It may seem farfetched to write about the world cup on this webpage and more specifically about the beautiful victory of Germany over Brazil by 7×1 on this memorable day, Jul 08, 2014. I do, though, because such a victory has profound impacts on human development and the social psychology that supposedly unite the Brazilian people.
What I’ll show here is that process and results are intertwined, that there is a difference in ‘being’ something and in ‘having’ something, that we humans have options and choices to make at every and each moment, and that – no matter how hard we want to or try to – there are things that we simply cannot control.
For those who know me personally in a very close manner, they know I’ve been rooting against Brazil in this world cup since the beginning for a variety of reasons and, I confess, because of some inferences I had about the results for this country had Brazil won this world cup; but most of all because I was rooting for this country as a nation, not as a single expression of its national team.
Many say I am an anti-patriot, but football does not represent me, and loving a country or a person does not mean that you have to be conniving to that person or nation. As a parent myself, I know that love sometimes has to be tough and discerning so that your kids can grow. Believe me or not, I was rooting for a defeat because of its growth potential for this country. Today, as I heard Felipão in his interview, it was the first time during the entire world cup that I felt proud of being Brazilian and the first time I saw a glimpse of hope that we, Brazilians, as a nation, can change the way we do things – and this defeat, hurtful for many, may be the starting point.
1st – The world cup in Brazil is the most expensive ever with estimated expenses of $11-15 billion (Koba, 2014; Mallen, 2014; Davies, 2014). If you consider that Brazil invests approximately $120 billion (Patu, Amora, & Coutinho, 2014; Fraga, 2013) in education annually, the world cup expenses may not sound a lot, but in percentage points it is equivalent to approximately 9%-11% of Federal government investments in education in a year. This is equivalent to financing an entire month of education for the entire country or to build another Belo Monte.
If you still consider the amount to be irrelevant, consider this: Brazil still has 3.6 million children and adolescents out of the school system (Rodrigues, 2013) and $11 billion would suffice to pay for 1.8 million students – 50% of these forgotten children and adolescents – to have all steps from kindergarten education up to college (INEP, UNESCO as cited in Fraga, 2013). In a country where ignorance, bread and circus are common means of control and where bad management is one of the key reasons for education ineffectiveness (Pastore; Menezes as cited in Fraga, 2013), the world cup is an outrage, an offense, and attack to one of the cornerstones of any civilized country: education.
2nd – If the Seleção had been successful in this world cup – successful in the Brazilian mindset means champion – this would work as a means for validating the lack of preparation, planning, and the eternal “Brazilian Jeitinho”; the latter a three-dimensional structure involving corruption, creativity, and social norm breaking (Ferreira, Fischer, Porto, Pilati, & Milfont, 2012) that cut across Brazilian culture – from doing business down to cutting lines in amusement parks or road crossings. In other words, it would validate the ongoing Brazilian culture that sowing is not necessary, that when the time for harvest comes, we will figure out a way – or in plain Portuguese, “a gente dá um jeitinho.”
Brazil was the country with the largest timespan to prepare for the world cup and the one with the highest number of delays. Half of the stadiums didn’t meet the deadline for December 2013 (Davies, 2014). Paraphrasing Gaffney, a visiting professor at the federal Fluminense University and a specialist in urban planning, Brazil missed the opportunity to improve people’s lives in cities through the world cup to such an extent that Brazil started the cup having already lost it (Davies, 2014). And today Brazil lost it also on the field.
3rd – Still related to culture, there is an ongoing culture in this country that it is okay to cut corners, a Machiavellian approach that the ends justify the means as long as we are champions. And football in this sense is not the most gentle or integral sport in the planet, let’s face it.
Players jumping inside the area to create a penalty kick, usually a main trait of South Americans. Players faking injury to spend time. Players scoring with their hands, like Maradona did back in 1986 against England, or players pretending to have committed a foul in different field places like Nilton Santos did back in 1962 when we left the penalty area after fouling Enrique Collar from Spain. Where is the beauty in such occurrences? What is the integrity with the opponent that is seeking just what you are seeking?
“Savoring a victory is always good as long as you have earned it. And earning it means no shortcuts, no easy opponents, no arrangements. Earning it means bringing the best of yourself out of yourself. Titles, names, trophies… they all will fade away, but your acts and your behavior before them will linger.” (Ribeiro, 2011, p.7)
Very often during this world cup, I heard people saying that they wanted Brazil to face the easiest opponents so that the team had the easiest route to the finals, triangulating results of other teams to decide which team to face in a final. Again, what is the honor in it? My tennis coach once told me something I’ve never forgotten: “A real champion doesn’t fear his/her adversary, doesn’t choose adversary. You face whomever enters that court and respect him as an equal being.” Respect and confidence are not excluding principles. And this brings me back to the cultural principle – there is an embedded mindset in this country that all that matters is winning, i.e. it is about results – processes don’t matter.
4th – Processes do matter and we have a clear choice to make here. We can enter the field thinking that winning is all that matters and doing whatever it takes – being unethical, illegal, or unfair – for that end or we can enter the field with a clear strategy and values saying, “here are the rules I will abide by; this is the game I will play.” Results are only an outcome of a process with many variables that one cannot control. Processes are unconditional because they do not depend on anybody else other than myself to define how I want to play my game. The results, however, are conditional because I might try hard, train hard, and yet meet an adversary that is simply too much for me on any given occasion. Still, I will go home sad because I lost; but serene because deep inside I know I did all I could inside boundaries that I defined. Germany today played the game in a fair way, without provoking or making ball-mastery-moves as I suspect Brazilian players would do had the score been the other way round. They displayed respect, humbleness, and a fairness that it is hard to see in such elastic matches. Brazilians, too, did show improvements – they kept playing without resorting to violent fouls, but couldn’t avoid trying to dig some penalties here or there.
