Jesus Christ was full again in 2021. He won the Libertadores, the Brasileirao, the Copa do Brasil, the Paulista Championship, the Carioca, the Gaucho, the Mineiro, the Pernambucano… and now ‘la Copinha’ will win. No matter the team, the tournament or the category, in each title won, the champions attribute their success to God and Jesus (not the Virgin and the Saints) because he was the one who guided them and gave them the strength to lead them until the final victory. Until now, there has never been such intensity and standardization in the modulation of religious discourse.
Brazilian football has never been secular. All the teams finish their preparation with a motivational circle in the locker room praying an Our Father at the top of their voices, with a fervor, a passion and a rhythm that seems more like a song from the stands than a prayer. Here it doesn’t matter who believes or not. The point is that the evangelical crusade, which permeates all sectors of society, uses the visibility of the ball as a very effective vehicle for propaganda in its insatiable proselytism.
Different studies indicate that 30% of the Brazilian population is evangelical, in all its aspects, and it is calculated that, in ten years, they will surpass the Catholics. There are no polls, but in football there is already a majority, mainly neo-Pentecostals, who are one of the most loyal support bases for the extreme right of Jair bolsonaro and that they will play a key role in the presidential elections in October.
The so-called theology of prosperity captivates footballers. A doctrine that ensures that financial blessing (in an explicit defense of the values of capitalism) and success are consequences of a divine will. This postulate falls like a glove for athletes: if there is individual effort, determination, sacrifice, the reward will come. Therefore, all successes are dedicated to the Creator.
SOMEONE FOR THE EVANGELICAL TSUNAMI?
Nobody dares to confront the evangelical wave. And who does it, like the actor Paulo Betti, uses the worst possible example that ends up generating a boomerang effect. The playwright criticized “the blah-blah-blah about God” of the Palmeiras and Seleçao goalkeeper, Weverton (a fervent evangelical), after winning, in November, his second consecutive Libertadores. “That scene praying before the game started, reminded me of the goalkeeper Bruno (Flamengo), who prayed at the Maracana and later killed a girl and threw her to the dogs. It explains a lot what Brazil is & rdquor ;, he said Betti, that he had to apologize instantly.
The Athletes of Christ thing, which emerged in the 1980s, with Baltazar as one of its exponents, was something isolated, residual, almost anecdotal. The so-called ‘Artillero de Dios’, top scorer in LaLiga in 1989 with the At. Madrid and from the Second Division with Celta de Vigo, delivered a Bible to the central defender that covered him.
Marcelinho Carioca would arrive (who failed at Valencia), a cheeky man who celebrated the Corinthians titles with the “Jesus” in the head, after the generation of Pike, who established evangelical cults in the concentration of the Seleçao, and the blaugrana Edmilson… Y Kaka, who assured that he married a virgin to consecrate the marriage.
Neymar, number 1 in Brazil, originally positioned himself as an evangelical soccer player, celebrating his triumphs at Santos with the “100% Jesus” hair band, but he ended up boxing it, until he took it out in 2015, in Berlin, when he won the first and last Champions League on his CV with Barça. In this 2022, which will determine his career forever, he can appear again if he reaches his long-awaited second European center and the ‘Hexa’ in Qatar. Let no one doubt it.
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