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June 1, 2002
Walt Brasch
Crumpling the Constitution
May 31, 2002
Rev. Sandra Olewine
Land Grabs and Occupation:
Silent Destruction of Palestine
James Dunlop
Russian
Colonel:
"Insane But Fit for Duty"
Chomsky / Bennett
Debating "Terrorism"
May 30, 2002
Steve Perry
Jim Carrey:
"Love Me!"
Tom Turnipseed
Sex Among the Sacred
George Monbiot
Corporate
Phantoms
Web of Deciet over GM Foods
Robert Jensen
Are You a Journalist
or a Patriot?
Gary Leupp
Georgia
and the War on Terror
May 29, 2002
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Age of Inequality
Philip Farruggio
The
Cleaning Lady
Bill Christison
Disastrous US Foreign Policy:
Part 2, Globalization
May 28, 2002
Michael Leon
Lincoln
Brigades Memorial
Scott Lucas
Christopher Hitchens:
No Longer an Authentic
Voice of Dissent
Nelson P. Valdes
Castro,
Bioterrorism and
the State Department
Harvey Wasserman
What Does the White House Know
About Atomic Terror?
Norman Madarasz
France,
Brazil, the Politics
of the World Cup
May 27, 2002
Dave Marsh
Why I Voted for Nader:
Ticketmaster's Stranglehold
on Music and Politics
Robert Fisk
The Coming
Firestorm:
Bush's Crazed Remarks
May 26, 2002
Alexander Cockburn
Diary of a Northwest Trip:
Why Reds Live Longer
May 25, 2002
Chris Floyd
General
Principles:
Unmasking Colin Powell
Gavin Keeney
All Politics is Local? The Unbearable
Lightness of NGO's
Jeffrey St. Clair
A Hero
of Our Time:
Stephen Jay Gould
May 24, 2002
Edward Hammond
Documents Prove Pentagon Violated
Bioweapons Act
Mark Weisbrot
Bush
Administration Scandals:
Beginning of the End?
Feingold / Corzine
Halt Executions Nationwide
Bill Christison
Former
CIA Analyst:
Big Changes Needed in
US Intelligence Agencies
May 23, 2002
Dean Baker
Attack of the Clowns:
The Real Bush is Back
Susan Abulhawa
Israel
and South Africa:
Apartheid's Accidental Prophecy
Uri Avnery
Sharon the Great Reformer?
Behzad Yaghmaian
Travails
of a Middle Eastern Migrant: Accosted at the Border
May 22, 2002
Brian J. Foley
Dick Cheney's Obscenity
Gavin Keeney
Bete Noire
Enron & the Great Game
Fran Shor
Follow the Money
Bush, bin Laden & Carlyle
May 21, 2002
George Monbiot
Riddle
of the Spores:
The FBI and Anthrax
Yulie Khromchenko
Displaced Reality:
Impressions from Jenin
Bernard Weiner
Kenny
Boy to Bush:
"Welcome to the Club"
Ron Jacobs
Confusing the Face
of the Enemy
Gary Leupp
"War
on Terrorism" in Yemen
May 20, 2002
Rep. Ron Paul
Say No to Military Draft
Dave Marsh
Music Monopolies
Jordy Cummings
Israel, Jews and the Left
Francis Boyle
In Defense
of a Divestment
Campaign Against Israel
Christian Salmon
The Bulldozer War
Edward Said
Crisis for
American Jews
May 19, 2002
Philip Farruggio
Where's Twain's Protector Government
Now?
Norman Madarasz
Canada,
NAFTA and Kyoto
May 18, 2002
M.G. Piety
Economic Fiction:
From Here to Annuity?
Michael Colby
Bush Fiddled
While
New York Burned
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The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
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Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
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A Pocket Guide to
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June
1, 2002
World Cup 2002
Brazil v. Turkey:
The Strange
Math of Roberto Carlos
by Norman Madarasz
Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian defender Roberto Carlos' brain-to-foot
coordination is filtered by a scrolling flow of statistical figures.
Lines of computation, combinatorial curves and permutating patterns,
converge into a measuring sense to free-kicks famous for scalping
a wall of defenders, shearing the fingers off a goalkeeper and
still blasting into the net below the bar. With that type of
body mathematics, when Mr Carlos begins to strike statistics
at the strategy and energy Brazil needs to beat Turkey on June
3, one listens as if to a wizard.
What then is one to think when he inadvertently
shifts his stats? On Wednesday, Carlos told Brazil's O Globo
newspaper the national "Selection" would need to deploy
60 to 70% of its potential to vanquish Turkey. He had had to
lift the bar from the forecast made only a week earlier, when
estimating that a  mere 40% would do
the job. The O Globo correspondent pondered with perplexity why
Carlos had fallen short of explaining whether the change was
a result of Turkey improving, or Brazil worsening.
Whether his graceful free-kicks will
stump the noted talent of Turkey goalkeeper Rustu Recber, it
has already opened Carlos' computations to debate. What's certain
is that Turkish fans, whose team has qualified for the World
Cup for the first time in the last 12 encounters, can hardly
be expected to comply. Long-time admirers of Brazilian football,
the Turkish team is now working for a bit of admiration of its
own. After France's surprising loss at the feet of Senegal, the
pre kick-off tension for Monday's Group C opener is proving as
thrilling as the official one was-- with or without marabouts.
If Roberto Carlos' specs stand firmly
for anything, though, it has to be for the Selection's improving
image. They underscore its progression in both the eyes of the
world and, most importantly, in Brazil's. After four long years
of attempts and failures, and the seeming evaporation of Milan
Inter striker Ronaldo, the Selection is back. As if in a foretaste,
Latin America's largest nation joined in the celebration of Senegal's
1-0 shocker against France. It nearly seems as though the 1998
final is a depression now solidly put to rest. In what has been
relatively slow adherence to World Cup festivities, Brazil now
has only Monday's starter to stop it from submitting its fullest
passion to the event.
