‘Thrushes divine’, wrote Manoel de Barros; the stars too – 12/12/2023 – Tostão

I’m out of topic, I miss the Brasileirão. If I were one of the Sabiás from the chronicles of the past, who graced my youth, like Fernando Sabino, Rubem Braga, Vinicius de Moraes, Paulo Mendes Campos, Stanislaw Ponte Preta and other stars, I would talk about everyday life, about important and unimportant things.

If I were a poet like Manoel de Barros, I would write like one of his beautiful texts from “Livro sobre Nada”. “Science can classify and name the organs of a thrush, but it cannot measure its charms. Whoever accumulates too much information loses the ability to guess: divinare. The thrushes divine.”

In football, science can produce millions of statistics that help a lot in understanding matches, teams and players, but science cannot accurately define the desires, charms and magic of the stars. They divine.

Football is a mix of science, art, technique and improvisation. Paraphrasing the great poet Ferreira Gullar: “Art exists because life is not enough”, I would say that well-played and beautiful football exists because the result is not enough.

We should be more rigorous when naming stars. It’s a good thing Endrick isn’t in the rush of a sports chronicle. The stars combine inventiveness, technique and fantasy, although each star stands out more for certain characteristics. Maradona, Ronaldinho Gaúcho and others fascinate more due to their creativity and special effects. Cristiano Ronaldo shines more due to his technical precision in his shots. Messi is the second greatest in history because he combines art and technique at a high level. Pelé is the greatest of all because he was complete and reached, or almost, perfection. Perfection exists?

Shortly after Cruzeiro beat Pelé’s Santos in 1966, 6×2 and 3×2, and won the Taça Brasil, an exaggerated reporter, out of touch with reality, asked me if I could become a Pelé. I told him that, at some moments, he could even imagine plays like Pelé, but he would never be able to do what the King did naturally and frequently, as he didn’t have Pelé’s technique or physical qualities.

The greatest poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade wrote that the most difficult thing is not to score a thousand goals, it is to score a goal like Pelé.

Brazilian football is on vacation. In Europe, big teams, such as Manchester City, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, are experiencing worse times than usual due to technical problems and injuries. Haaland, who did not play in the last match, could be left out of the Club World Cup. De Bruyne only returns in January.

On the other hand, average teams in Europe have shone. Aston Villa is third in the English Championship, having beaten City and Arsenal. Girona, which is part of the conglomerate that controls, among several other clubs, also Manchester City, is the leader of the Spanish Championship after beating Barcelona 4 x 2. These are not teams that play from behind to win on the counterattack. They usually press, have control of the ball and the game. It’s the evolution of football.

Two young Brazilians shine at Girona: Yan Couto and Savinho. Right-back Yan Couto, who was called up in Fernando Diniz’s first call-up, performed well despite Brazil doing very badly — he was no longer called up. Diniz preferred full-back Emerson, who played very poorly in the last few matches. Why didn’t the coach call up Yan Couto anymore?

Hypocrisy

Putting oil tycoons in charge of COP28, which deals with serious environmental problems, is the same as the owners of the cigarette industry presiding over an event that deals with the harm caused by tobacco.

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