Football is fun. The colors of Cameroon-Brazil

Cameroon-Brazil: color and warmth. Finally, one might say. Given the matches played so far, among fans paid by the hour who leave the stadium prematurely, others dressed in traditional clothes dressed up with various logos in an oriental-European style with a counterfeit flavor, tonight will be a challenge of authentic emotions. When African national teams play, a petition should be made to keep the fans in the stands for as long as possible. They are deeply happy. All time. Even when they concede goals. When I forgive. They dance like shamans in a trance, sway with bizarre and wonderful clothes and headdresses with the grace and pride of warriors in an ancestral savannah. They sing, cheer, laugh. Whatever they do it seems like all the cells in the body work together to amplify it, to carry that energy thousands of miles away. In short, you can feel that breath there, of the earth that moves us all together.

And then tonight Brazil takes the field. The result certainly matters. But what matters most is the fun, the show, the magic of the plays, the enjoyment of the public. After all, we are talking about the homeland of football, the cradle of so many talents that if we had to name them all from Pele to Neymar we would need a dictionary. In Cameroon too, football has a special place in people’s hearts. And I understood it when I happened to see the protest a few days ago at the end of the match against Switzerland. The reason? The author of the goal that decided the match. African fans demonstrated asking their federation to intervene “because for us football is a passion and we feel that we are losing our best talents”.

Destiny sometimes plays tricks: it was Breel Embolo, born in Cameroon but who moved to Switzerland with his family, to unlock the result in favor of the Swiss. For the first time at a World Cup we have seen a player not celebrate after a goal for his national team, sincerely regretted, for such a reason. The only precedent is that of Lukas Podolski who at the 2008 European Championships, where he wore the Germany shirt, had not celebrated the goal inflicted on “his” Poland. In the case of Embolo, the expression of the fan who, between childish disbelief and innocent bewilderment, wonders “what happened to him for choosing Switzerland”. In fact, we ask ourselves that too. Cameroon-Brazil we said: in both cases the link with one’s roots, culture, folklore, the land and the ball is something visceral.

Richarlison who literally detached himself from the ground projecting us into the dimension of dreams who – even if we hope to see other pearls of the kind – gave us what will presumably be the cover goal of Qatar 2022 against Serbia. A bicycle kick, with Brazil, at the World Cup. What can be added? It is the aspiration of every child in all fields of the world. An apotheosis, a swirl between heaven and earth, the regal power of the gesture that makes all possible words seem futile. And we Italians know it well. Since the most famous is that of Carlo Parola. Of all the plays, the bicycle kick was his masterpiece which the photographer Corrado Banchi, author of the successful and memorable snapshot of January 15, 1950, will make eternal iconographic symbol beyond all borders. The real consecration will come when the Panini family will use it for album covers and sticker packs: published in over 200 million copies with captions in Greek and Cyrillic, Arabic and Japanese, it is still today the reason why a child falls in love with football. Which for Brazilian footballers is not just a sport: it is a philosophy of life, a moment of madness, the hallmark of their temperament. The bicycle kick is a sudden coup de theater for those who, charmer of immense audiences, aim at the enjoyment of the spectators. Anyone who scores goals like this is brazen, careless, gascon. Borrowing the wonderful lines of the Brazilian poet Cacá Mendez, the upside down is a river of poetry / to hide the fish / that can swim without water.