Despite the country's spruced awakening,
the international and mainly English-speaking media has taken
time to don its cleats. Ever since its upset defeat last year
in the Cup of the Americas, the international press has exalted
in the "death of Brazil's beautiful game", then proclaimed
by the London Times. Only a week ago, the New York Times correspondent
in Rio de Janeiro shot away at the unraveling thread he would
have as the last one holding the four-time yellow and green champions
together. Putting it in falsely political terms, he saw the stoic
distance as a "popular revolt" against the team, a
result of frustration toward the institution of Brazilian football
as a whole.
Corruption, faulty administration, local
football clubs near bankruptcy, a Selection with too many players
and too many coaches, and not enough decorating in the streets
of Rio de Janeiro, these were all signs for the Times of its
demise. To top things off, by not including Romario, for whom
it would be one last Cup, the Times proclaimed the Selection
to have been usurped from the people in the land of giants by
coach Filipao, a.k.a. "Big Phil". Yet as with so many
American commentators on Latin America, he takes the symptoms
as signs.
A nation does not reject its soul when
battering the Church and Government. Devoid of class criticism,
sports analyses based in populist categories most often mistake
management as the inner drive to work and play. As any Brazilian
is now saying, the Cup is only at its beginning. The soul needs
time to liken the present to the past.
The first hurdle of that beginning is
unequivocally Turkey. Brazilians know little about the republic
of secular Islam. A member of NATO which has been excluded from
Europe provides an interesting shift in perspectives. But how
do they kick the ball and what type of defense are they mounting?
The doubts turned into obvious curiosity when Gilson Nunes, designated
"observer" for the Brazilian coaching staff, was caught
red-handed taking notes on Turkey's behind-closed-doors practice
session on Thursday. Through the hostile attitude displayed and
then corrected by head coach Senol Gunes, Brazilians believe
that the old admiration has turned into animosity.
Brazil's press has picked up on the fact
that Mr Gunes is a no-nonsense kind of guy, a Filipao of the
crescent and star. With an attacking front of the 3R's (Rivaldo,
Ronaldo and Ronaldinho Gaucho), it is little wonder than Gunes
has shut the doors to the lab as he concocts his secret portion.
Nonetheless, following the surprise opener, Felipe Scolari could
only preach restraint. "For Brazil, [France's defeat] sounds
an alarm. Without attention and seriousness, nobody succeeds,"
he told O Globo on Saturday June 1.
Scolari has underscored how all the favorite
teams are not only well-matched amongst themselves, but will
inevitably run into difficulties with the underdogs. Still, animosity
is not the word to describe Brazil's attitude toward Turkey.
If Senol Gunes believes Brazil, Costa Rica and China are all
alike as challengers, Brazilians at least recognize that how
the Selection ends up faring against its opening rival will dictate
their confidence in its potential until the round of 16.
Pele's own comments tread similar ground.
Interviewed by the BBC on SportsTalk, FIFA's "greatest player
of the century" spoke excitedly of how all contenders have
similar levels. But if no single team stands out, it is no wonder
that, through the glaringly wise smile that broke out on his
face, he is hedging his bets on Brazil to take the Cup a fifth
time.
The media in Brazil have had affairs
to settle prior to focusing on the matches themselves. Brazilians
had to see the Selection play and win in two important friendlies
in which the physical condition of both Ronaldo and Rivaldo would
be closely watched. Against Cataluna and Malaysia, the Selection
dominated and won well, even though half of each of match was
bogged by sluggish playing that lacked brilliance.
While the streets of Rio slowly started
adorning the yellow and green, Globo TV, Brazil's media giant,
reached the Far East. Globo naturally has stakes on the country's
soul and rhythm as it broadcasts two to three matches per day.
Awakening to the world through its lenses, Brazilians have realized
that, as the Jornal do Brasil put it on Friday, "nobody
is frightened of the Selection".
In terms of defiance by underdogs, that
may be going a tad too far. Even the English-language press has
come round, bowing to Ronaldo's full recovery and return. On
May 31, London's The Independent waxed admiration on the rare
advantage of trading "the main seat in the presidential
cavalcade for the shady nook of an assassin". This is a
role in which Brazilians have taken to delight.
Both underdog and giant, then, Brazil
hovers close to usurping the spectacle once again. But Scolari
will have nothing of it, at least if it means for the spectacle
to spill from the set. No sex during the Cup, he announced, as
if to back up why it was imperative for him to keep Romario away
from the land of the rising sun. Respect for others and for the
objectives of Brazil's team, with a special eye on center-forward
Hakan Sukur, is the realism that checks his fantasies.
This only backs up his own position regarding
the pre-game cant. Speaking too much, too confidently before
a match has players thinking that Turkey is smirking with superstition.
Even Roberto Carlos has been cooling the polemics by shifting
his stats to describing the workings of the muscles on his tree-trunk-like
legs. Whether a sign of confidence or sportsmanship, Scolari
told the Jornal do Brasil that: "Even Turkey has to be respected.
Contrary to what people think, it's a strong team and will become
more complicated in the opening match, which is naturally a hard
enough game to play."
So Brazil turns its ears from Mr Gunes
to look on toward El-Hadji Diouf's cohorts from Senegal. As it
does it wonders which disguise it will itself be donning: Underdog
or Giant of the 2002 World Cup?
Norman Madarasz
writes from Rio de Janeiro. He welcomes comments at normanmadarasz@hotmail.com
This article appeared in Everensel Daily,
published in Istanbul, Turkey.
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