Brazilian soccer: symbolic dimensions of its practice

Abstract

This essay explores the symbolic dimensions of soccer in Brazilian society from the perspective of sports anthropology. It discusses how the founding of the game was handled, in terms of stylization and standardization of rules. This, as the essay argues, would effect amplified representations in emotional regimes and adhesion to the game, thus making it a singular sports modality for understanding societies such as Brazil. IntroductionProfessional soccer, whose rules and institutionalization were brought into being by a group of professionals, diffused by media specialists and incorporated into urban sociability among so-called fans, has multiplied all over the world in specific cultural configurations. This essay aims at understanding part of the symbolic dynamics of soccer from the point of view of sports anthropology. In the context of this essay, the category professional incorporates all of those interfering directly into the game, whether on the field, such as players, coaches and referees guided by the imperatives of competitiveness, or off the field, in preparing athletes, thus highlighting another group of professionals, especially physiologists, trainers, psychologists, or still, managers, team owners and publicity agents, who are ever more involved in the organizational complex administrating the soccer spectacle. The professionals are predominantly engaged in seeking results, characteristic of the competitive dimension which makes this game a sport.Even though fans would never relinquish their teams' winning, the meanings attributed to the games go beyond mere material benefits acquired with the soccer ball. The relationship established is less determined by immediate material gain coming from scores and profits since what actually predominates is the sociability dimension of the game, resulting in differences regarding the professionals. Media discourse, on the other hand, seeks to occupy its own place, far from both professionals as well as fans, but these agents obviously fall into the professional category, albeit as specialists 'on' sports and not 'from' sports (i.e. participating in the game), hence farther away from directly disputing symbolic or material capital. This distance is enhanced by the legitimized media's pretensions of neutral and informative narrative. Here, then, are all of those who make the games possible: the professionals, who weigh sports ritual with participative and ritualistic emotions; the fans; and, finally, the media specialists, who seek to translate and ordinate in a supposedly

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