Deep in the soul – 03/09/2024 – Tostão

Memory is different from remembrance. We forget many things, generally those we don’t want to remember, but they remain stored in unconscious memory. From time to time it reappears in dreams, in failed acts, sometimes disguised, covered up by everyday life. Other times, we remember some events that were not exactly as they happened, but the way we would have liked them to have happened.

When I write and give examples of facts that I have witnessed in the history of football, I run the risk of, without realizing it, confusing details, sometimes betrayed by the wish that they could have been different. Along the same lines, from time to time, I read and listen to stories, from times when I was present, that didn’t happen exactly the way they were told.

There are passages in life, good or bad, that we remember because they were remarkable, unforgettable. I remember the time when he was a professor of medicine at the faculty of medical sciences in Minas Gerais and guided resident doctors and final-year students at the Santa Casa hospital in Belo Horizonte, in the area of ​​clinical medicine.

There was a patient with bronchial asthma who did not improve, much to our surprise. We discussed, searched the literature, without results. I decided to go to the hospital after hours to talk to the patient. I wanted to get to know the patient better, and not just the disease. I sat next to him and we chatted. After advances and setbacks, he told me more or less this: no one is going to solve my problem, because deep down in my soul, I don’t want to improve. It was clear. I asked for help from a psychologist and a psychiatrist. He improved and was discharged.

Nelson Rodrigues said that without will, without soul, you can’t even suck a popsicle. In Brazilian football, intensity, determination, overflowing the soul are increasingly confused with violence, excessive fouls, complaints, provocations, on and off the field. I hope that Fla x Flu and Atlético x América will be played with a lot of intensity, determination, beauty, technique, without confusion.

The disappointment with the loss of last year’s Brasileirão, when the title seemed certain, tore Botafogo’s soul apart. It needs to be rescued. Every encounter is a reunion with something we have experienced and or imagined. If Botafogo, in the second game against Bragantino, qualifies for the group stage of the Libertadores, after winning the first 2 x 1, it could be a milestone in the recovery of the team’s self-esteem.

If this doesn’t happen, which won’t be a big surprise, since Bragantino plays at home and has a team at the same level as Botafogo, the fans, the coaching staff and the managers shouldn’t be dejected or disappointed. There will be many stones along the way. Botafogo cannot forget that the team is good, but it does not have a squad at the level of the main Brazilian teams, such as Flamengo, Palmeiras, Fluminense, Atlético-MG and Inter. Botafogo’s spectacular performance in the first round of last year’s Brasileirão was completely atypical.

In the first match against Bragantino, Junior Santos scored two beautiful goals. The first in a sprint at great speed, carrying the ball and dribbling alternately with both feet until scoring the goal. In the second, he lifted the ball with the toe of his boot and volleyed it, almost with his back to the goal, hitting a shot.

A great team needs to unite the determination, the soul with the movements of the body. The soul and the body go together. The body speaks first. The body is the messenger of the soul.

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