Dans The Guardian, quelqu'un a écrit :
As lights start going out and participants head home, I have the same warm feeling that overwhelms me in every World Cup - one of this being, truly, the most genuine, inclusive international event on world stage. It's all there - the celebration, the pride, the fun, the joke, the protest, the passion, the elation, the delusion, the envy, the meanness, the tribalism, the globalism, the inclusivity, the ugliness, the awe, the petty, the sublime...no world event comes this close to mirror human nature .
I am Brazilian. My earliest memory of a World Cup is the 1970 one when I was six. Brazil had been under a military dictatorship since 1964 and my father, an army sargeant who had been jailed for resisting the coup, had just been released from prison. It would be understandable if he saw a successful World Cup campaign as a convenient distraction from the ruthlessness of the regime. But instead, we celebrated, joining the crowds in the avenues of downtown Rio. And it felt oddly carthatic even if, at the tender age of six, I didn't know what was that was feeling. It certainly put in to perspective my memories of travelling 8 hours on a bus with my mum to visit him in prison. Or the memories of soldiers coming into our cramped 1 bedroom flat for "questioning". It meant that, no matter how shitty things were, there were reasons to rejoice; no matter how isolated we felt, a connection to the world could not be broken. it made me - and the crowds around me - proud, rather than cowered
I apologise if I'm making his personal but as yet another World Cup winds up and my dad turns 82 in the same week, it is hard not to reminiscence. It's very easy to be a cynic and downplay the impact this unique sporting event has on nations - until it impacts you. And, in many ways, nothing will ever be the same
