Soccer Evangelism

Much has been made over the past few weeks about soccer all over the MSM and the internet. To start with, there's the World Cup. But the real debate has been over whether soccer is an un-American sport, and whether it's worth wasting playing and viewing time on it at all. American liberals seem to love it, though European and non-USA Western Hemisphere players tend to make American football and basketball players look like true gentlemen.

Many American conservatives seem to see soccer as a "socialist sport" with strange rules, ever-moving "sides," and the only sport where the players are encouraged to hit the ball with their heads. They also question the adoption of a sport which takes time away from the "national sport" of baseball or the American original sport of basketball. Football (the American brand of football) is all about contact, where soccer is all about the appearance of avoiding bodily contact, but sneakily hamstringing your opponent if possible.

But everybody and his brother have already discussed this at length, so I'm going to turn my attention to one seemingly-odd facet of the game. The trend in Brazilian soccer has followed the general trend throughout Brazil. For some reason, still to be determined, Evangelical Christianity has taken root, grown and blossomed. Out of a total population of approximately 190 million people, 27 million identify themselves with the evangelical form of Protestant Christianity.

The ruffians who populate most of the world's teams ("civilized" Britain is notorious for its substitution of team membership for gang membership) are in far less prominence on the Brazilian team. Four of the eleven Brazilian national team are evangelicals. Their conversion to emotional Christianity has wrought amazing changes in the converted members, and a change in those who have not (yet) converted. Brazil's captain is named Lucio, and ten years ago he was noted for him viciousness and bad temper, including head-butting his own teammate in an Olympic semifinal.

Another notable convert is the renowned Kaka (OK, I'm not going anywhere with that name). Another former field tough guy, Kaka now wears an undershirt that says "I belong to Jesus," points to the sky after doing something noteworthy on the field, and is planning to become a pastor when his soccer career is over. Their former playboy lifestyles, along with those of many of their teammates, have altered radically. Where once there was individual show-off superstarism, there is now a discipline and team player mentality that results in scoring.

And what are professional sports without lots and lots of sex with the fans? That's not a question you ask the current team. Kaka even verbally attacked his own prior coach for allowing the players to have sex with women not their wives, and declared himself a virgin prior to his 2006 marriage. Now, instead of conjugal visits, the players spend their down time at Bible studies during practice.

Former superstar player for Brazil, Carlos Caetano Bledorn Verri, retired after the Brazilian World Cup competition in 1994, returned as coach of the Brazilian team. More popularly known as "Dunga," Verri had the same conversion, and brought his soccer skills and religious beliefs to the team upon his return as coach. There is a religious zeal for victory over the other team which is almost as if the boys were defeating evil rather than another soccer team. They might be right. As writer James Downie points out, "one could call it 'Calvinist' football--not the Brazil of the past, but maybe the Brazil of the future." And the boys on the team consider themselves Calvin's "elect."