Opinion – Juca Kfouri: ‘The rematch of the fantastic quartet’

The passion for football contaminates people, sometimes without being noticed, sometimes because you work to contaminate them.

How many children will start rooting for Galo after the epic conquest of turning to Minas Gerais in Bahia?

How many people around the world support a club under the influence of their parents, an uncle, or a neighbor?

My father became a Corinthians fan thanks to a Portuguese neighbor, Mr. Antônio, who took him to the stadium and cursed the referee as soon as the whistleblower stepped onto the field.

“Thief! Thief!” shouted the Portuguese.

“But the game hasn’t even started”, the fans around him were startled: “It’s for Sabeire, it’s for Sabeire”, Antônio replied angrily.

Without anger, the old man left me Corinthians as a legacy, naturally.

I admit that I was less democratic and the four Musketeers I created adopted the team, say, of the grandfather.

Having a different team from the kids, I believe, changes the bond with football, because seeing them sad for a loss to my team wouldn’t be nice — and seeing them happy for a victory for their club against mine would be even worse .

That’s why he never gave the Corinthians shirt as a gift to a friend’s newborn son. I always gave my father’s team jersey.

I tell all this to explain the title of this column.

Luiza, my 16-year-old granddaughter, taken by one of her uncles (Felipe) to Itaquera for the first time in the victory against Athletico, has been going crazy for Corinthians, to the point that, on Wednesday (1), she sent me a zap: ” Giuliano trained today!”.

He continued: “His column title on Sunday: The Fantastic Four’s Rematch.”

In a hurry, she thought that the player’s return to training will be enough for him to play this Sunday (5) against Grêmio and has already taken for granted that Sylvinho will play him alongside Renato Augusto, Willian and Róger Guedes.

Then, the quartet, called by her “fantastic”, will beat Grêmio, condemn the team from Rio Grande do Sul to relegation and, thus, will avenge Fiel for the fall that happened in Porto Alegre, at the Olímpico stadium, in a 1-1 draw in 2 December 2007.

Luiza was then almost 3 years old.

The 2008 season seemed dangerous, because her maternal grandparents, São Paulo, residents on the same avenue as the Morumbi stadium, received her on Sundays, where the afternoons were festive during the campaign for the tricolor Brazilian tri-championship.

On Saturdays Luiza stayed with me and, fortunately, as Globo needed an audience, it started to broadcast the matches of Série B do alvinegro, never on Sundays, always on Saturdays.

Corinthians won game after game and, needless to say, I never explained to her the difference between the first and second divisions.

So it was possible to teach her to chant “here’s a bunch of crazy people”, just like that, in the singular, and win the dispute between her grandparents, also because her father didn’t let up.

It is this Luiza who today wants to determine the title of my column in this Folha, as if it were her school newspaper.

And, what is worse, or better, the grandfather obeys, even at the risk of losing his job.

Things that only football can do.

Lie!

Things that only voice can explain, something that when the rare reader and the rare reader know what it is, they will understand perfectly.

For now, just forgive this drooling grandfather —who doesn’t want Grêmio’s disgrace, just to see Luiza happy.