Life Imitates Soccer

Oscar Wilde, the famous Irish writer, once said that "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life." I am not sure if I am in agreement with him, but who I am to judge? Wilde felt that he belonged to a culture of male love inspired by a certain Greek tradition, and if I know one thing, it's that gay guys and Greeks know a lot more about art than me. Now while I myself would never consider soccer "art," at least not in the classical sense, there are some parts of the world where this argument has been made. This loose connection between soccer and art came to me one day while watching a Brazilian league game. The realization occurred suddenly and I could only think of Wilde's famous quote, only in a slightly different sense. I realized with absolute clarity that in Brazil, life is simply imitating soccer. Allow me explain. As opposed to popular belief, Brazilian soccer, especially the league soccer which is what I was watching at the time, is really a mess. There is shockingly little organization. I strongly prefer to watch England's Premier League, which is heavy on tactical organization, teamwork, passing, etc. As I was watching the Brazilian game, I realized that the teams had none of the traits that I love about English soccer. It's because Brazilian soccer is the total opposite. Basically, it's just a bunch of guys doing their own individual thing with zero planning, yet every once in awhile something beautiful will happen. And that's when it hit me. Life in Brazil is exactly like the game they love. Everyone is sort of doing their own thing while running around somewhat aimlessly. Their is very little strategic planning and absolutely zero organization. Each person happily keeps the "ball" for himself to show off his individual skills. In order to get the "ball" for yourself, you might have to do something "dirty" to get it. And if that doesn't work, you can always fake it by acting like you just got stabbed in the leg by a pitchfork and hope that the ruling, if you will, goes your way. Yet, every so often, a few magical things are strung together and there is an undeniably beautiful result, usually at the very last minute. Is this not life in Brazil? I say yes, and thus I believe in the following: in Brazil, life imitates soccer....

As the World Cup nears, it's interesting to follow the preparations. Not surprisingly, things are already far behind schedule and over budget. The stadium in São Paulo, which is set to host the opening game, still has no approved project and initial estimates put the price at THREE times the original estimate. They are even building a stadium in a city where the only local team plays in the D League. That's like if the NFL decided to build a stadium for the Super Bowl in Albuquerque. Sure, people will go there for the Super Bowl but what the hell are you going to do with the stadium after it's over??? Even the soccer legend, Pele, is worried saying "Brazil is running a great risk of embarrassing us in how it runs the World Cup." Many friends and family members from home have asked me if I think the country will be ready by the time the WC arrives in 2014. It's kind of like asking if I know what Apple's stock price will be in a year from now. I just don't have a clue. What I can say is this. I think many people will be shocked by the infrastructure, or lack thereof. Most people think that the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) are on the cutting edge because of how fast they are growing. That couldn't be further from the truth. The countries are growing so fast that it's impossible to keep up, and it doesn't take much at all to get reminded that these are still third world countries. I was in São Paulo last week and was astounded by two things, the traffic and disparity in wealth (as is typical in emerging countries). In one area I saw 20 new buildings being built at least and not a single new road being built all while sitting in bumper to bumper traffic in the middle of a Saturday. As for my hotel, it was located a block away from an area with more prostitutes than Charlie Sheen's tour bus. On top of that, not once but twice was I in a taxi where we were approaching the hotel (I'm talking 10 seconds away) only to arrive 30 minutes later because the taxi drivers got lost right before the final turn. It wasn't that the taxi driver was trying to screw us. The roads area literally that confusing. We had to break out the GPS to find our way back. On the upside, I saw a lot of hookers. After four days of non-stop work and the stress of the São Paulo logistics, we were all dying to go home. After our final taxi ride (of which we had to take two taxis at R$80 each because it's illegal for a taxi to take 5 people - you can snort heroin on the sidewalk but 5 people in a taxi? Absolutely out of the question!), we arrived at airport to a scene that was not unlike what I imagine JFK airport looked like on 9/11. I was absolutely shocked as I had never seen such chaos in an airport in my life. There were hundreds of people shuffling around fighting for space as lines were disregarded entirely and any semblance of order was thrown out the window. I was certain that we would not get out of there for hours, if not the next day. I was already evaluating the shady hotels across the street for our night's accommodations. Somehow, our manager talked to one person, then another, and then amazingly arrived at the ticket counter within 5 minutes (I knew she was a good hire!). She then brazenly called us to the counter. With several bags full of the traditional franchise fair leftovers (flyers, manuals, business cards, etc.) and a trail full of angry people, we incredibly made it to the front. To this day I don't know what happened but somehow we were changed to an earlier flight and were politely asked to get the hell of out there and on to the gate by the check-in attendant. I was in no position to question her authority. After the security screening, which I love because Mr. T could walk through without the sensor going off, and the traditional bus ride to the plane (passenger boarding bridges have apparently yet to arrive in Brazil) we were comfortably in our seats and on our way. It took me a few minutes to digest what the hell just happened and only one thought came to my mind: in Brazil, there is always hope....

