Book illuminates literary production about football – 03/18/2023 – Juca Kfouri

Eduardo Luz is a professor of literary theory at the Federal University of Ceará and, through the publisher Imprece, recently released “The Rite of Football in the Brazilian Romance, Reading Guide”.

As the rare and rare readers know, this Sheet It has among its columnists excellent authors of books on soccer.

Paulo Vinícius Coelho, “Brazilian Football School”, Ruy Castro, “Lone Star: A Brazilian Called Garrincha”, Sérgio Rodrigues, “O Drible”, and Tostāo, “Times Lived, Dreamed and Lost”, produced, among other works, some of the finest biscuits in our football literature.

So here is Eduardo Luz, in a 155-page book, 12 novels, sometimes not so novels, mandatory for those who like the genre and football, not necessarily in that order, which you can invert or add or, even if not appreciate neither one nor the other, but which is worth knowing.

Luz treats football the way it should be treated, as a phenomenon rooted in Brazilian culture and a factor in raising our self-esteem, by kicking old theses that see it as alienating, etc., to the sidelines. Roberto DaMatta pulled the string and is faithfully followed.

By going beyond literary theory, Luz appropriately incurs into the field of sociology. And he creates three categories to examine the novel production around the ludopedio: soccer-legend, soccer-poetry and soccer-essay.

Before that, he already scores a great goal: he dedicates the book to “Zico and Machado de Assis, who made my days happier”.

The legendary period goes from Monteiro Lobato to José Lins do Rego, passing through Thomaz Mazzoni, the journalist who created Derby, Majestoso and Choque-Rei.

Carlos Heitor Cony, who for so many years occupied page 2 of this newspaper, is contemplated in football-poetry, alongside the immortal João Saldanha, Macedo Miranda and his exceptional “O Sol Escuro”, and Renato Pompeu, the journalist who wrote “A Saida do Primeiro Tempo”, where he appropriates the first chapter of “O Capital”, by Karl Marx, about merchandise, to write one of the most delicious texts ever written about football.

Finally, in the third part, dedicated to football-rehearsal, a mouth-watering quintet that will make anyone envy anyone who ventures to write about the passion for the ball, in whatever language it may be.

None other than the Rio Grande do Sul trio Moacyr Scliar, another columnist for Luz, parade for acute analyzes of Luz. Sheet for about 20 years, between 1990 and 2010; Michel Laub, another one who shone around here, and Cláudio Lovato Filho, who helps make Gre-Nal the most sought-after of our classics.

To close, the brilliant Sérgios Sant’Anna and Rodrigues, the first, from Rio de Janeiro that the coronavirus took us to in 2020, the second, from Minas Gerais, neighbor of the notebook, author of simply the best football novel in Portuguese, with only one defect, not being able to title “The Dibre”.

More zebras?

If, on Monday (20), Água Santa eliminates Bragantino in Vila Belmiro, it will only be half an underdog, not least because Braga has already fallen in the Copa do Brasil to Ypiranga, from the national Series C, and by 3 to 1 , in Erechim.

But, if Ituano plays Palmeiras this Sunday (19) at the green house, all that will fit is the exclamation so much to the taste of the traumatized Ameriquinha fan and enthusiastic Arsenal fan, José Trajano: “I stopped!”.

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