Baila Brasil, Baila! Can This World Cup Be Saved?

Ryan Gaur

24th November 2022 | 12:30 PM

Qatar 2022 World Cup Brasil Brazil Neymar Vinicius Antony Dance
Art by Charbak Dipta

I think this is going to be the worst World Cup of all time. I find it unavoidably so. All enjoyment of football over the next month will be mired by the evils of its host country, Qatar. The very publicly documented anti-LGBTQ agenda from the nation, its apathy towards workers building stadiums for the tournament, and many more human rights atrocities are to be swept under the rug as we embrace Qatar for hosting football’s greatest show, apparently. It cannot be ignored and nor should it. The game is slipping from the grasp of fans, even players and coaching staff, our passions and livelihoods being manipulated, ensuring that we cannot look away. 

It feels like football has lost its humanity. Football is no longer about losing yourself to the artistry of sport but instead is a fight to turn part of your brain off every time you watch a Premier League game. We take what we can from football, we keep our fandom localised. I like how that squad is being built, I do not like the person financing them to do so. This competition provided some fun fixtures, I can’t stand the governing body putting them together. It is exhausting and soul-crushing, and I find myself barrelling towards a World Cup trying to remember why I even like this thing. 

The nostalgia for seemingly perfect World Cups past intrudes on my mind. Maybe I was just younger and less aware of football as a geopolitical tool, but the game just felt more romantic back then. There was one nation at the centre of all of that, a representation of the purity of football, the artistry of play – Brazil. 

Brazilian was something we would yearn to be on the playground. It didn’t feel like another country, just another place: it meant something more to us. The imagination and inventiveness of players like Ronaldinho and Kaká matched the childlike imagination we had where superhuman things were possible with a ball at your feet. 

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