|
 The president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva criticized sharply the spirit of the national football team, which on Tuesday, August 19, lost an Olympic soccer game to Argentina in Beijing 3-0, excluding the country from a possible gold medal in that sport.
The team coached by Dunga suffered a humiliating defeat in the semifinals of the Olympics and in another failed attempt in the race to conquer the gold medal - the five-time world champion in football has never won a gold medal in that event - probably the only honor which Brazil's passion sport is longing for.
"I've never seen a team with such a poor winning spirit," said Lula to members of Congress from the ruling coalition that regularly meets at the Political Council of the Coalition. "I've never felt so furious in my life" added the president according to Jovair Arantes, the leader of the PTB (Partido Trabalhista Brasileiro - Brazilian Labor Party) in the House of the Representatives.
Legislators present at the meeting said the Brazilian President compared the performance of the Brazilian squad against Argentina as "the worst days of Corinthians", the Sao Paulo team of which he's a fan since a boy.
But the President went further and pointed out that the Brazilian national team had surpassed those terrible days of his beloved Corinthians "because of the lack of quality play and spirit displayed." Corinthians no longer plays in the Brazilian premier league.
The speaker of the House, Arlindo Chinaglia, from the ruling PT (Workers Party), suggested that head coach Dunga should get the pink slip. According to him, the CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation) should have fired the coach a long time ago.
Dunga was defended, however, by the Senate President, Garibaldi Alves. from the PMDB, who wants the coach to continue in his post. "I agree in many things," he said, "with Arlindo Chinaglia, but not in this case. I believe that Dunga should be given another chance in the national team."
Besides having to suffer three goals from Argentina, two from Aguero, Maradona's son in law and a penalty kick from Riquelme, Brazil had two players expelled from the field, Thiago Neves and Lucas.
The Argentine-Brazilian football rivalry is a question of national honor for both countries, which makes defeats so painful.
Next Friday the Brazilian team which on Tuesday was led by world star Ronaldinho will face Belgium for the bronze medal.
Argentina plays for gold on Saturday against Nigeria, which defeated Belgium 4-1.
Mercopress/Bzz
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.
But after I picked myself up off the floor and stopped laughing, now I have to comment.
"Makes President Lula Mad" would indicate that he didn´t appreciate the loss. He´ll get over it, though.
"Drives President Lula Mad" means, and there is no other possible meaning, that the loss has pushed him over the edge and now he´s, if you will pardon the expression, nuts.
As in the old Spike Jones song, "Stop! You´re driving me sane!"