The Brazil-Zim (friendly) match

For those blissfully unaware, the World Cup is taking place in South Africa this year. This means that increasingly, conversations turn to this player, that team or some other unfamiliar topic for me.

The neighbouring countries are hoping to get some of the ripple effects of tourists and economic opportunities. For Zimbabwe though, that seems pretty unrealistic. The Zim government had tried to get in teams to play, and initially, the North Korean team was supposed to come, but this was cancelled due to pressure of human rights groups (or so they claimed). It is true that it might have been delicate, particularly in Bulawayo where President Robert Mugabe’s North-Korean trained 5th Brigade is accused of committing gross human rights abuses and murder of up to 20 000 civilians during disturbances in the Matabeleland and Midlands provinces in the early 1980s. So it seemed most people were condemned to armchair witnesses of the World Cup, especially since Zimbabwe in February seems to have bought a paltry 34 tickets to the entire World Cup taking place in SA. No surprise with the economic crisis…

Big was the surprise when out of the blue came the rumour last week that the Brazil team might be coming! Imagine, the most famous (arguably, and believe me, I have witnessed a lot of these arguments lately) team coming to Harare! Even if it is just a friendly match and a sort of acclimatizing to the playing at this altitude, when would the Zim national team, the Warriors(ranking 110, behind Rwanda), ever have the opportunity of playing five time world champion Brazil in Harare?! The was also the first time since independance (1980) that a non-African team was playing in Zimbabwe. According to the press, the cost of getting Brazil to come amounted to 1.3MillionUSD, and though 70% of that was covered by 3 Zim companies, the remaining 30% came from the government.

As the news become more and more reliable, excitement rose. Tickets were only available the afternoon before, going at 10USD for the cheap seats, and 40 to 60USD for VIP (though apparently, there wasn’t much VIP about them). The government gave half the day off, the UN followed the lead, and many organisations and business as well. The stadium can hold about 60.000 people, and reporters claim there were 50.000 present. I must say, it was not very chaotic or threatening. Before coming, we had worries about huge crowds, endless queues, pickpockets everywhere and not in the least, that the stadium would just collapse. But no, it was vibrant but secure, the stadium felt very safe and clean, security was there (probably more to watch the game than us but anyway). And at the opening, both President Mugabe and Prime Minister Tsvangirai were present, our first time to actually see them live! There was a bit of a peculiar moment, when the live feed on the big screen turned it into a bit of a competition for the biggest cheers from the audience, between the two politicians and Kaka, Brazilian’s most famous (and handsome) player. Another article here.

Football fans get into the samba mood before watching Zimbabwe take on the Brazil side. Photograph: Antonio Scorza/AFP/Getty Images

Now, in a last minute scramble, our capoeira academy also wanted to take advantage of the Brazilian presence to include a little demonstration in the match, maybe (we could always dream) during half-time break? So, first call to Brazilian Embassy. They referred us to Ministry of Tourism, who referred me to 2010 Department, who referred me to Events, who referred me to Entertainment, and a cell phone number for the big lady in charge, by the name of Kudzi. Nothing really clearly set beforehand, but we decided to give it a go anyway. So, some convincing at the entrance, talking our way into the stadium, and a chance run-in with the big lady, and yes, we were expected to perform during half time! In front of a 50,000 people crowd, with broadcasts to 9 other locations in town and who knows where else. Jibbers… So when half time came, we climbed down with trembling knees, half expecting there would be entertainment everywhere, but no, except for a marching band, nobody else… So we discretely positioned ourselves by the side of the field and started playing. In comes the MC, who tells us':’Why don’t you go to the middle of the field?’. And so we were off, and suddenly it all seemed unreal. It didn’t seem to be people on the benches, just moving colours, lots of yellow and green (the colours for both Zimbabwe and Brazil). We only played for a couple of minutes, but it will be something I will remember for the rest of my life. When the players come on, we hurried off, as if we hadn’t really had a right to be there, intruders. Now I wish I had had the courage to linger a bit, see what kind of reaction the players would have had. But alas, we didn’t and now we’ll never know whether they would have joined us in a friendly game of our nature…

PS for those interested in that kind of thing, Brazil won 3 to 0, surprise surprise… More details here. If you wanna see some of the goals: