In an interview on World Football

The Alex Bellos book.

It’s a magical, magical book. I didn’t have much interest in Brazil as a country. I know that it’s there and I know about its football, but this book tells the story of the whole country by telling the story of its football. 

There are several fascinating stories, although my favourite is probably the tale of Brazil hosting the World Cup for the first time in 1950. They built a new stadium, the Maracan, which was the biggest in the world – for 200,000 people. We think of Brazil as the greatest ever World Cup side but back then they still hadn’t ever won it. Everyone was so confident they would win in 1950 that the newspapers anointed them champions the day before the final. They lost 2-1.

Out of the ashes of that came the Brazil that we know now. And, in fact, the famous kit that they wear now, the yellow shirt and the green top, came from a competition they held afterwards when they decided they had to change absolutely everything, including the colour of their kit. And less well-known stories about the players, like Garrincha, who was this bow-legged boy who became one of the best footballers in the world. It’s a beautiful way of telling the story of a country. I wouldn’t pick up a book about Brazilian history, but a book about Brazilian football; I would and I did and it taught me more about Brazil than anything else I’ve read. The book starts with a Brazilian footballer playing in Scotland’s Faroe Islands, showing how football had become Brazil’s main export, and how global Brazilian football had become.