Maceio

We´ve just spent the last three days living the Brazilian dream in Maceio. This basically involved, lying on the beach and swimming in emerald waters all day, playing football in the early evening while the sunset hung in the sky, then feasting on all you can eat bbq and dancing the samba until the early hours.

Finally, we managed to realise our goal of playing a proper game with the locals. Every night on the beach, teams of 5 or 6 would take their own mini-goals down to the shore and play until the light was completely gone.


Watching for a while we were a little in awe of some of the crazy skills on display, but playing in the games was a different story. Doug and I managed to hold our own, even earning the occasional cry of Beleza! (Beautiful!) when beating a couple of men. Unfortunately, since we were always on opposing teams, we couldn´t yet achieve our dream of beating the Brazilians at their own game.

Over the 3 days we also noticed another trend. While most of the players here had incredible individual talent, their understanding of the team game was sorely lacking. It becomes a little frustrating when your team mates try and beat everyman on the pitch to score a wonder goal every time they get the ball. This was most evident in the younger players in the game.

After chatting with the friendly owner of the local internet cafe, we discovered that the football infrastructure in the poorer North-East of Brazil wasn´t as good as that of their wealthier cousins down South. As a result, while kids were able to develop flair and ball-skills on the beach, this wasn´t consolidated by tactical knowledge and team work that players need to really make it as professionals. Perhaps this goes some way to explaining why the teams in the North of Brazil have been less successful.