Germany and Austria came in third and fourth. The Czech Nejedly was the leading scorer with five goals, followed by Conen from Germany and Schiavio from Italy with four apiece.
God and the Devil in Rio de Janeiro
One very rainy night while the year 1937 was dying, an enemy fan buried a toad in Vasco da Gama’s playing field and called down a curse: “Vasco won’t win a championship for the next twelve years! They won’t, if there is a God in heaven!” He was a fan of a humble team that Vasco da Gama had beaten 12–0; Arubinha was his name.
For years, fans and players alike searched for that toad on and around the field. They never found it. The playing field was so pockmarked, it looked like a moonscape. Vasco da Gama hired the best players in Brazil, put together sides that were veritable powerhouses, but they kept on losing.
At last in 1945, the team won the Rio trophy and broke the curse. They had not been champions since 1934. Eleven years of drought. “God gave us a little discount,” the club president commented.
Much later, in 1953, the team with problems was Flamengo, the most popular club not only in Rio de Janeiro but in all Brazil, the only one that is the home team wherever it plays. Their fans, who are the most numerous and fervent in the world, were dying of hunger. Then a Catholic priest, one Father Goes, offered a guarantee of victory as long as the players attended his mass before each match and said the rosary kneeling before the altar.
Flamengo won the championship three years in a row. Their rivals protested to Cardinal Jaime Câmara: Flamengo was using outlawed weapons. Father Goes defended himself claiming all he did was show them the way of the Lord. The players continued saying their rosaries of black and red beads, colors that are not only Flamengo’s but also those of an African deity who incarnates Jesus and Satan at the same time. The fourth year Flamengo lost the championship. The players stopped going to mass and never said the rosary again. Father Goes asked the Pope in Rome for help, but he never answered.
Father Romualdo, on the other hand, obtained the Pope’s permission to become a partner in Fluminense. The priest attended every practice session. The players did not like it one bit. Twelve years had passed since Fluminense had last won the Rio trophy, and it was bad luck to have that big black bird standing at the edge of the field. The players shouted insults at him, unaware that Father Romualdo had been deaf since birth.
One fine day, Fluminense started to win. They won one championship, then another and another. Now the players would only practice in the shadow of Father Romualdo. After every goal they kissed his cassock. On weekends the priest watched the matches from the box of honor and babbled who knows what against the referee and the opposing players.
The Sources of Misfortune
Everyone knows it is bad luck to step on a toad or on the shadow of a tree, to walk under a ladder, to sit or sleep backward, to open an umbrella indoors, to count your teeth, or break a mirror. But in soccer that barely scratches the surface.
Carlos Bilardo, coach of the Argentine team for the World Cups in 1986 and 1990, did not let his players eat chicken because it would give them bad luck. He made them eat beef, which gave them uric acid instead.
Silvio Berlusconi, owner of Milan, forbade fans from singing the club’s anthem, the traditional chant “Milan, Milan,” because its malevolent vibrations paralyzed his players’ legs; in 1987 he commissioned a new anthem, “Milan Nei Nostri Cuori.”
Freddy Rincón, Colombia’s black giant, disappointed his many admirers at the ’94 World Cup. He played without a drop of enthusiasm. Afterward we learned that it wasn’t from a lack of desire, but an excess of fear. A prophet from Buenaventura, Rincón’s home on the Colombian coast, had foretold the results of the championship, which turned out exactly as predicted, and warned that he would break his leg if he was not very careful. “Watch out for the girl with freckles,” he said, referring to the ball, “and for the one with hepatitis, and the one covered in blood,” alluding to the yellow and red cards of the referee.
On the eve of that Cup’s final, Italian specialists in the occult declared their country would win. “Numerous evil spirits from black magic will defeat Brazil,” the Italian Magicians Association assured the press. The contrary result did not add to the prestige of the profession.
Amulets and Spells
Many players put their right foot first and cross themselves when they step onto the field. Some go directly to the empty goal and kick one in or kiss the posts. Others touch the grass and bring their fingers to their lips.
Often you see a player wearing a little medal around his neck or a magic band tied around his wrist. If his penalty kick goes awry, it’s because someone spat on the ball. If he misses an easy shot, it’s because some witch closed the enemy goal. If he loses the match, it’s because he gave away his shirt after the last victory.
Amadeo Carrizo, goalkeeper for the Argentine club River Plate, went eight matches with his net untouched thanks to the powers of a cap he wore day and night. That cap exorcised the demons of the goal. One afternoon Ángel Clemente Rojas, a player for Boca Juniors, stole it. Without his amulet, Carrizo let two goals by and River lost the match.
A leading Spanish player, Pablo Hernández Coronado, says that when Real Madrid refurbished its stadium the team went six years without winning a championship, until a fan broke the curse by burying a head of garlic in the center of the playing field. Barcelona’s celebrated forward Luis Suárez did not believe in curses, but he knew that every time he knocked over a glass of wine while eating he was going to score a few goals.
To invoke the evil spirits of defeat, fans throw salt on the enemy’s field. To scare them off, they sow their own field with fistfuls of wheat or rice. Others light candles, offer the earth cane liquor, or toss flowers into the sea. Some fans seek protection by praying to Jesus of Nazareth and the blessed souls who died by fire, drowning, or losing their way. In several places Saint George’s lances and those of his African twin Ogum have proved very effective against the dragon of the evil eye.
Thoughtful gestures are appreciated. Fans favored by the gods crawl on their knees up steep slopes, wrapped in the team flag, or they spend the rest of their days whispering the million rosaries they swore to say. When Botafogo was crowned champion in 1957, Didi left the field without going to the dressing room and, still in his uniform, fulfilled the promise he had made to his patron saint: he walked across the city of Rio de Janeiro from end to end.
But deities do not always have time to come to the aid of soccer players tormented by misfortune. The Mexican team arrived at the 1930 World Cup overwhelmed by pessimistic predictions. Just before the match against France, Mexican coach Juan Luque de Serrallonga gave the players a pep talk at his hotel in Montevideo. He assured them that the Virgin of Guadalupe was praying for them back home on Tepeyac Hill.
The coach was not apprised of the Virgin’s busy schedule. France scored four goals and Mexico finished in last place.
Erico
During the Chaco War, while the peasants of Bolivia and Paraguay were marching to the slaughter, Paraguay’s soccer players were in other countries playing to raise money for the many who fell helplessly wounded in a desert where no birds sang and people left no footprints. That’s how Arsenio Erico came to Buenos Aires, and in Buenos Aires he stayed. Argentina’s leading scorer of all time was Paraguayan. Erico scored over forty goals a season.