Wouldn't that Be the Fate of the Football? History, Memory and Sense in O negro no foot-ball brasileiro, by Mário Filho

Abstract

This article discusses the book O negro no foot-ball brasileiro (1947), by Mário Filho, emphasizing, in a first moment, the author’s criticism against the ‘‘saudosistas’’ (a Portuguese term with the approximate meaning of ‘‘nostalgics’’). These would be the holders of the official memory of Brazilian football and responsible for ignoring the contribution of black people in the consolidation of the sport in Brazil. Based on this investigation and supported by F. Catroga's reflections on memory, historiography and power, the article proposes that Mário Filho writes his book as a counterpoint to the memory of the "saudosistas", hitherto hegemonic, in the dispute over visions of the past. A second analytical movement explores Mário Filho's narrative strategies in the construction of his arguments. To do so, it uses considerations of Benedict Anderson on the process of imaginary constitution of nations in order to study how the history of football receives, in O negro no foot-ball brasileiro, a univocal historical meaning from a process of "cultural translation" of an originally English sport towards its "Abrasileiramento" (Brazilianizing). Finally, the concept proposed by H. Estrada Rodrigues of "formation essay" is mobilized to understand the work as part of an intellectual tradition that goes back to the essayistic productions of the 1920s and 1930s and, therefore, comparisons with thinkers such as Gilberto Freyre and Sérgio Buarque de Holanda are made in order to contribute to the analysis of themes such as the positive side of racial intermixing, aversion to fixed form, spontaneity and the capacity for improvisation, which were conceived by Mário Filho as a path to be followed by Brazil beyond the football pitch.