You Might Be A Brazilian If...

- you eat chocolate pizza
- you wait in line for half an hour to pay your electricity bill
- you say "eu já estou chegando" (I'm about to arrive) but know that you'll really be there in about 45 minutes
- you've never bothered to set up your voice mail on your cell phone
- you've watched the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show and recognized three girls from your high school
- you meet someone new and immediately send them a friend request on Facebook
- you consider getting home at 4AM an early night
- your girlfriend calls and immediately hangs up....not because she's mad but because she wants you to call her back so she doesn't have to pay for the call
- you think David Guetta is a God
- it takes you 15 minutes to get of the phone with someone: tudo bem, combinado, obrigado, falou, até mais, tá bom, tchau, beleza, abraço.......
- you wear high heels to the mall
- you carry around more than one cell phone
- you have a wallet the size of a notebook with enough documents to authorize a space shuttle launch
- you eat chicken hearts regularly
- you've ever been hammered and crashed your car and decided to just leave it there and took the bus home. Upon entering the bus, you started to hit on a group of girls on the bus and even invited them back to your house in Jurerê, only they didn't believe you had a house in Jurerê because, well, you were on the bus....
- you consider drinking in the parking lot a "pre-party"
- you have ever been making out with a girl at a club, looked away for 15 seconds, and then turned back around to find that she was already making out with someone else
- you think Jesus Luz is a real DJ ;)
- eating sushi in a cone (temaki) is a part of your daily diet
- you've ever traded your house for an apartment, a car, a surfboard, and tickets for the next David Guetta show
- you think Kim Kardashian's ass is too small
- your idea of catching up on today's news is logging on to MSN chat
- you wear a banana hammock to the beach
- you can sing every word to Moony's "I Don't Know Why"
- you think Lionel Messi should die a slow, painful death
- your idea of dating is meeting a girl at the night club every Saturday
- you've received 15 Facebook invites this week and they are all for parties
- you've ever heard a cop say, "don't tell me the girl who hit your car is drunk. She'll lose her license and her insurance won't be able to pay for the damage to your car."
- you've ever bought gum for the sole purpose of re-attaching camarote (VIP) bracelets to get your friends into the camarote
- memorizing pi would be easier than memorizing the passwords for your online bank account
- your local supermarket charges 15 reais for Heinz ketchup
- you have ever had dinner at the gas station
- you have ever bought a pair of shoes and paid for them over a twelve month period
- your Dias dos Namorados (Valentine's Day) date includes a stop at a motel that charges by the hour
- you're starting to go deaf at an early age most likely because you have been listening to hard core house music since you were 12 years old
- you know what Orkut is
- you can successfully online chat with 15 people at the same time
- you drive like an absolute maniac but yet randomly stop to let oncoming traffic take a left to help ease traffic
- you have ever driven to a party in the middle of the jungle two hours away in a car full of people and never heard one complaint