A Touch of Brazil
by rick olivares
Alcides G.R. Prates is a career diplomat. He’s served as the Brazilian Ambassador to a number of countries including Italy, Switzerland, Russia, Vietnam, and now, the Philippines.
During one engagement at a university in Hanoi, a student asked, “Tell us more about Brazil. We only know about three things – football, the carnaval in Rio, and the foreign debt.”
Prates smiled and in a self-effacing manner deadpanned, “Then you know everything you need to know about my country.”
The assembly broke out in laughter.
Prates grew up in Porto Alegre, the southernmost city that is on the border of Argentina and Uruguay. It is home to two football clubs – Gremio and Internacional. “Porto Alegre” means “merry harbor” in Portuguese and along with football, in many ways, it sums up what the world’s fifth largest country is all about.
In 140 years, Brazil has not been involved in any armed conflict with its 10 neighbor countries. For a nation that is passionate about its football teams, they have never had a “football war” in the way Honduras and El Salvador have fought in after a series of matches inflamed already smoldering tensions between the two countries.
Images of the carnaval, bossa nova and the samba, as well as the laid back and somewhat glamorous life of Copacabana are indelible images of the nation and its people. And there is the sheer joy of which Brazilians play the game of football.
Prates loved football as a kid and he still does. After all, if any Brazilian didn’t love or play the sport, it was deemed that there was something wrong with them. He played it yet he admits that he wasn’t particularly good. “What mattered was I played,” he recounted. While stationed in Vietnam, he organized pelada matches (pickup games) with fellow European diplomats. “But now I’m retired like Pele. My brother who is a doctor advised me to quit football since he believes it is not good for my health at this age. I also had to quit tennis as, because of my many duties, cannot play it regularly. Now I do the treadmill and ride my bike.”
Entering a career in the Foreign Service was something that appealed to him as a youngster. He took up law but decided that the Foreign Service was a good career for him and a chance to see other countries. “Some people never go out of their country. For me, living in Porto Alegre, when you cross the border to Argentina, they speak Spanish. A step back inside, its Portuguese. “Two worlds that are similar yet different, no? I asked myself, ‘What else is beyond our borders and our continent? I wanted to know and see for myself.’”
Like every other diplomatic station, it is the ambassador’s duty to know more about the country he is assigned to. He promotes his country’s culture and fosters relations that can be mutually beneficial to nations. Yet for Ambassador Prates, football is never too far from his world.
He was assigned to Rome at the time when Paolo Rossi famously scored a hat trick during Italy’s 3-2 beating of Brazil during the 1982 World Cup in Spain. The Seleção of that year had its brilliant trio of midfielders in Socrates, Zico, and Falcao but they crashed out of the competition.
It was like a wake not just at the Brazilian Embassy but also throughout the South American country. “It was a disaster,” confirmed Prates who still cringes at the memory.
However, the times have changed for Brazil. They’ve been blessed with good governance and that is saying something in a region known for tin-pot dictators and military juntas. Recent policies and programs as well as poverty reduction schemes have ushered in an unprecedented economic boom. They have repaid their debt to the International Monetary Fund a year ahead of schedule. And now, it is predicted that in a few years’ time, they will be a leading economic power (not that they aren’t now).
When the name Brazil comes up now, football and the carnival are still right up there. There has always been the samba, coffee, bossa nova, the Girl from Ipanema but now there’s Coelho, supermodels, Capoeira, Formula 1 drivers, mixed martial arts champions, a fledging aircraft industry, and billionaire tycoons.
And as a result of their newfound progress, most recently Brazil was awarded the right to host the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Even “the Beautiful Game”, an expression coined on Brazil’s expression “joga bonito”, has changed.
When the Seleção of 2006 in Germany were shamed at their own game by Zinedine Zidane and France, the team underwent a transformation from the free-flowing game that was espoused by Ronaldinho and Ronaldo to the more defensive game with lightning counter-attacks as espoused by Dunga who played in Brazil’s 1994 World Cup champion team (alongside Romario, Taffarel, Jorginho, and Bebeto).
Whereas before, teams were told not come home if they lost, Brazilians still feel bad but they know that the sun will come up the following day and there will be other competitions to win.
“Maybe it’s the way the world is now a smaller place with the Internet, global migration, immigration, inter-cultural dialogue, and people to people contacts.” opined Prates. “Now we have the means to understand each other a lot better.
He accepted the invitation from the South-African Ambassador to watch the 2010 World Cup opening ceremonies at the Hotel Sofitel last Friday, which he attended along with other members of the diplomatic corps and many other people.
“But the games in which Brazil plays I will watch at home with my family and some close friends. I’m superstitious when it comes to the Seleção.”
There was once this joke about Brazil that its citizens loved to tell: “Brazil is the country of the future and will always be.”
It’s not a joke anymore.
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