Brazil’s friendly victory against Egypt last Saturday was the team’s last game before their World Cup debut against Morocco. The friendly match generated a sporting debate on social media and WhatsApp groups, where Bruno Guimarães and Endrick’s goal were discussed, Marquinhos’ retreat that opened space for Egypt’s goal and also Rayan’s absence on the field even after his goal in the last game against Panama. The engagement during this last friendly marks a prelude to how Brazilians’ attention will be focused on the almost 40 days of the World Cup.
In the analysis of more than 100 thousand public WhatsApp groups monitored by Palver, it is possible to notice that for three hours after the start of the game all discussion about politics was reduced and lost attention. Looking at just the topics of politics and football in isolation, it is possible to measure how much attention users give to each topic every hour. On Saturday morning, Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro together accounted for around 86% of the groups’ attention, while the team occupied 14%. At 7pm, with the opening whistle, the situation was reversed and the selection jumped to 76% of mentions. Lula fell to 17% and Flávio to 7%. The total volume of messages doubled in one hour, with a decrease in political discussion and an increase in debate about football.
This pause in the discussion about politics lasted exactly as long as the game. At 11pm, politics regained the majority, with Lula and Flávio accounting for 66% of total attention. The following day, politics once again dominated the entire day, with the presidential candidates totaling between 75% and 86% in most hours. The World Cup opens the last cycle of massive attention shift before the party conventions, and the behavior of the networks during the game against Egypt suggests that this window of narrative pause will open with greater robustness during the World Cup.
The Brazilian team is the only one of the three centers monitored with more approval than rejection in the week’s aggregate, with 57% positive versus 43% negative in mentions with sentiment. Lula continues to have a structural rejection rate of 80%, with no relevant changes on game day. Flávio has 41% positive against 59% rejection, driven in part by the discussion about US tariffs and Pix.
The discussion about the selection had a complete focus on football and the events of the game. The dominant lines were Marquinhos’ retreat, the controversy over Rayan being left on the bench, Wesley’s departure after his injury during the game and the positive evaluation of players like Endrick, Bruno Guimarães and Raphinha. It was also possible to analyze that those who talked about football did not talk about politics, and those who talked about politics spoke less during the game.
The intersection between the worlds of football and politics is practically zero in the data. The analysis of the most active users of the week shows that the most engaged political activists do not invade the discussion about football. In other words, the discussion about the game was raised by other users, who are more interested in sport and are not as interested in politics. This shows that, at least in the last week, politics and football have not mixed. Furthermore, the general debate on politics was below normal during the game hours, which indicates that it was not just a substitution of topics, but that the more militant users talked less during the game minutes.
It is reasonable to imagine that the intensity of attention during the World Cup will be greater than what we saw during the friendly. Following this premise, the data suggests that the World Cup opens a political window for pre-campaigns. The capacity for political mobilization will be reduced, but at the same time there is space for pre-campaign communication teams to reorganize and better align the discourse. This could help, mainly, to reduce the pressure on Flávio Bolsonaro’s pre-candidacy, which has faced communication difficulties in recent weeks involving the audio with Vorcaro, Trump’s “Pix tariff” and, secondarily, the discussion about the end of the 6×1 scale.
Furthermore, the border between football and politics is maintained by the voter himself, who separates the universes without needing coordination. If any field seeks to politicize the World Cup, it will have to produce this politicization deliberately, against the inertia of an audience that intuitively separates the two spaces. This risks reducing the window of attention created by the World Cup and could convert four weeks of massive attention both positively and negatively, and define the start of the presidential race.
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