Ten years ago the country hosted the Confederations Cup – 06/08/2023 – Juca Kfouri

It is impossible to dissociate the famous, and never digested, demonstrations of June 2013, from the Confederations Cup in Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Fortaleza, Rio de Janeiro, Recife and Salvador.

On the pitch, the Brazilian team won by easily defeating the then Spanish world champions, a victory capable of producing such self-deception that it originated another, the surreal 7-1 in the semifinals of the World Cup itself.

What had started in São Paulo, apparently just around student protests because of a 20 cent increase in bus fare, took over Brazil revolted by the violence of the São Paulo Military Police by repressing the act.

With no known or assumed leadership, no political north and against politics, the Fifa standard seen in the sumptuous stadiums erected across the country started to be demanded where it is most needed — in schools, hospitals, public transport and security.

It was a hell of a fuzuê.

On the 19th, the Brazilian team faced the Mexican team, in Castelão, and, on the way to the stadium, the FIFA bus, which was carrying journalists, ended up surrounded by about 200 demonstrators, who did not budge from the intention of preventing us from going on.

A Brazilian, me, and five foreigners who were scared as hell.

Then the spirit of Jerico that my father used to stamp on my poor person as a child hit me and, at the age of 63, I warned the police officer from Ceará who, at the door of the closed bus, was playing the role of security: “Open it, please, that I’m going to explain to them that we are all journalists, that we don’t have top hats in here”, I appealed, certain that I would be recognized and answered.

“No, I’m not going to open it. If you come down, they’re going to fill you with shit”, replied the much wiser and more prudent young woman, with the delicious music of Ceará speech and accent: shit!

We arrived late, but on the point of seeing the national victory by 2-0.

Early the next night, at the airport in Fortaleza, on the way to Salvador, the TV screens, without sound, showed the invasion of the Itamaraty building, in Brasília.

Seeing that, perplexed, I decided not to board, because I thought I couldn’t spend two hours flying without knowing what was happening on the ground.

And I had the anguishing certainty that there wasn’t a Brazilian who could appear on those screens, ask for calm and be heard.

There was a terrible crisis of representativeness.

Lula was also the target of claims, Dilma was in the eye of the hurricane, Chico Buarque had discovered through antisocial networks that many people thought he was a good fdp and Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns was sick, withdrawn, inert.

On the way back to the center of the capital of Ceará, I answer a call with a FIFA top hat. He says that the hotel where he was staying, with the entity’s flag, had been stoned, two buses had been vandalized and he wanted to know my opinion on what would happen if the Confederations Cup were suspended.

I replied that I had no idea and he asked me not to publish anything, which, of course, was not possible.

News given, duly denied by FIFA’s leadership, a year later, in an interview with a reporter from ESPN Brasil, the notorious general secretary Jérôme Valcke, candidly, said that the tournament was even on the verge of being cancelled.

It would have been better, just like the World Cup itself…

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