We Breathe it since a very young age…
I got involved with soccer the day I was born. In Brazil soccer, or futebol as we call it, is in the air; we inhale it on our very first breath. As Pelé wrote in his autobiography Brazil is a country where if you see something rolling you kick it so it keeps rolling. If it is laying still you kick it so it starts rolling. If it is too heavy to move you go find something lighter, then you kick it…
I’ve played with leather balls, rubber balls, plastic balls, tennis balls, sock balls – no spelling mistakes here, socks filled with wet newspaper – squashed cans, rocks…you name it!
When I was little I played with Pelé. We – my brothers, my friends and I – would pass in front of his house on our way to play soccer on the beach in Santos, the town where I grew up. The already great, world famous Pelé would stop us and play for a little while on the pavement. Or he would walk by when we’re playing on the beach and play with us for a few minutes. We were naïve and simple: a bunch of kids having fun with the king, probably the most humble king ever.
By the time I was seven I saved money for 6 months to buy a leather soccer ball. Some 40 years ago a proper soccer ball in Brazil was expensive and for very few. It generated the expression “the owner of the ball” that’s used in Brazil to these days.
At that time the really great feeling wasn’t having a soccer ball but being able to play with the real thing. My first ball didn’t last very long, though. Playing on sand, cement and asphalt it had to be made of rhino’s leather to last. But I tried to make it last longer. Following the advice of the “experts” I got cow’s lard from the butcher and rubbed the ball with it so the stitches wouldn’t dry or rot. Oh, man! That brown, greasy thing was a thing of beauty for us, the stinkiest ball I ever had…
When I was around ten, which in Brazil means being a soccer veteran, we started a team on our street. Because I was the oldest, I became team manager, coach, doctor, and goal posts builder. Goal builder: One of my first failures in life. We bought pipes from a scrap yard to make our goals on the beach. Luckily we found out that the cross bar was too heavy for it’s length. Now, when I remember, it scares me to imagine a powerful shot hitting the “wood” and the heavy crossbar falling on a kid’s head.
I was also in charge of getting us “uniforms”. Well, cheap T- shirts with numbers on the back – my second huge failure! No, I’m not depressed about it. It’s just funny to remember. We understood really early that failing some, getting some right was part of life. For Brazilians life is not necessarily a looser/winner race. Don’t get me wrong; we hate to loose. In Brazil being second is as bad as being last. If your team manages not to be relegated at the last game there is a party to celebrate. The second place gets nothing! But soccer has this amazing closeness to life that no other sport has. It’s an unpredictable game. You try several times and never know if you’re going to score. That’s why a goal is so exhilarating. It’s, as in life, a coronation of several failed attempts.
Throughout my childhood we kept playing. On the beach, on the streets: ” Car coming, car coming! Stop the ball! Miro, move your goal posts (his slippers)! Frankie, don’t move ’til the car passes or I’ll kick your butt, little cheat!” We, a bunch of neighbors, lower to middle class kids, united by a passion that would grow up with us.
Sandra, the only girl I saw playing soccer for years and years, once beat little Frankie so hard we almost felt sorry for him. Almost…She threw him on the ground, punched him in the face a few times and filled his mouth with as much sand as she could. He was so ashamed we didn’t see him for 3 days! He thought that, being the smallest kid on the group; she – the girl – was the only one he could stand up to. She was a source of wonder for us. Bike stripped of silly accessories, pedal breaks, played soccer – starting right side mid – and she beat little Frankie fair and square!
At age eleven a started playing “futebol de salão”, literally, court soccer. A game that would become the futsal we have nowadays. Paulo Miraylesku and I, the only two “cariocas” (born in Rio) of the team, both goalies, both special: him, fast and good; me, fast and, well…kind of lousy. But I went on “goaling” for years: high school, university, even water polo!
One should wonder how, if I was not such a good goalie, I got to play the position. Easy, in Brazil if you are a lousy player you end up in goal. But not if you own the ball, the owner of the ball plays whatever position he wishes to. So I kept praying all my childhood that the owner of the ball would want to play goalie.
I also played left “ala” in futsal, left wing in field and beach soccer. Lefties are not such a common thing, you know, they don’t have to play so well:
- ” Can I play?”
- “Are you any good?”
- ” I’m a lefty”
- “Good, good! You’re in…”
The first time I broke my left leg – my third fracture in a row of 12 – I kept playing street soccer. The heavy cast on my leg, with its metal “stirrup” and tick rubber step made me the most feared defender in the history of Primo Ferreira Street! Straight after my days of glory were gone (the doctors removed the cast after just 30 days!) I went back playing futsal and wondered why my foot hurt so badly every time I kicked the ball. It took me years to realize that, probably, it had some thing to do with my just healed fracture…
It was in a game of futsal, that, already 30 years old, I tried a sharp pass while running, tripped over my left foot and had my twelfth fracture; a very bad one that left me crippled on crutches for 8 months.
I have even combined soccer and “rock climbing” in Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro – the biggest and most unfinished stadium in the world! A friend of mine and I, in a wonderful show of teamwork and acrobatics would climb from the lower cheap seats (so cheap you watch the game standing up – there are no seats! – with the field at your eye level) to the more expensive seats for a better view. Wednesday night Maracanã games; I’ll miss then forever…
Years later I moved to England, got saddened with their “Don’t juke! Kick the ball up front”; with the English five-a-side and their walls. My elder sons only wanted to play for fun, no space for my coaching. I became a mere spectator of it. Soccer went into a kind of limbo for years!
But soccer is like an old passion, a burnt out bonfire: it looks like just a pile of ashes, but if you blow upon it gently for a while, it starts burning all over again.
Sam Hassan
