Thiago & Dilma

Thiago & Dilma

Dr. Gilles Klein, 02 June 2017

  

Cafu

Sunday 30th June 2002. The final of the football World Cup is played at the Yokohama International Stadium, in Japan. The Brazilian Seleçao takes the match against the German Mannschaft thanks to two of Ronaldo’s goals. Marcos Evangelista de Moraes, nicknamed Cafu, team captain since 2001, lifts the cup. This is his third World Cup in a row, already having won in 1994. Cafu is an international Brazilian football player of the 1990s and 2000s. He counts numerous victories in Brazil with his São Paulo club, then in Europe where he clinched the most prestigious titles: Champions League and Clubs World Cup. He has been selected 142 times for the national team between 1990 and 2006. His exceptional track record makes him one of the best lateral defenders in football history.

Card

Friday 4th July 2014. One of the quarter-finals of the World Cup is played at the Governador-Plácido-Castelo stadium in Fortaleza in the State of Ceará in Brazil. In front of more than 67,000 spectators, the Seleçao wins the match against the Colombian Cafeteros, two goals to one. Thiago Silva, Seleçao’s defender, and captain, plays a determinative role in this quarter final. He scores first in the seventh minute. But in the sixty-fourth minute, he prevents the Colombian goalkeeper, David Ospena, from clearing his goal. The Spanish referee, Velasco Carballo, penalizes him with a yellow card. He is suspended for the semi-finals against Germany. The follow-up remains in everybody's minds.

Cap

On 8th July, at the Estadio Mineirão de Belo Horizonte, in the absence of Thiago Silva, suspended, and Neymar, injured, the Seleçao is crushed 7 to 1 by the Mannschaft. That match is the most severe defeat of Brazil’s history. Before, the Seleçao’s largest loss occurred on 18th September 1920. It was a 0-6 against Uruguay. The yellow card forced Thiago to watch the match from the stands. The fallen captain, white cap back to front on the head, can only watch the damage afflicted by Klose, Müller, Kroos, Khedira and Schürle. If Oscar does score in the last minute of the match, he doesn’t manage to cancel out the damage. Thiago tries to comfort David Luiz and his tearful teammates.

Tears

Some tears! For Thiago, they are not the first! On 28th June, in the round 16th against Chile, he burst into tears following the narrow qualification of the Seleçao’s. The one nicknamed “O Monstro" “The Monster”, a nickname that was acquired in his Fluminense FC training club, could he become a shadow of his former self? During this World Cup, the efficient defender, Brazilian goal bulwark, was far from monstrous. The journalist Rémi Dupré described him thus: “The elegant defender then appeared as a leader without charisma and deprived of courage, a falling off general at the first hurdle”[1]. “I am an emotive, and easily bothered (…) I have no problem with that on the field (…) contrarily it helps me”. Let us give him credit for this admission. Indeed, it would not be fair to imply that Thiago’s tears reveal a weakness, whether it is his or that of the team. Cafu, the 2002 valiant captain is his best lawyer. In 2015, during the year following the disastrous World Cup, this one who Thiago had dreamt to imitate said having great trust in him: “He has character. He is important for Brazil, with him we are good, there are no central defenders at his level”.

Defence

Yet Thiago did not raise the cup. Contrary to Cafu, he will not be elevated to the rank of national hero. Conversely, in the eyes of Brazil, he became the emblem, the symbol of the Seleçao’s historical decline on the field, during its World Cup. During this World Cup, Thiago embodied the profile of a defensive Seleçao, with little evidence of creative ability and deprived of geniuses in the front lines. Yet Thiago defends the defenders: « Before people only had eyes for Pelé, Garrincha, Zico, Zagallo and they did not talk about the Seleçao’s defensive sector (…) Today I am happy to see the reverse assumption because it is not easy to be Brazilian and to be recognized for his defensive power”. But on semi-final day, the defense conceded seven goals. These are seven defense failures, this weakness not having been counteracted by the attack which has also been particularly sterile that day. That day, we could only hope for an upsurge, even a resurrection. The small final against the Netherlands would decide for better or perhaps for worse.

