Football is more than a national passion: it is a global passion! Although we Brazilians wanted football to be a national invention, the merit of its creation belongs to England. This sport took on its modern forms in the late 19th century.
In Brazil, football has established itself as a sport for the masses: although there were elitist teams, the vast majority of football teams remains to this day, formed from groups of workers or students who gathered to “play ball” in the field of your neighborhood.
A very interesting curiosity about national football is that the first organized fans that we know of were made up of an exclusively female group. It is the organized supporters of Atlético Mineiro, whose mother of one of the founders of the team, Dona Alice, manufactured little flags for the girls, accompanying their boyfriends or husbands, to go to the stadium to cheer for the Athletic.
Nowadays, the football scenario is not the same as in Dona Alice's time: football is highly professionalized. Smaller clubs have become big companies that profit significantly from the sale of players in the youth categories. Bigger clubs do the same, but with an added bonus: they sell superstars at very high prices and put younger players in their place, so that they also become superstars. This mechanism provides feedback to the football industry.
Technological development also accompanies this entire process: new materials are developed, increasingly resistant and flexible, for football boots; lighter materials that help body breathing during matches; and balls that, increasingly, reduce their friction with the field. Even these equipments have become “stars” of contemporary football, just look at the case of the ball made especially for the 2010 World Cup, hosted by South Africa: the Jabulani. That's right: the ball manufactured by Adidas even gained a name, personifying an object of composition of the sport.
Do not stop now... There's more after the advertising ;)
The result of this process becomes clear when we hear older people, such as our parents or grandparents, say that football he is no longer the same, and that in the past, he played with love for his team's shirt, and not for the high salaries paid nowadays. However, what they forget is that almost 90% of Brazilian professional players receive salaries derisory, and that these, even though they aim to earn a very high salary, do play for the love of soccer.
Apparently at least, it doesn't matter how much football is made up of contradictions: it attracts the masses from all over the world like no other sport does.
By Paula Rondinelli
Brazil School Collaborator
Graduated in Physical Education from the São Paulo State University “Júlio de Mesquita Filho” – UNESP
Master in Motricity Sciences from the São Paulo State University “Júlio de Mesquita Filho” – UNESP
Doctoral Student in Integration of Latin America at the University of São Paulo - USP
