2005
Middlesex Maracanã
Author: Alex Bellos
Officials at the Middlesex County FA have heard many colourful excuses for the postponement of fixtures, but none quite as audacious as when a club requested an alternative date because they had been invited to meet the Brazil national squad.
The club in question, Brazilian Football Show Sport Club, are bringing glamour to the lowest feeder league in the football pyramid. They have become, in the few months since they came into existence, the major talking point of the Middlesex FA and not just because of their cumbersome title.
As well as attracting an unprecedented number of fans to matches, BFSSC are storming through the league (played 8, won 7, goals scored 26), eight points ahead at the top of table. With their yellow-and-blue strip, modelled on the Brazil national team's, their almost entirely Brazilian squad and their exuberant goal celebrations, BFSSC are a piece of Brazil transported to east London.
When coach Paulo Cezar Batista founded the club in March his idea was to form a club with 'Brazilian technique and European organisation'. A former midfielder with Fluminense in Rio - whose day job is as a Baptist pastor in London's East End - he scoured the Brazilian community for its best players.
It wasn't difficult for Batista to come up with a team with anything up to 200,000 Brazilians in London, among them several former professionals. He found Dinho, the 36-year-old ex-Santos and Atlético Mineiro right wing-back, midfielder Alex Pessote, formerly of Bahia and Fábio Caran, who has played for clubs in Greece and Venezuela.
The football club have become a new focus for the Brazilian community who are mobilising their forces as if their existence depended on it. Batista has created a structure worthy of a professional club and he has already attracted serious sponsorship and a sizeable training staff including a nutritionist, a physiotherapist and a team psychologist.
While it is not unusual for small teams to have big ambitions, BFSSC's are greater than most. 'The aim is to eventually get to the Premiership,' says Batista confidently. He knows he is at the beginning of a long road, but he has it all planned out. If everything goes well - that is, if they get promoted every season - it will take 10 years to get to the top flight.
It is easy to mock such blind faith, but if any small club have a chance of at least partly achieving their dreams, then surely it is BFSSC. Unknown in the UK outside the Middlesex League, the club are big news in Brazil, having been featured on the primetime news and widely written about in the press.
As a result, hundreds of out-of-contract Brazilian footballers from all over the world are getting in touch with Batista, and he has had to employ a communications secretary just to deal with the inquiries. The club are expecting to become an unofficial entry point for Brazilian professionals wanting to enter the European market.
As well as their grassroots support, BFSSC are also uniquely well connected to the upper echelons of Brazilian football. Team sponsors UNO Money Transfer are tight with Traffic, the sports marketing company that negotiated the Nike deal with the Brazilian FA. It was through this contact that the club were the only footballers invited to spend time with the national squad when they played Jamaica at Leicester two months ago. Batista gave a signed BFSSC shirt to Ronaldo, who promised to put it up in his football museum in Rio.
A fortnight after visiting the Walkers Stadium, BFSSC were back at their home ground, the Terence McMillan Stadium at the Newham Leisure Centre. Their opponents were Chingford Town, bottom of the Middlesex FA First Division.
The freezing weather and lowly opposition had not dampened the Brazilians' enthusiasm. They had trained three times the week before and met up four hours before the game for a lecture on team tactics at the Salmon Lane Baptist Church, where Batista is a pastor.
Just like teams back home, the Brazilians joined arms in the changing room to pray for victory. When they trotted out on to the pitch, accompanied by an entourage of training staff in club kit, they met a Chingford side of 10 men because the eleventh hadn't turned up.
A London FA representative, there to watch the referee, said it was extraordinary at this level. 'I've never seen 10 subs before,' he said. 'Usually you are lucky to get two.' After two minutes the Brazilians were 1-0 up. After 11 minutes it was 4-0 - a headed goal by the league's leading scorer, Pedro Arisi, who stripped off his shirt and waved it as if he were on the beach at Copacabana. Chingford were lucky the final score was just 7-0. The Brazilians' goalkeeper touched the ball once.
'We've made them look like a good side,' said Kevin Ryan, Chingford's coach, unwilling to give too much praise. 'They've had all the space in the world. They're good enough to go up the divisions but they've not had any opposition yet.'
