Opinion – Renata Mendonça: Tite’s selection challenge in Qatar goes beyond hex

​I was 13 years old when I won the penta. The Cup that we got up early to see, there was even breakfast at school on game day in Brazil. It was the first World Cup that really impressed me, I remember every step the Brazilian team took until the final. I did see the tetra, but at the age of five, I have only vague memories of it.

Those were times when football, for me, was fun and that was it. I watched the games waiting for goals to be able to celebrate. From the 2002 World Cup, I can’t forget Ronaldinho Gaucho’s free kick, Ronaldo’s beak against Turkey and those two from Phenomeno against Oliver Kahn in the final. I didn’t have any knowledge at the height of my adolescence to do analysis, but, in my memory, that team played for music and marked my childhood football imagination.

Today, football has become, in addition to fun, a profession. And I came to see the game beyond the four lines. The complexity of this worldwide phenomenon that moves crowds far surpasses what happens on the field. That’s why, 20 years later, I come back to the World Cup with high expectations about what we’ll see from the Brazilian team on the pitch – and with even greater expectations about what we’ll see off it.

It’s always exciting to start a year of the World Cup, even though, for this one, we need to wait a few more months than we’re used to. The 2022 World Cup will be almost in 2023. And more important than when is to pay attention to where it will happen.

The debate over the controversial choice of Qatar as the host of the World Cup has been going on since 2010. FIFA’s confirmation at the time generated a lot of negative repercussions, as it is a country that denies rights to women and LGBT people, for example. There, a woman needs authorization from a male family member to study, travel, among other things. And being gay is simply against the law — it can even carry the death penalty. Not to mention the numerous allegations of slave labor in the construction of stadiums for the World Cup.

To hold the main sporting event in the world there is to give spotlight to all this nonsense. But if the main football stars will be there, if the eyes of the entire planet will be on Qatar, it is important that the protagonists of the show deliver the message. With and without the ball.

On the field, Tite’s team has already shown evolution, has an impeccable campaign in the qualifiers, the best defense in the competition and, if it still doesn’t delight in every game, it has the maturity to win matches when it’s not in its best days. Their last impression in 2021 was one of the best games of the post-2018 Tite era and against South America’s best opponents. It’s not a flawless team, but there will be time to fix them until November.

I confess that I care more about what the team will do off the field. I expect a lot from Brasil from Tite, Neymar, Thiago Silva, Marquinhos, Casemiro, there within the four lines, who knows, maybe even the hexa. But I expect even more from them after the final whistle. It may seem utopian, but in 2021 we saw a test of the athletes’ demonstration in the Copa America that allows me to dream.

They will be playing in a Cup (wonting it, who knows) in a country that forbids gays to exist, that arrests women for disobeying men. I once heard from Tite that he learned something his daughter, a sociologist, always repeats: “Silence confirms thought.” I hope you remember that in Qatar – just as I hope (and hope so much) that you achieve what we so long for there.