RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- I'm glad I'm not the only one who was a little relieved when the United States was knocked out of the World Cup. I was worried that such disloyal sentiments might get me hauled in front of a military tribunal, but it turns out that even commentators at The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune were secretly hoping our boys would go down. Not that I wasn't thrilled when the United States made it to the quarterfinals; I just didn't want them going all the way. And there were perfectly good, patriotic reasons for that. To the rest of the world -- which already resents our hegemonic dominance of economics, politics, and basketball -- it would have been an intolerable geopolitical affront, sowing contempt and sour grapes among our allies and neighbors (and almost certainly leading my Brazilian girlfriend to break up with me).
OK, so the cat is out of the bag: I've been rooting for Brazil. So am I a soccer quisling? Yes and no. The truth is, I learned to root against my own team from the Brazilians. Months before the Cup began, the Brazilian intelligentsia, or at least the leftist majority of it, was heard arguing that futebol is the opiate of the masses and that it would be better if Brazil were eliminated quickly so that people would focus on real issues during the upcoming presidential election. This is a perennial complaint of Brazilian progressives: When Brazil does well in soccer, the downtrodden masses get caught up in an empty, albeit alluring, euphoria; as a result, corrupt officials and special interests take advantage of the festive mood to further exploit, rob, and defraud the public. A poor performance, on the other hand, might serve as a wake-up call: Brazilians, you have nothing to lose but the World Cup and your chains!
Now that only Germany stands between Brazil and a fifth World Cup championship, even the professorial sourpusses are giving in to enthusiasm. But the facts actually bear their theory out: For the past few months Brazil's economy has been in crisis, with interest rates soaring, the currency losing nearly 25 percent of its value, and international investors warning of a meltdown if the "wrong" candidate wins the 2003 election. And what was the lead headline last Tuesday? "Ronaldo's foot still hurts, but will play against Turkey." (He ended up scoring the winning goal.)
Wall Street's "wrong" candidate for Brazil is Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, aka Lula, the honorary president of the PT (Workers' Party), the current leader in the polls, and the politician with the most to lose if Brazil wins the World Cup. Lula is the living embodiment of the Brazilian left: In the 1970s, he led the ABC Metalworker's Union, whose illegal strikes and clashes with both the police and the army were instrumental in bringing down the military dictatorship that had ruled since 1964. One of the co-founders of the PT, in 1986 he was elected to Congress, and when the country held its first direct presidential election in 1989, he ran as the PT candidate. Despite a big early lead (about the same size as this year's), he ultimately succumbed to a ruthless media smear campaign by his opponent Fernando Collor. This pattern has more or less repeated itself in every election since then: Lula starts strong, with a broad base of support that slowly dwindles until the election, in which Lula gets a plurality but not a majority. In the second round run-off, with all his opponents allied against him and with voters getting cold feet, Lula chokes.
So where do Ronaldo and Rivaldo fit in to this picture? Well, when Lula gets close to winning, and the powers that be close ranks and conspire to ruin his chances, it can go well beyond mud raking. It can mean anything from sowing fear among a poorly educated populace that Lula's agrarian reform policy will mean the end of private property to illegal police action against important PT allies such as the MST (Movimento dos SemTerra, the Landless Laborer's Movement). The dishonesty of such conniving doesn't easily register with an electorate in the midst of celebrating a World Cup victory, though the fearsome specter of economic and social chaos that it raises -- just when we were enjoying ourselves! -- probably will.
This time around, the connivers are having a particularly easy time of it. Last April, in direct response to Lula's success in early polls (above 40 percent of the popular vote, among five candidates), a number of international investment banks, led by Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, began downgrading Brazil's investment ratings. These banks made numerous public statements to the effect that Lula's election would cause a major pullout of foreign capital; before long the country's bond classifications were following Lula's poll results on a near-daily basis. By the end of May, country risk (a measure of the perceived possibility of a debt default) was at record levels, the real was in free-fall, and the central bank was intervening to stop a run on dollars. Lula contends that this crisis, or at least its timing, was intentional: President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, not without friends in Brazil's central bank, wants to see his successor, José Serra, elected, and now regularly speaks of "continuity and stability" as the only way out of the mess. On the international level, Lula justifiably complains that these banks have irresponsibly meddled in a sovereign nation's democratic process. Certainly no time to snooze, politically speaking.
And yet, with the real falling even as I write this, it's no surprise that Brazilians might forget their problems and let themselves be seduced by futebol fever. If Lula ends up losing, the left will blame the Cup, especially if Brazil actually wins it. But Lula has a tough fight ahead anyway: Despite his efforts to de-radicalize his rhetoric on the external debt and calm industry's fears -- efforts that have cost him the opprobrium of the hard left -- the banks have stayed skeptical and have, with the help of Cardoso and the mainstream Brazilian media, done a good job getting across the idea that this spring's crisis is just a foretaste of what will happen if Lula wins.
All of which leaves progressives in a tough spot, rooting-wise. In the end, however, few can hold out against national pride, glory, and the dexterous charm of Brazil's players. Even if it ends up crying for Lula, the left knows that a win would be wonderful. Brazil is already the most successful World Cup team in history; a fifth championship would be unheard of. And they've earned it: The team that nearly failed to qualify last fall just put away England, which had been a major favorite. Important national sentiments come into play here, and rightly so. Brazil is in some ways a frustrated country -- frustrated by problems of crime, poverty, and corruption, but mostly by the mediocre results from its 50-year-long campaign to industrialize and modernize itself. It is not confident in its technological, organizational, or even creative capacities: an imported product is usually better than a domestic product.
But soccer is one thing that Brazilians do as well or better than any other country in the world. It is their gift. And not everything about celebrating that gift, while the entire world watches, is frivolous or irrelevant. Nations do not live on GDP alone. To be successful, they need mythical self-images; they need to believe that they are destined for greatness. Success at soccer may not translate directly into success in the global economy, but it gives Brazilians a strengthened sense of their own national identity, and that, ethereal though it may be, is no wooden nickel.
As for justifying my own confused loyalties, I realize that the danger of a soccer-numbed U.S. populace is remote, and it's hard to imagine us lulled into letting Bush get away with much more than he already has. Not even the NBA Finals or the Super Bowl elicit the sheer passion and giddiness that the Cup produces in Brazilians, a kind of national exaltation and sense of purpose that Americans seem to feel only when we are carrying out military aggression overseas. In the end, I guess I rooted against the states in soccer because our imperial might in everything else would make a victory seem almost ugly.
But who I'm really rooting for is Lula, and whoever has the guts to challenge Bush in 2004. Both the United States and Brazil are living moments of semi-willful political blindness, deeply tied to feelings of patriotism and the need to prove one's mettle -- the streets and windows of both countries are literally littered with flag paraphernalia -- though for two different reasons. "We are at war!" is to us what "We are in the World Cup Final!" is to Brazil: a real impetus for feelings of national confidence and unity -- fine things in and of themselves -- that trumps important domestic concerns and provides an opportunity for those in power to carry out undemocratic, possibly unethical programs that might otherwise not be tolerated. But neither wars nor World Cups go on forever. When the smoke from the bombs and the firecrackers clears, it will be time to pull down some of the flags and banners and ask our leaders just what's been going on.