Ole

That was the worst. On 3rd July 2016, Netherlands easily beat Brazil 3 to 1. That time, Thiago is on the field to bring stability in the defense along with his partner of the central defense, David Luiz. More than Thiago’s tears, his skill becomes his weakness. Outpaced by Arjen Robben on a flicked on through ball, he grips the winger on the edge of the box. The referee awards a penalty, converted by Van Persie. On the second goal, that time David Luiz makes the mistake. In the heart of the surface, his bad header relaunching deflected straight to the Dutch defender, up to the attack to challenge the Brazilian defense. The Brazilian public doesn’t want it anymore, doesn’t, can't take it anymore. Out of spite, this one greets each Dutch pass via a sardonic “Ole”. As though mocking the pole vaulter Lavillenie two years later, the Brazilian public doesn’t hesitate to mock his own champions.

Worst

It will be then the worst and above all the best. Never Thiago would not imagine it for his team and above all for his country. Indeed, he expected that the sporting success reinforces the political and diplomatic success of his country. Before the opening to the worldwide tournament, Thiago Silva insisted on clearly establishing this relation between sport and policy, showing his support to the Brazilian president Dilma Roussef, who ran an electoral campaign for a second term. He declares: “I think that Lula and Dilma initiated this evolution. Dilma had the competencies to follow up Lula, she had the competencies to pursue these changes. And I think that Brazil is with her because of each Brazilian wishes these changes towards the best and above all, not the worst”.

Campaign

Dilma Roussef, a faithful supporter of Seleçao, indeed planned to lean on the success of the latter to continue with a second presidential term. From Sunday 3rd July, the country hit the electoral campaign trail. A favourite in the polls, Dilma Roussef candidate of her own succession, is comforted by the ultra popular success of the World Cup. Highly criticized before the start of the competition, she progressed by four points during the World Cup, to achieve 38% of intended votes. During the competition, the Brazilians forget their complaints about the cost of the World Cup and for the improvement of the public services which they had powerfully expressed before the first matches. On Monday 2nd July preceding the final, she asserts: “I will present the Cup to the winner on Monday, I hope it will be Brazil”.

Illustration

Let us borrow Thiago’s words towards Dilma: “each Brazilian wishes these changes towards the best and above all, not the worst”. In a sentence, Thiago just summarizes the sport and political Brazil’s history. That is a story in itself, from 2002 to 2014, from Cafu to Thiago, from victory to humiliation, from Lula to Dilma, from a Workers Party (WP) adulated to a contested WP, from social promotion to charges of bribery. We shall avoid any functionalist shortcut[2] which would suggest that the success of a sports team is in a close relationship with the country development. However, the Seleçao and its staff’s failure, Thiago or Naymar, the slow reassessment of the governing party and its staff, Lula and Dilma, show that sport can be at some moments a revealing illustration of the situation of society.

Workers

Such as Cafu, with Lula, the Workers Party’s successes began in a stadium. Such as Thiago, with Dilma, the defeat has been shouted down, but that time in the street through massive protests. Brief return to the Workers Party’s policy which, from Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to Dilma Roussef, is reflective of the slow descent of the Brazilian football team. Let us start with Lula and his successes to better understand the Dilma’s failure and the Workers Party’s policy.

Lula 1

We are in 1979[3]. At the football stadium of the Vila Euclides neighborhood, the syndicalist leader Luiz Inácio da Silva, nicknamed « Lula », is acclaimed by a crowd of a hundred thousand workers. Thanks to an amendment of his political strategy initially founded on help to the poor, he invents a scholarly compromise policy. Building on the expansion cycle of the worldwide economy between 2003 and 2008 and the boom in raw materials, Lula leads an inventive but prudent policy. This policy combines poverty reduction and internal market reinforcement measures, without rushing the dominant classes interests or breaking with capitalism.

Lula 2

In 2006, Lula returned to power thanks to a different electorate. It is not only the middle classes that traditionally supported the Workers Party. It is the poorest who have been the main beneficiaries of “Lulism” social policies of the first mandate. Lula progressively loses the middle classes’ support which brings closer to the right of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party. In June 2013, just one year before the World Cup, some protests gather up to one million people in the major Brazilian cities. The Workers Party, in power since 2003, came to break the compromise which founded his policy.

