Opinion – PVC: Violence occurs in stadiums, as in many other corners of Brazil

Brazilian stadiums recorded a night of love and terror on Wednesday (13). Maracanã received the second largest audience of the year, with 68 thousand spectators for Flamengo 2 x 0 Atlético-MG. Outside, the Minas Gerais team bus was stoned, two uniformed Galo fans fought, and there was a commotion at the entrance.

The classic Ceará 1 x 0 Fortaleza took 48 thousand fans to Castelão. Hours later, the cameras showed fireworks thrown at the Vila Belmiro field, to hit goalkeeper Cássio, from Corinthians, also the target of a cowardly attempt at aggression in the back, by an alleged Santos fan.

For some time, it has been demanded that football presents itself as a victim of violence, instead of letting itself be seen as the villain of the barbaric scenes, which it has not been able to get rid of for decades.

In the last two years, however, officials have tried to push the limits of the pandemic, which has produced repeated comments that the sport cannot behave like a bubble.

It cannot and it is not.

Violence takes place in stadiums, as in many other corners of this Brazil where a party leader is murdered on his 50th birthday in the name of electoral fanaticism.

In a place where violence is defended on candidate platforms and government speeches, football is not really a bubble.

It is sad to realize that, at a time when the highest average audience in stadiums of the last 40 years can be recorded, conflicts are once again part of the news, just as they were song lyrics in the late 1980s, a period for the which we seem to return. “Another fan fight, everything ends in confusion”, sang the Titãs, in “Desordem”, by Marcelo Fromer, Charles Gavin and Sérgio Britto.

“Jesus has no teeth in the land of the toothless” was the name of the record.

When did this toothless land become so eager to bite its imaginary enemies? When did we become this place so violent?

This question seems to have an even optimistic tone, when answered by more realistic people, with the notion that we have always been like that, bellicose.

The same country that killed Marielle Franco is that of the murder of Marcelo Arruda, that of the attempt on Carlos Lacerda and that of the murder of Vladimir Herzog. Whether you’re on one side or the other of the ideological spectrum, you’re sure to be against any of these displays of anger.

Just as a sane fan has already seen the opponent’s bus arrive at the stadium and sketched, at most, a boo. Or he shouted his team’s name, rooting for the failure – not the death – of his rival.

Football is not a bubble, and, no, that cannot be the reason to passively accept a coward trying to attack the Corinthians goalkeeper, just for rooting for Santos. He could have a knife in his hands, like the one found on the lawn of Arena Barueri, in a semifinal of Copa São Paulo de Futebol Júnior, in January of this 2022.

Football has always been one of the reasons to make us smile, and we will hope that it will happen again after the elections, in the World Cup where Brazil will play as a candidate for the title – no longer as a favorite.

Today, full stadiums even give an outline of the old country of football, sung by Wilson Simonal and Milton Nascimento, on the eve of the 1970 World Cup, at the height of repression and torture by the Medici government: “Brazil is empty on Sunday afternoon, right? ? Look at the sambão, this is the country of football”.

Now we have stands full of people cheering for the success of their teams and for us to come out of this immense period of darkness intact.