On the birthday of the world’s greatest popular myth, Brazil couldn’t go wrong. Because if there is something that Brazil has, it is roots, black entrails, ancestral rites, welcoming of all diasporas, resistance and macumba. Brazil is blood, sweat and joy.
And Lula represents heartbreak, injustice, celebration, tireless love, defeats, but also the people who take to the streets to celebrate championships and carnivals.
How Diego was not going to put on that shirt once again, the shirt of all? Look if he wasn’t going to travel all over Brazil, as he did on the train to Mar del Plata to lead the No to the FTAA or to defend Cristina in moments of maximum weakness.
I can already see some people talking about how far-fetched my comparison is. Before them I justify myself by saying that both Luiz Inácio Da Silva and Diego Armando Maradona made millions happy; they made them forget poverty; they are hated by the upper classes; they resurfaced from their worst convictions and enjoy the love of the people.
Bolsonaro attacked the Brazilian identity, he encouraged those who feel otherwise, he fed a dream of other signs, a meritocratic, punishing, emasculated and demented dream. A sign of the times of the raging decadence.
Against all that, Lula went out onto the pitch, because in spicy matches the cracks are not erased. And it will surely be the last match, the most difficult one, on which millions and millions of Brazilians depend. Those whom neither the PT, nor democracy, nor fascism represent, who are beyond labels, who are the label itself, are Brazil.
As Diego is much more than a footballer, much more than the best player of all time, much more than the Saint of the Villeros, will he be the myth of a new world where the true guides emerge from the people?
It is 30 October. At 18.44 the vote count put Lula on top for the first time. For the rest of the match it was up to the whole team to defend the result, with the stands full to capacity and non-stop cheering.
