t just black players from Brazil who began to see the change in recruitment in European club but players of different Ethnicities from France and Belgium among other began to appear for premier European clubs especially in Italy and Spain.

 

 

 

Questions:

•  Again if football had become such an important sport for Brazil why were their players so willing to play for teams in different countries?
•  Could their presence on Brazilian teams not draw up enough interest for it to make sense financially for both sides?

 

Italian Immigrants, Brazilian Football, and the Dilemma of National Identity

 

The first section discusses the victory of the Italian national team, which was made up of players from Argentina and Brazil as well and questions how much these players gave up to play for the Italian team and how integrated they felt while playing there. Were the sacrifices they made to play big time European football worth it and if they had only traveled to Italy for the chance to play football did that mean they considered themselves to be Italian or just on leave from the home country?

 “They have also shown that Latin Americans have asserted their identities through the choice of games they play, baseball or football helping to differentiate those with modern sensibilities from those with more traditional outlooks.” (277)

This quote stood out to me due to the fact it forced me to question how separated was the divide between those who maintained their traditional outlooks and values and those who preferred to adapt to the times. It is a strange idea to believe that Latin Americans choose to identify themselves by the sports they play according to this article, mostly because these sports were not native and were taught to them. Clearly though the impact of immigrants and immigration through a sports perspective had a profound effect on the culture of Latin America.

 

The Sporting Community of Sao Paulo

Again this strengthens the idea that football up until a certain point was a foreign sport to Brazilians, while they chose to adopt the sport as one of their national activities it was sports like horse racing and rowing that had originally captivated the early sports world in Brazilian culture. It is interesting that the teams and clubs that first helped spread soccer were based on ethnicity instead of skill level, instead of having clubs for those who want to play competitively versus those who play for fun; it was the Brazilian club and the international club that came into existence. The clubs based on location or school ties makes more sense but ethnic clubs according to the article were the prominent sports clubs in the early years of football in Brazil.  While sports and leisure are indeed part of what it meant to be in the upper or middle class the fact that clubs again would pick their members based off of those in their community rather than whoever was the most skilled might mean that while the sport was still growing and football was gaining fans it wasn’t yet a sport focused on wins and losses.

“Sport Club Corinthians Paulista was founded in 1910 by a multiethnic group of working class employees of British-owned enterprises in the city. The name was an explicit reference to the Corinthians Football Club the leading amateur football and cricket club in the world at the time, which drew its players from the ranks of Oxford and Cambridge graduates.” (281)

Although this club cleared admired the clubs of the elite, this working class organization struggled to create its own name due to the team being made up mostly of working class players. Football had created such class barriers that again it seems like skill was taking somewhat of a backseat in order to maintain class lines. When you field a team with the best players that how you win, yet it seems like athletic clubs were hoping that football would become somewhat of an exclusive sport.

 

The Experience of Palestra Italia

Although Italian immigrants were flooding into Brazil it doesn’t seem like they were met with any special conditions and had to endure through low pay and terrible working and living conditions. Yet still managed to create a significant foothold within the Brazilian workforce, they even created their own communities and schools within certain Brazilian towns. Palestra Italia may have begun playing in the elite sports league almost from the beginning but also fielded teams in lower divisions, while competing against one another during in house competitions.

 

“Most controversial was the ever-widening violation of amateur rules that plagued Sao Paulo’s footballing community. Indeed, so common did the surreptitious payment of players become during the 1920’s and early 1930’s that the period was known as the era of ‘masked professionalism’ and ‘false amateurism’.”

Decided to pull this quote out because it relates to the way that baseball and football became popular in the United States early on. As amateur teams began to play more and more competitive games for their respective clubs, certain star players began to receive cash under the radar so that they wouldn’t leave the club team. This also happened when college football first became popular within certain universities, athletic directors would pay construction workers to put on school uniforms and win football games, seems like a reoccurring theme in the early years of competitive sports.

 

Questions:

 

• Corinthians Paulista struggled for years to gain acceptance into the elite sports club leagues due to the fact that they were a working class team, how then could Palestra Italia gain access to the same elite leagues when they too had been created out of middle and working class sportsmen?
• Why weren’t teams more focused on recruiting the players with the top level of talent? How could race and class hold so much weight in the sporting world which so heavily focuses on wins and losses?
• Why would so many south Americas travel to Italy in the 1920’s and 30’s for the chance to play football if the last article said south American players were  not highly sought after until at least the 1950’s?