Inequality

Within thirty years, “Lula” succeeded in getting around 40 million people out of poverty, from which he suffered himself, while seducing the powerful financial sector of the country. But this balance remained fragile. The statement is mixed. With Lula, the country registered evident social progress. However, if poverty has been reduced, it did not imply an inequalities reduction, insofar as Lula did not threat the powerful. “In 2012, Brazil was still one of the worst Latin American countries in terms of revenues distribution. 40% of the federal budget was cornered by the debt – largely internal and owned by wealthy families of the country – against around 4% for health, 3% for education and 0,70% for transports, all three among the main concerns of the June 2013 protesters”[4].

Capitulation

26th October 2014. The crushing Seleçao’s defeats did not have any influence on policy. Dilma Roussef narrowly wins the presidential election with 51,64% of votes facing to Aécio Neves, a candidate of the Social Democracy Party, holder of a more liberal economic policy. At the investiture for her second mandate, on 1st January 2015, she promises the return to economic growth in Brazil. Such as Thiago, it is the Dilma’s turn not to play the match expected by the Brazilians. It will not be a defeat but a capitulation facing the opponent. An assessment summarized by Breno Altman[5] thus: « Corruption, economically unfavorable context, popularity down... Confronted by multiple difficulties, the Brazilian president Dilma Roussef could have chosen boldness. She preferred to give way to the finance exigencies”. “Dilma surrendered facing the markets” summarizes, in turn, the economic daily newspaper Valor Econômico on 16th January 2015.

Crisis

Such as Cafu, Lula played and won a balanced match cleaning finances and implementing sized social programs. Dilma who played that card during her first mandate, this time will break the balance. It is true that since Lula the 2008 crisis changed the deal and mainly 2001 when its impact on Brazil was aggravated: demand decreases for raw materials, a turnaround in the trading balance, need to increase interest rates to attract capital, fall of private investment, stagnating growth and a plunge of tax revenues. For Dilma, the conditions are not met to reproduce the successes registered by Lula and by herself during her first mandate.

Banker

She appoints the banker Joaquim Lévy to the position of Minister of finances. He is a banker who wishes to cut off social benefits, notably employment insurance and reversionary pensions to retired. He is a minister who manages a reduction of expenses and public investments, including in the areas of health and education. However, the announced measures save the sector of finance and the richest Brazilians. The banker manages to preserve Lula’s policies, such as the salaries indexation law both on growth and inflation, as well as the programs for fighting against poverty, in which Bolsa Família. But the country will break with the balancing strategy between the economic and social dimensions of the previous decade.

Petrobras

For her second mandate, Dilma thus concluded agreements with the economic system and its forefronts, inside and outside of the country. She will then in a manner of speaking play and score against her camp. But Dilma will be overtaken by these affairs. Just before the World Cup truce, in March 2014, Brazilians discover the connivances between the national oil company Petrobras and the major companies of the building and civil engineering sectors and the suspicion of bribes paid to the main political parties, in which WP.

Impeachment

Dilma Roussef’s impeachment trial takes more than one year. On 15th March 2015, around five hundred thousand people protest in more than one hundred cities at the call of right organizations, such as Movimento Brasil Livre and Revoltados On Line. They demand the president’s impeachment. On 31st August 2016, the senators decide the effective impeachment of the president Dilma Roussef, a vote consistent with the wish expressed by 60% Brazilians in April of the same year.

Removal

2002. Victory for Cafu and Lula. 2014. Defeat for Thiago and Dilma. Some football players and political leaders illustrate twelve years of a slow descent of the Brazil team, but also the inexorable decline of the Workers Party. A man knew the two periods, moving from success to failure. Luiz Felipe Scolari, coach of the Brazilian team led the Seleçao to victory at the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea. Some hours following the end of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, the Brazilian press announced his resignation decided by the football federation and Dunga picked up the burden.

Next: 9 June 2017 – Risk and obviousness.

[1] Brésil 2014 : Thiago Silva, le capitaine qui a lâché la barre, Le Monde.fr, Rémi Dupré, http://lemde.fr/2pRyB9t

[2] The functionalist sociology observes societies from institutions insuring their stability and structuring the individual behaviours through roles and statuses.

[3] I take here inspiration from an article that reports the development of the Workers Party: David Estevam, 2013, Du Parti des travailleurs au parti de Lula Le Monde Diplomatique, July 2013, unpublished paper.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Breno Altman, Virage à droite pour le Parti des travailleurs, Le Monde diplomatique, April 2015, pages 6-7

  

  

  

  

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