Galvão Bueno: Retire? Only when God calls me – 04/13/2024 – Mônica Bergamo

Owner of one of the best-known voices on Brazilian TV, Galvão Bueno says he is in the process of weaning himself. “As I raise cattle and horses, I know how it works. Weaning takes place up to a certain point. After that, there’s no other way. You’ll have to eat grass because, here, the milk has run out”, he compares.

The “milk” that Galvão refers to is the narration of sports games. The last time he led the broadcast of a Brazilian football team match was the duel against Morocco, in March 2023, on YouTube, via his GB channel. His last narration on TV Globo was during the 2022 World Cup. After ending his old relationship with the broadcaster, Galvão signed a new contract model with the company that runs until the end of this year.

Now, the announcer is preparing to embark on his tenth coverage of the Olympic Games, in Paris. This time, he will not narrate the competitions from the broadcast booths. “It will be different”, he says, in an interview with the column held at the Grand Hyatt hotel, in São Paulo. “But it will work”, he adds, in a confident tone.

Galvão entered into a partnership with the COB (Brazilian Olympic Committee) and Globo to present a series of daily programs from Casa Brasil, of which he will be an ambassador. The space will be a kind of reference point during the competitions, at Parc de la Villette. The content will be broadcast on the internet.

With Globo, the announcer will participate in the broadcast of the opening ceremony and will make a daily appearance on the Central da Olimpíada program, led by Tadeu Schmidt. His new contract with the broadcaster, this time in the entertainment area, foresees him leading new attractions. In May, he begins recording the reality show “Voz do Campo”, which aims to reveal a new talent in sports narration.

Galvão says the market is divided into four transmission layers. “We have open TV, closed TV, paid streaming [plataformas como ESPN, GloboPlay, Star+] and the streamers [quem faz transmissões ao vivo na internet], a group in which I now include myself. It’s a new TV, without paying, and this is bothering free-to-air TVs a little”, he assesses.

“All of them [streamers] They get along very well with me, I get along very well with them. I think it’s a space that has to exist, but they use a lot of bad words. I don’t think it’s cool to be swearing on broadcast, no.”

“My first broadcast on channel GB, of the game between Brazil and Morocco, had more than 11 million simultaneous views. It’s a hell of a thing, something that no closed TV can do.”

In his previous contract with Globo, from 2022, the only work restriction was with other open TV stations. “When ‘boom’, this thing arrived [de streamers] this big, [a Globo falou]: ‘Come here, let’s talk again'”, he says.

Now, in the contract signed in 2023, the restriction also extended to all platforms — Galvão, in fact, reveals that he declined an invitation from Casimiro to broadcast a Flamengo game, a team he supports. “I can’t say if there will be a renewal of the contract with Globo or if I will dedicate myself to this new world entirely.”

Galvão, with his unmistakable voice, is expressive when answering interview questions. And he tells stories about his career spanning more than 40 years on television with surprising memory and attention to detail. He makes the listener feel as if they are following another of his narrations.

When asked about the most difficult coverage of his career, he doesn’t think twice: the accident and death of Ayrton Senna, with whom he was very close. The episode will turn 30 on May 1st.

“It was very difficult because, as no one said he was brain dead at the race track, otherwise there wouldn’t be a race, there was this thing: ‘Senna hit! He hit hard!’, remembers Galvão, imitating his narration. “And it was very strong, but I swear I expected him to come out, get out of the car, or for them to take him away.”

“There’s something that won’t leave my mind. He, still in the car, moved his head. And I, wanting something, said: ‘Senna moved his head, he moved. Is he coming back?’. I have, today , the conviction that it was a death rattle.”

Galvão says that he asked his colleague Reginaldo Leme to, more than once, take over the transmission so that he could go outside the cabin in Imola to breathe and compose himself.

The presenter received confirmation that Senna would not survive from Gerhard Berger, the Brazilian’s teammate. “He called me. When I got close, he made a sign by waving his arms and said: ‘It’s over'”, he recalls. They went to the hospital where Senna was taken, in Bologna, in Berger’s helicopter.

“The only sentence said the entire trip was when Braguinha [empresário Antônio Carlos de Almeida Braga, que morreu em 2021] He hit my leg and said: ‘Yeah, friend… The fun is over’. Nobody had the strength to speak.”

At the hospital, they spoke to F1 doctor Sid Watkins. “[Ele disse]: ‘The heart is beating because it is very strong. But I can assure you that he is not suffering and that he will not last long.”

The most exciting coverage was the confrontation between Brazil and Italy, in the 1994 World Cup final, two months after Senna’s death. “It was different. When I shouted: ‘It’s over, it’s over! It’s four, it’s four!’, Pelé was by my side, shouting along. Only as time went by did I understand the importance of that. Today, 30 years later , a boy who wasn’t even born at the time passes the entrance exam and shouts: ‘It’s four, it’s four!’. It became an expression of celebration.”

“God gave me the blessing and gave me the gift of great moments in Brazilian sport over the last 50 years. Some were difficult. Senna’s death was, really, the biggest drama. But the great moment was the fourth. I have always been a salesman of emotions, a mystic. I’m tough, I always have been. I’ve always been critical. But if I were to cite mistakes, I wouldn’t fit on a page in the newspaper.”

Galvão says he sees the increase in women leading sports narrations with “absolute naturalness”. “It’s clear that women were segregated in sport, many suffered for many years. I worked with fantastic women. But, for me, it’s a question of competence, of capacity. Absolutely equal rights. There should be no quotas [para elas]”, he defends.

In relation to players Robinho and Daniel Alves, convicted of rape in Italy and Spain, respectively, Galvão states that the two committed “an unforgivable crime”. “Like racism. What’s happening with Vini Jr. is one thing… You can’t even create a sentence about it, it’s so horrible,” he says of the Brazilian Real Madrid star.

Vini Jr. has been forced to live with frequent insults in Europe — the list includes chants of “monkey” uttered in stadiums and a simulated hanging of a doll wearing the star’s shirt.

Galvão says that he interviewed the player at his home, in Spain, a week before this conversation with the column. “He suffers from it, of course, but he has such a strong personality. I said: ‘Vini, what if you go to the Premier League in England?’. And he replied: ‘Why would I run away from this? I have to face it’ “, he details.

“There are people who say that he provokes when he raises his closed arm when scoring a goal or when he puts his hand to his ear in a stadium where there has been a racist chant. Vini’s response was fantastic: ‘What do they want? For me to do a goal and wait to get to my stadium to celebrate? No, I face everyone’. Now, why is it up to him?

The presenter praises Dorival Júnior’s debut in the Brazilian team, but criticizes the CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation) for leaving the team in charge of interim coaches for so long. “What happened could not have happened. It was a gigantic lack of respect for the history of the Brazilian team, for Zagallo’s hopscotch, a giant who left us [em janeiro deste ano].”

Galvão already has his mind set on 2028, which he sees as a kind of end of the cycle. “The Olympics are now closed. I’m worried about the next one, in Los Angeles. I want to go back to the same stadium where I did my first coverage, in 1984,” he says. “Then you’ll have to think about stopping, right?”

But, calm down. This does not mean that Galvão intends to leave the job for good. “Retire? Never. Only on the day the man calls me there”, he says, pointing his finger towards the sky.