Nelson Rodrigues would go crazy – 02/22/2023 – Juca Kfouri

Every now and then someone says that it wasn’t just the quality of Brazilian football that dropped, but also that of the sports press.

Where is Armando Nogueira, where is João Saldanha, where is Nelson Rodrigues? —mostly cariocas ask.

Humbly, those who remain, if we have a minimum of critical sense, we will have to agree: where is Master Armando, where is João Sem Medo, where is the Pornographic Angel?

There’s Eduardo Gonçalves de Andrade, it’s true, Tostāo.

Armando and João, if they were still around, would have a lot of fun with the almost daily offer of football provided by the most varied platforms.

Nelson Rodrigues would end up in a mental institution.

I couldn’t bear to see the succession of extraordinary events in the Premier League and the European Champions League.

He would probably once again assume the stray complex diagnosed by his crazy lucidity after the Maracanazo.

Because the football we’ve been playing in Brazil doesn’t make a front, nor a coast, as seen on the lawns of the Old World.

He would go crazy if, on Carnival Saturday and Tuesday, he saw what we saw in England – in Birmingham, Nottingham and Liverpool.

Especially in Liverpool, where the fantastic events in the other two cities ended up being surpassed.

The creator of Sobrenatural de Almeida would have to invent Extraordinário da Silva, Espantoso de Souza and, perhaps, Miraculous Rodrigues, as if he were his cousin.

Because everything has happened since Argentina, under the magic Messi, and France, under the exuberant Mbappé, decided the World Cup, in that artificial place called Qatar, in a fabulous game.

Maybe that’s why King Pelé decided to go rest.

It’s like Jorginho hitting the crossbar in stoppage time, in a tied game, the ball bounces back in the goalkeeper’s head and gives Arsenal the victory; or the greatest goalscorer that has emerged in recent years at Planeta Bola, Comet Haaland, missing that goal that our grandmother would score; or two of the best goalkeepers in the world, the Belgian Courtois and the Brazilian Alisson, in the same game, commit the same mess to provide goals to the brilliant Mohamed Salah and Vinícius Júnior that, frankly, the parallel reality seems to be little to explain the mysteries of the ball.

Oh yes, Master Armando would say that only that second Real Madrid goal makes someone capable of scoring the first, like Vini Jr. did, because if “the player sees, the ace foresees”.

Saldanha would agree: “Do you know why Real put the English 5-2 up? Because Vinícius Júnior plays for Real. If he played for Liverpool, he would win the same”.

But it was 2-0 to the British at home, which would practically eliminate the Spaniards, and ended the score that evidently eliminated the British. Or not!

Is it or not! So many things have happened outside the world order that no one can guarantee the result in the second leg at the Santiago Bernabéu.

When freeing himself from the straitjacket, Nelson Rodrigues would exclaim: “In routine situations, the Reds can stay at home fanning themselves with the Liverpool Echo. But when the team needs numbers, the gentle miracle happens: the reds are alive, sick and the dead appear. The living leave their homes, the sick from their beds, and the dead from their tombs”.

The Champions League game made such an impact that it’s hard to think of anything else.

But we will think.

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