Still on processes, Felipão showed an impeccable commitment to transparency and humility. He didn’t find a scapegoat; he didn’t try to blame it on anyone. The questions he got were ridiculous to say the least. He took all responsibility and with serenity stated that ‘life goes on.’ And so will it. He has no debt with this country – he is a coach, a professional – that is all. He is not a martyr or a savior. He is not NEO or “THE ONE” – he is the trainer of a football team that came to think of themselves as gods because the media all around the world put the Seleção in such a pedestal that it is hard to swallow reality when it hits the symbol that carries all hopes of rescuing Brazilian dignity, which leads me to my fifth and final point.
5th – In our desperate attempt to justify Brazil or to rescue the lost identity of this nation, the Seleção has become our identity. We are only valid as people or as a nation as long as Seleção keeps winning. It is a pendulum with no middle ground; it is an either-or. We are either the best because Seleção has won or we are the underdogs; victims waiting for saviors. We are so embedded in the football/soccer culture that we are the results of Seleção, rather than having the results of Seleção.
Change starts by transforming what is subjective into objective (Kegan, 1982) and this nation suffers from a myopia in which soccer represents and becomes each and every citizen. We are the “Pátria de Chuteiras” (the nation in soccer shoes); we root and suffer for this country every four years in a way that we never do in our daily lives for important matters that really define a future of a nation. The only real point of connection is through soccer and only when it is winning.
As long as there is a soccer match, there will be a Brazilian (Borges, 2007). The time has come to change such a dynamic. Football or soccer did not invent us, Brazilians – and I am not discussing here the merits of creation of a sport. What I am discussing here is that it is time for us to understand - as a nation - that soccer or football does not define us as people, i.e. we are not subject to football. It is we, as nation, that define football – we are not football, we have football.
We cannot pass a bill or decree stating that Seleção will be World Champion in every world cup or that, by law, Brazil cannot ever lose a match for a difference greater than two goals. It is time for us to understand that we have to work hard, train hard, with ethics, with long-term vision, to sow today so that we can harvest in the future. In every other sport where champions were made they didn’t start winning – take Federer, Nadal, Tiger Woods, Jordan – pick yours. They worked their ways to win. And they all had pretty bad losses in their careers – if you don’t believe me, go do some research.
There is nothing humiliating in losing a match by such an elastic score. You cannot control the actions of the other team, only how you will respond to them. In every match there will inevitably be a winner and a loser – and that is how competitions are designed. It is time that we learn to win with dignity and lose with dignity and to absorb the lessons we might have from both.
Looking at a defeat with dignity and respect and accepting it as part of life is the initial step to assimilate, transcend it, and include it (Wilber, 2000). From today on, this is part of our history and there is nothing to be ashamed of.
I always loved the poem “If” by Kipling and today there is nothing more in tune for all Brazilians than this poem. For us to become a nation, we need to learn to meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat these two impostors just the same; we need to learn to risk one turn of pitch and toss, and in losing it, start all over never complaining about the loss (Kipling, n.d.).
Today I celebrate the victory of planning over jeitinho; today I celebrate the victory of long-term vision over short-term sightedness; today I celebrate sowing rather than the harvesting; today I celebrate the victory of simplicity and humbleness over conceitedness. Today I celebrate object over subject; today I celebrate the process rather than the outcome; today I congratulate Germany for what they did while on the field.
Today I celebrate victory and defeat, two-sides of the same coin.
References
Borges, L. H. (2007). Do complexo de vira-latas ao homem genial: Futebol e identidade no Brasil. Histórica, 55. Retrieved from http://www.historica.arquivoestado.sp.gov.br/materias/anteriores/edicao24/materia02/
Davies, W. (2014). Brazil’s frantic eleventh hour World Cup preparations. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-27298418
Ferreira, M. C., Fischer, R., Porto, J. B., Pilati, R., & Milfont, T. L. (2012). Unraveling the mystery of Brazilian Jeitinho: A cultural exploration of social norms. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(3), 331-344. Retrieved from DOI: 10.1177/0146167211427148
Fraga, E. (2013). Gasto com educação no Brasil é semelhante ao de país desenvolvido; falhas são por gestão. Retrieved from http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mercado/2013/06/1303780-aprendendo-a-gastar.shtml
Kegan, R. (1982). The evolving self: Problem and process in human development. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Kipling, R. (n.d.). The Poetry Foundation – A choice of Kipling’s verse (1943). Retrieved from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175772
Koba, M. (2014). World Cup by the numbers: Most expensive ever! Retrieved from http://www.cnbc.com/id/101750395
Mallen, P. R. (2014). Brazil skirts organizational disaster with the most expensive world cup ever. Retrieved from http://www.ibtimes.com/brazil-skirts-organizational-disaster-most-expensive-world-cup-ever-1568580
Patu, G., Amora, D., & Coutinho, F. (2014). Custo da Copa equivale a um mês de gastos com educação – 23/05/2014 – Poder – Folha de S.Paulo. Retrieved from http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2014/05/1458720-custo-da-copa-equivale-a-um-mes-de-gastos-com-educacao.shtml
Ribeiro, F. (2011). Hold your head up high. In To be and care. Retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/fernando-m.-ribeiro/id861635373?mt=11
Rodrigues, C. (2013). Brasil tem 3,6 milhões de crianças e adolescentes fora da escola em 2011 – Educação – iG. Retrieved from http://ultimosegundo.ig.com.br/educacao/2013-03-06/brasil-tem-36-milhoes-de-criancas-e-adolescentes-fora-da-ecola-em-2011.html
Wilber, K. (2000). Integral psychology: Consciousness, spirit, psychology, therapy. Boston, MA: Shambhala.
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