A day had already passed, but my astonishment at the parrot set up to call up the Brazilian team for the World Cup was still alive when a friend said: “It looked like Scaloni calling up Argentina in the last World Cup.”
I hadn’t seen that video yet. I suggest that anyone who was also shocked by what happened on Monday (18) at the Museum of Tomorrow watch it, but I describe it anyway.
Dressed in a national team shirt, Argentine coach Lionel Scaloni reads the 26 names on the list. He is leaning over a small table, where a notebook and a gourd of mate rest. In the background, a white board for tactical doodling.
After reading the chosen ones, Scaloni says a few words. “They are proud to be called up and wear this jersey. We hope you as fans are too. All together.” End. Everything lasts one minute – it’s not expression strength, it’s 60 timed seconds.
As we know, he and his players returned from Qatar with the world champions cup.
Even discounting the colossal discrepancy between Brazil and Argentina – very different countries, very different cultures and souls –, the contrast between the two episodes is embarrassing.
The millionaire circus of the Brazilian convocation at the museum in Rio’s port area, prepared by the CBF and its commercial partners, had theater and music presentations, masters of ceremonies, high-tech screens. There were also self-congratulatory speeches from the entity’s directors about a so-called “new CBF”.
The call-up of Neymar, an outlier in decline on the pitch, but still a commercial phenomenon off it, perfectly matched the extravagance. Ancelotti showed that he is not immune to pressure.
The final result is disheartening: a lesson in how to waste money, an immense commercial action in bad taste in which football seemed like a detail. For a team without a world title for 24 years, coming from the worst campaign in the history of qualifying, a real good advisor (not a good marketer) would recommend more discretion and less eccentricity.
Those who defend or minimize the circus will argue that it is inevitable to surrender to commercial and media demands. Bullshit. How exactly would any commercial gains from such an event help the team to focus on the essentials (winning the World Cup)? Whoever gives a convincing answer wins a (sponsored) round of poker with Neymar.
Or do Argentina and the other great teams in the world have no sponsors? And aren’t they also required, as products they have become, to position their brands? Of course, in all these countries there is a media circus, social networks, lobbies, the need for “engagement”, tacky advertising, etc. But they don’t usually feed all this gear at the same time in a call announcement because they are aware that everything has a limit. Or should have.
