The Power of Football!!

Iraq National Football Team

I never gave too much importance to football until I left Brasil. Over there, football is a good friend that visits you almost every day! You go out you see children playing football on the streets what is admirable to watch; you turn the TV on and there is a lot of programs about it and a lot of matches also; you go to the mall and football t-shirts are everywhere.

Football in Brasil is a national passion for sure and almost everybody is fan of one determined team even if this “one” has no great passion for football as my brothers and my father for example! We are Vasco at home!

My maternal grandfather was really crazy about football, being a support of the local team and a devote-aficionado fan of Vasco da Gama and almost all his grandkids inherited it from him!

Football has so much importance over there that if you are a huge enthusiast of the sport and start dating, it’s better asking your love-to-be about what team her/him cheers for or if could be a huge problem in a next national tournament! It can be possible, but for sure it isn’t an easy thing to date someone whose favorite team is your team archenemy!!

So, even though we have Pelé, Zico, Sócrates, Falcão, Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Kaká and so on, I guess Brasil and Brazilians didn’t get yet what football means in bigger picture. As I said, I just get that after living abroad! Those guys I cited above and much more, are not just football players! They have became celebrates worldwide, being Unit Nation’s ambassadors and they bring joy wherever they go!

Just peculiarities!
Pelé once saved a Brazilian reporter who was covering a war in the middle east and got, by mistake, in a prohibit zone. They, he and the soldiers, couldn’t talk to each other because of the language’s barrier and the Brazilian reporter was almost dead by them when he had the wonderful idea of screaming Pelé’s name! He was not just saved, but also the soldiers apologized, took him to a hotel in saved zone and then to the place he wanted to go previously!

I had some classmate in the US that never heard about Jesus Christ but they had a very good knowledge about Pelé, Zico, Sócrates, Falcão, etc…

So, I never thought about football in a way that I think today! Now I’m pretty sure that just football has the power and the magic to stop wars, to integrate and unite people as we could see in Iraq this weekend!

This Sunday in Iraq there were no divisions; it was a whole country with just one thought: celebrate the Asia cup! People came together with sparkling eyes, large smile on their suffered faces to rejoin the very exclusive and rare moment of pure join, of pure togetherness!

Under the baton of the Brazilian couch Jorvan Viera, Iraq won Asia Cup soccer final match against Saudi Arabia 1-0 at Gelora Bung Karno Stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia!

The feeling of a whole nation celebrating one unique thing is absolutely beautiful! As Vieira said the match in a press conference: “This is our target here, to bring something to the people of Iraq. We have seen photographs and TV pictures of how they are celebrating. This is worth more than any salary I could ever ask for.''

Football is that!! It is not just a sport, it has this power, the power of making people come together, the power of putting a smile on any children’s face, the power of making people forget for at least 90 minutes their suffering, the power of making a nation be united!

Every single child in this planet can be linking with something very simple: a ball! Give a ball to any child and he/she starts playing football. It’s unbelievable beautiful!!!

How many times I have seen children from different countries speaking football!! Football is also a way of communication, because of a very simple object…the round shape ball!!

The Asia Football Cup showed once again what I already knew… Football really has the power to unite!

Children playing football for the first time in Mozambique