Cesar dreamed he was at a barbecue and someone went out to buy beer. When he returned, the cans began to pass from hand to hand. “Gee, that’s the taste of the goal”, he thought.
At the age when his former colleagues are retired and inactive, Cesar Augusto da Silva Lemos, aka Cesar Maluco, dreams. At 76, he has a television show (which is also on video platforms, which makes him a YouTuber), plans a biography, had a bust of himself made to put in Palmeiras and, finally, is going to launch his own beer.
The slogan is the same one that came to his mind while he was sleeping: the taste of the goal.
“Nobody has the same taste. It’s just mine. It was a brewmaster from Londrina who made it”, he explains.
According to its partners, Fabio Caldeira and Mario Colombo, the expectation is to put the product on the market in about two months. It would not be the first such initiative. Other ex-players did the same, like Marcos (ex-Palmeiras), Vampeta (ex-Corinthians) and Aloisio Chulapa (ex-São Paulo).
“But mine is different. It’s beer for those who like to drink beer, not to collect”, he promises, referring to the value for the consumer. He considers that the others launched by former athletes are too expensive, with prices above R$20. His will go for around R$10.
Every day of the Palmeiras game, whether at Allianz Parque or outside, Cesar is in a bar on Caraíbas street, a few meters from the stadium, selling his beer. It’s a popularity test where he feels comfortable. People who have never seen him play, but know that one of the greatest idols in the club’s history is there, stop to chat and take pictures, chat and try the drink.
Dissatisfied with how today’s players have almost no personal contact with the public, Cesar Maluco recalls that everything he has done so far has been to maintain this closeness with the fans. True death is being forgotten, he says.
“I was a famous athlete. When I scored a goal, I looked at the fans from afar, from the field to the stands. After I stopped, I said to myself: these are my true friends. I go to events in the countryside, there are people my age who cry when they see me. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world”, he recalls.
Cesar Maluco (who once hated that nickname) scored 182 goals in 327 games for Palmeiras between 1967 and 1974. He is the second highest scorer in the team’s history, behind Heitor (323). He is also second on the list of top scorers in the derby, the classic with arch-rivals Corinthians, with 14 scored.
He was Brazilian champion in 1967 (twice, Roberto Gomes Pedrosa and Taça Brasil), 1969, 1972 and 1973. He won the Paulista in 1972 and 1974.
His old adventures through the night of São Paulo, accompanied by other players and journalists, became folkloric. In order not to miss training time in the morning, he would leave the club to sleep in the stands of the old Palestra Itália stadium. It is these stories, these subjects, that he shares with the fans who come to give him a hug and take a picture in the Caribbean, between a beer and another. He also repeats the explanations about why that beer has “the taste of the goal”.
“I stopped [de jogar] in 1979. From then on, there’s nothing else. All I had left was the affection of the fans. There are those who have stopped playing and continue to think they are a player, they want to stay away. It’s the fan who leaves the family at home, takes that little money out of his pocket and pays to see us. This is Love. The love they had for me I try to repay.”
To maintain this closeness, he also presents, comments and tells stories on “Cesar Maluco na Área”, a program broadcast weekly by TV Aberta, a community broadcaster in São Paulo, and available on YouTube. With the help of a journalist, he produced a biography that he still thinks about when it comes out (“there are a lot of stories”, he says).
His brother, the former player and artist Lemos, made a bust that he wanted to place in the tennis area of the social club, but which he now hopes to see installed in the Palmeiras trophy room.
“Am I going to wait for someone to do it for me? Not me. I went there and did it!”
Talking to Cesar Maluco is like listening to an endless arsenal of stories from the 1960s and 1970s. Not all of them publishable. Sometimes dispersed, he starts one, then amends another without finishing the first, but he loves having an audience, someone who listens and, above all, knows who he was: one of the greatest players in the history of Palmeiras.
“I had a very humble childhood. I rooted for Dida a lot. [meia do Flamengo, convocado para a Copa do Mundo de 1958]. She cried for Dida. So I know how fans feel when they have an idol. I hug, I’m comfortable. Getting a hug, signing an autograph, it’s beautiful,” he sums up.
This is the best explanation he can come up with when asked why he wants to launch a beer with his name and face on the label.
“Is there anything I still want to do with my life? Oh, yes. Give the fans some joy again. I have time. Age is nothing.”
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