Marina Izidro: Will you wear the national team shirt after the elections?

The other day, my former student called me. She is American and continues to live in London after finishing her Masters in Sports Journalism. The reason for the call had to do with Brazil. She was writing a report for a university in the United States about the relationship between the Brazilian soccer team and the presidential election on the eve of the World Cup.

We talked for a while, and she told me that she saw the video of Neymar supporting Jair Bolsonaro (and that’s part of democracy, it’s only difficult to detach politics from the national team when the team’s star publicly defends Bolsonarism). I said that a lot of people I know have lost identification with the team or don’t want to wear the Brazil shirt for fear of being associated with an ideology they don’t agree with.

This American is one of several people who ask me here in England about the elections. The world is following with curiosity – and apprehension – what will happen on Sunday (30).

This week, The Athletic published the article “How Brazil’s extreme right ‘kidnapped’ the most famous shirt in the world”, which includes statements by Walter Casagrande, a colleague at Folha.

Two weeks before the start of COP 27, the UN climate conference, Sky News, the main British television station alongside the BBC, went to the Amazon to show the scale of illegal deforestation.

Tuesday’s editorial (25) in the journal Nature, one of the most relevant scientific publications in the world, says that “a second term for Bolsonaro represents a threat to science, democracy and the environment” and that “the last four years of Brazil are a reminder of what happens when those we elect dismantle institutions designed to reduce poverty, protect public health, advance science and knowledge, protect the environment, and defend justice and the integrity of evidence”. “Brazil’s voters have a valuable opportunity to start rebuilding what Bolsonaro demolished. If Bolsonaro has four more years, the damage could be irreparable,” he adds.

These are not reports created by WhatsApp’s uncle, but by vehicles that carry out extremely serious professional journalism, invest in data checking, consult respected experts, investigate on the spot.

I wrote a column in June about how in England, in the 1980s and 1990s, far-right football groups such as the English Defense League tried to appropriate the Saint George’s Cross – from the English flag – using it as a political symbol. Recently, supporters of Brexit were accused of associating the good phase of the men’s team with the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union, and former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, of riding the wave of success at the Eurocup by going with the England shirt to the final at Wembley.

At the end of our conversation, my student asked: “After the elections, if Bolsonaro loses, will Brazilians wear the national team’s shirt during the World Cup with more tranquility?”. “Um… I think, I hope so,” I replied, not sure. It’s a shame that sport, which manages to awaken in us Brazilians our sense of national pride, has been mixed up with a toxic political war. But, as the English did, there is time to rescue our symbols. It always does.