The glorious foot of Friedenreich!
Artur Friedenreich!
In 1919 Brazil defeated Uruguay 1–0 and crowned itself champion of South America. People flooded the streets of Rio de Janeiro. Leading the celebration, raised aloft like a standard, was a muddy soccer boot with a little sign that proclaimed: “The glorious foot of Friedenreich.”
The next day that shoe, which had scored the winning goal, ended up in the display window of a downtown jewelry shop.
Artur Friedenreich, son of a German immigrant and a black washerwoman, played in the first division for twenty-six years and never earned a cent.
No one scored more goals than he in the history of football, not even that other great Brazilian artilleryman, Pelé, who remains professional
soccer’s leading scorer.
Friedenreich converted 1,329, Pelé 1,279.
This green-eyed mulatto founded the Brazilian style of play. He, or the devil who got into him through the soles of his feet, broke all the rules in the English manuals: to the solemn stadium of the whites Friedenreich brought the irreverence of brown boys who entertained themselves fighting
over a rag ball in the slums.
Thus, was born a style open to fantasy, one that prefers pleasure to results.
From Friedenreich onward, there have been no right angles in Brazilian soccer, just as there are none in the mountains of Rio de Janeiro or the buildings of Oscar Niemeyer.
Copyright by Eduardo Galeano
From his book: Soccer in the Sun and Shadow (Nations Books, New York) 2013
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Sports Vision + Plus / Champions Hour in activity since 2013
