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Maracana: Brazil-England Is Back on at a Ground of Immense National Importance
Published: May 31, 2013
But it is neither a concert hall nor a cathedral, and much of the spectacle it offers involves merely 22 people and a ball.
And yet it is both theatre and house of worship—a spiritual place that provides its guests with equal parts entertainment, inspiration and existential confirmation.
Brazil’s Maracana stadium was built in advance of the 1950 World Cup, and ever since, it has captured the national psyche unlike any other institution. It has thrown parties; it has been heavy with sadness; it has threatened to crumble; it has received the Eucharist.
In 1957, a teenage Pele had his first chance to play there.
“When I saw it, it really felt like a dream,” he writes in his self-titled autobiography. “I was completely taken aback with it. When we were training sometimes I just stared and stared at the stands.”
He added: “I know that it was the scene of the tragic defeat in 1950, but for me I played many of my most important games there.”
In 1950, Pele was nine years old and his family home was packed with people listening to the final match of the World Cup on an old, square, two-button radio. Brazil needed only a draw against Uruguay to lift the trophy at the ground they had constructed precisely for that purpose, but a late Alcides Ghiggia goal stole the moment away from the tournament hosts, and as Pele describes, his father was distraught.
“My mum took me away and said, ‘Leave your father alone; leave him in peace.’ There was silence everywhere. The noise of cheers and silence and radios turned up to full volume had disappeared into a void of silence.”
It has been nearly 63 years since that disappointment, and with ...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - International Football
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