Rio de Janeiro: "I was going to be a rubbish collector. Comlurb, Rio de Janeiro's urban cleaning company, could be found in front of the house where I lived. My everyday thought was that if my career in football didn't work out, that I would look for a job there."

Comlurb was forced to look elsewhere for recruits because Jorginho's football career did take off.

This young man was nothing less than the right back in the team that won Brazil's fourth title in the 1994 World Cup.

As is the case for many Brazilian players, for Jorginho football represented a means to a more financially comfortable lifestyle. Social ladder

For the lucky few that make it to the bright lights of the stadiums, football continues to be the best way to climb the social ladder in Brazil.

This trend is on the increase 112 years after football was brought to this country by Charles Miller, the son of a rich English family, who back in 1894 hoped to convert this sport into an elitist pastime.

According to Roberto da Matta, author of several books on this subject, "football was robbed by the man on the street, mainly by the underprivileged, those from the bottom of the Brazilian society ladder."

At the beginning of the previous century, football became the means of rescuing the children and grandchildren of the slaves who had just managed to reclaim their freedom in Brazil in 1888.

In his 1947 book on this subject, Mario Filho — creator of the name `Maracana' for the famous Rio de Janeiro stadium — affirmed that at the beginning of the 20th century football was by far the best way for black and mixed race groups to climb the social ranks.

Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira once commented, "when Brazil participates in the Olympic Oames it is represented in 27 sports and by one religion. Football is a religion for us."

One step further

The Marxist philosopher Janus Mazursky, who is divided between dialectic rigour and his self-confessed unbridled passion for the Corinthians club, agrees with Parreira and goes one step further.

"Football is a religion in Brazil. It is not a sport that you attend as entertainment to be enjoyed one moment and forgotten the next. The game is the maximum ritual of that religion, but fans maintain the cult on a day-to-day basis. It is prolonged to the day following the game, to the counter of the bar, the group of friends, the work jokes, to arguments with girlfriends," he says. That is why the stars of this sport are considered to be on a par with gods and the country grinds to a halt every four years for the World Cup.

This is the confirmation that Brazil needs to establish that, despite its deep-seated equality problems and poverty, the government corruption scandals, the low salaries and unemployment, it continues to be the world leader in football.

"Due to a number of factors, out of all sports, football was probably the first with a public, accessible and universal dimension, which gave the Brazilians pride in our country... We as Brazilians know that to lose a World Cup final is perhaps worse than losing a third of our territory," says da Matta.

The next battle in this `national war' will commence on June 9 in Germany, when the World Cup commences. This battle will give birth to heroes and villains, at the end of which a euphoric Brazil will be celebrating yet another victory or will be a country consumed by depression. This is because in Brazil football is far from just another game. — DPA

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