22967: Harvey: When Brazil Scores, Haiti Roars (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Sean Harvey <seanharvey@juno.com>

Soccer's Odd Bonding: When Brazil Scores, Haiti Roars

By MICHAEL KAMBER
New York Times
August 13, 2004

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Djari Theophilo, one of the few Brazilian civilians living in Haiti, had an alarming experience after Brazil defeated Argentina in this summer's America's Cup Soccer Championship. Hundreds of thousands of self-proclaimed "Brazil fanatics" poured into the streets. People sang and cried, car horns honked, dogs barked, guns were fired into the air.

This is normal behavior in Haiti whenever Brazil plays soccer. What upset Mr. Theophilo was the lone Haitian who, in a frenzy, tore off his yellow Brazil jersey and began rubbing it on his face, and then seized Mr. Theophilo's hand and began kissing it, shouting: "I love Brazil! I love your country!"

Mr. Theophilo shook his head as he recalled the incident. "I urged him to calm down, it was too much," he said. "In Brazil, we have a party when our team plays, but in Haiti it is insanity. The Haitians are bigger fans of Brazil than we Brazilians."

Haiti's 40-year love affair with Brazilian soccer has grown to obsessive proportions over the past decade, and the outpouring of emotion Mr. Theophilo encountered on July 25 may be tame compared with what could happen on Aug. 18, when Brazil's national team, accompanied by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, arrives here to play an exhibition against Haiti.

The match, in which Brazilian players paid millions of dollars will face off against a Haitian team whose players have not been paid since April 2003, is expected to buoy spirits here and give a public relations lift to both the interim Haitian government and the United Nations peacekeeping force anchored by 1,200 Brazilians here in the capital.

The match was conceived as part of a disarmament plan in which guns would be exchanged for tickets, but that plan was scrapped for fear of alienating law-abiding Haitians. Now the Brazilians are billing the match as a gesture of peace and brotherhood, one that reinforces their standing as they wait for the multinational force to reach its full strength of 6,700 troops.

Franklin Desir, an unemployed bus driver, is a member of Bas Tanga, one of dozens of fan clubs around the city dedicated to Brazilian soccer. (Bas translates as base, or camp, and tanga means string and is slang for the Brazilian soccer style where the players move the ball around gracefully.) Most Haitians are too poor to own televisions so the club's 5,000 or so members - essentially the entire neighborhood of Delmas 55, where Mr. Desir lives - gather around televisions on sidewalks or in neighborhood storefronts to watch their team play.

Mr. Desir has a huge green banner with a Brazilian flag inset that he sewed himself and that he stretches between telephone poles across Delmas, a major thoroughfare, whenever the Brazilian national team plays. With his 10-year-old daughter, Francia, _- also a Brazil fan - at his side, he pinched his sinewy arm. "Under my skin," he said, "you will find Brazil."

Across the street, at the Tropical Market, Michel Abraham, who is one of Bas Tanga's sponsors, sat at his desk in front of a photo collage of Brazilian soccer players and snapshots of various victory parties. But the Haitian obsession with Brazil extends to all things Brazilian. The prosperous storeowner pulled out his digital camera to show off a treasured image: a photo of his daughter standing between two Brazilian peacekeepers who came to shop at his store.

When asked why they like Brazilian soccer, Haitians often point out that the players are black like themselves, or, simply puzzled at the question, answer, "Because I'm Haitian," or, "It's part of Haitian culture."

Junior Laroque, a 20-year old dockworker and Citoyens Réunis member who sports a green and yellow cap, explained: "I like their style, the way they move the ball. And they're confident and cool, not like the excitable Germans and Italians."

Echoing other Haitians, he offered: "We're talking about the No. 1 soccer nation in the world. If I just rooted for the Haitian team, I'd be disappointed all the time."

(The Haitian team's one claim to fame to date is that it scored a goal against Italy in the 1974 World Cup.)

Dr. Yves Jean-Bart, a physician and the president of the Haitian Football Association, agreed.

"Many Haitians have no satisfaction in their lives," he said. "Brazil is one of the good things in their life." And, he pointed out, "the Brazilian players are black and they're from the masses. Ronaldo'' - the Brazilian star - "washed cars in the street when he was a boy."

President da Silva has asked the Brazilian national team not to run up the score against the Haitians. "He doesn't want us to spoil the party," said Ricardo Teixeira, president of the Brazilian Soccer Federation. All of the big name stars on the team have agreed to play, which is not always the case for "friendly" matches.

But such worldly concerns were far from the minds of those gathered at a soccer fan club in Cité Soleil, a desperate slum district here in the capital. Asked about the prospect of a Haitian victory over Brazil, they laughed at first, then fell silent for a moment, as if pondering the unlikely situation for the first time.

"If Haiti won," a man in the crowd shouted out, "God would come down to earth."

The fan club cheered.