In Brazil, fans’ confidence in the team for the World Cup is not at its best, but Brazil still attracts passionate fans in many languages.
Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Haiti, Jamaica, Republic of Congo and even Vanuatu, a small island nation in the Pacific, have registered expressions of unconditional love for the Brazilian team.
In some countries, this passion competes for space with Argentina, replicating on other continents the traditional rivalry with Latin American neighbors – and holders of the 2022 Qatar Cup.
Much of this passion can be explained by the legacy of great Brazilian stars such as Pelé, Zico, Romário, Ronaldinho and Ronaldo, who placed the Brazilian team in a kind of Olympus on the pitch.
Danilo Ramos, from GEFuT (Study Group on Football and Fans), linked to UFMG (Federal University of Minas Gerais), says that both these stars and younger ones, like Endrick, help to share Brazil’s sporting culture.
“When we talk about Brazilian football, there is still this magic, that we have a different player, who will try a different dribble, who will try a magical move to save the team at the last minute”, says the researcher.
In Bangladesh, Daffodil University, in Dhaka, the country’s capital, decorated the campus with national team flags to celebrate the start of the World Cup, but Brazil and Argentina stand out.
The institution set up a big screen so that students, teachers and staff could watch the Brazil and Argentina games. The goals from Messi, the world’s top scorer in World Cups, drove the crowd organized to watch the match crazy.
In the country, fans also maintain active profiles with news about the team and game schedule. cbf.bangladeshofficial is one of them. The profile, which has 23.8 thousand followers and was created this month, presents itself as the “unofficial presence of the CBF in Bangladesh” and records the demonstrations of support for the Brazilian team in different parts of the Asian nation.
Ramos points out the effect of the dynamics of social networks on this foreign interest in Brazil and Argentina. Through them, information flows without borders. He also mentions the game broadcast model.
“Our main players are in the European leagues,” he says. “The Premier League is the most broadcast league in the world. People watch games in these leagues, create an identification and this helps them support the team they represent”, he states.
Messi and Neymar, two of the players most remembered by these fans, today play in the United States and Brazil, but both played for many years for European clubs, such as Barcelona and PSG.
In addition to Brazilian shirts and flags, Bengali fans take banners, sound cars and signs with references to the Brazilian national team to the streets on game days.
On Somoy TV, the Asian country’s television channel, presenters have been wearing shirts from teams in the tournament during the sports segment of the news, including Brazil’s.
Danilo Ramos, from GEFuT, also points out that in countries that recently became independent, such as Bangladesh (1971), there has not yet been time to create an identification with the national team.
The assessment is also valid for countries on the African continent.
The Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, is playing in this year’s World Cup, but in Lubumbashi, a city in the south of the country, Brazil shirts are seen among fans and on street vendors’ stalls, as shown by Alma Preta, an agency specializing in racial issues.
It is common for players born in Africa to migrate to Europe and naturalize in these countries, which weakens the process of identification with fans.
The Brazilian team occupied this “identification limbo” in other parts of the world as well.
In the Indian state of Kerala, Brazil fans occupy the streets with panels of the main players, such as Neymar and Vini Jr, from coach Carlo Ancelotti. The streets are decorated with green and yellow banners and Brazilian flags.
The Brazil Fans Kerala profile has existed for 15 years, created by Nazar Pattithadam, 44, to bring together the team’s fan base. This year, the group funded the production of a song to celebrate and honor the team. On Instagram, there are 156 thousand followers.
In Pakistan, the green and yellow stronghold – and sometimes also sky blue – is in the city of Karachi, the largest in the country. The Lyari neighborhood is often called mini-Brazil, but on social media it is possible to see that Argentina’s games also mobilize the neighborhood.
On the island of Vanuatu, green and yellow also took to the streets during a parade to celebrate the start of the World Cup a few days ago. Brazil was not the only one that attracted fans – there were also flags from France, Argentina, Germany and England.
There are also places where the Brazilian team is embraced as a second team, such as in Haiti and Jamaica. Reggae artist Blvk H3ro reported on the Favela Made podcast that, without Jamaica in the World Cup, the Caribbean island’s fans are for Brazil.
“When Brazil wins, it’s a whole day of celebration, we’ll see you there. We play football every day in Jamaica. [o Brasil] It’s the closest we identify with, it won’t be with the England team”, said the singer. Jamaica was an English colony and only became independent in the 1960s.