Batista sees himself as a twenty-first century Charles Miller - who, in 1894, first introduced football to Brazil. 'I want to give back to England what Charles Miller gave us 100 years ago - almost as a way of saying thanks,' he says.
Twenty two of his 25-strong squad are Brazilians. The other three are Brits recommended by the club secretary, Curtis Ingram, who got to know Batista through a friend at his church.
Says Batista: 'My vision is that BFSSC is the first club in Europe that has a Brazilian philosophy. We will take play ers from anywhere so long as they play in the Brazilian style, which is a free, happy, guileful, attacking way of playing the game.'
In the north of England, however, one team may beg to differ. Garforth Town FC in the North East Counties League have recently been saved from bankruptcy by the International Confederation of Futebol de Salao. The Confederation is a Leeds-based organisation that runs training clubs for futebol de salao a type of indoor five-a-side football that emphasises 'Brazilian' ball skills. There are about 400 Confederation-affiliated clubs in the UK, involving an estimated 100,000 children. Spokesman Angus Martin says that the eventual aim for Garforth Town is to consist entirely of players who came up through the confederation's ranks. ' Futebol de salao is in a contained space with a heavy ball that doesn't bounce, which means you cannot hoof it,' Martin explained. 'It teaches you how to be more creative on the ball. We believe it gives you skills that can be used in the 11-a-side game.'
Because BFSSC are amateur, all the players have day jobs. Many are motorcycle couriers, some are cleaners and others in construction. Some see themselves as full-time footballers, such as 20-year-old Arisi, who moved to the UK with the intention of becoming a professional. After a stint at Harlow Town of the Rymans League and a two-week trial with Southampton, he is happy to consolidate his game with BFSSC before moving on to a bigger club. 'The standard here is better than in the Rymans,' he believes.
Batista came to the UK three years ago in order to study football administration. He decided to start a team and chose the name Brazilian Football Show, in the sense of 'demonstrate', not of 'spectacle'. He finished with Sport Club because he eventually wants to promote more than just football. Long names like this are typical in Brazil. The Middlesex FA, however, couldn't fit the name in their forms so refer to them as 'Brazilian Sports'.
The Middlesex FA decided to put them straight into their First Division - they have a premiership and three divisions - because the Brazilians seemed to be well organised, they had a better-than-average stadium and they were closer geographically to the other First Division sides.
The club crest is a copy of the Brazilian national crest - with the addition of the word Jesus. Batista defends his choice by saying: 'What is Manchester United's symbol? The Devil. We believe in God - what better than to pay a tribute to Him.'
The Middlesex FA is no stranger to teams based on nationality - Istanbulspor, FC Sofia, Deportivo Galicia play in their leagues - but the Brazilians are causing more interest. 'They are a little bit more unusual than some of our other teams,' says Stephen Hosmer, Middlesex's general secretary. 'They had 150 supporters at their first home game. You don't normally get that sort of number with us.'
Hosmer later went along to see the Brazilians for himself and was impressed with their football. 'But,' he adds, 'they don't half have an attitude problem. When things aren't going their way they really do get the hump. They play with passion; they are very odd people.'
Hosmer is referring to the only game BFSSC have lost so far. They were 1-0 up with 15 minutes to go when the players objected to a refereeing decision. Two Brazilians were sent off for foul and abusive language. With nine men on the field, they lost 2-1. The Brazilians, predictably, believe they were robbed.
Not everyone is convinced that BFSSC will win the league. Adam Weston, chairman of second-placed Samuel Lithgow, who lost to them on the first day of the season, thinks the British winter will get the better of them. 'The day we lost it was really sunny. Wait until the rain and the cold settles in. It's a more physical game. They will find it really tough. We're used to playing in crappy conditions.'
Weston's team are also playing in the Middlesex First Division for the first time. Last year they were a Sunday league side. 'I knew that some clubs have silly names. I never realized that the Brazilian team would really be full of Brazilians. When we turned up at their stadium we saw that there was a film crew and loads of supporters. It was not what we expected at all.'
Hosmer is upbeat about the Brazilians' chances of future success. 'Their organization is exceptional. They've got everything going for them.' He predicts that they will achieve promotion to the heady heights of the Middlesex Premier League next season. Be warned, the Brazilians are bringing football home.