Brazil v Argentina: Ferrão revels in Brazil’s famous samba spirit
Brazil’s goalscoring pivot, Ferrão, prepares to join the fray in the 2021 World Cup quarter-final against Morocco Photograph: Jamie Fahey
THE DISTANT echo of playful crooning came first. A crescendo of shuffling, squeaking footsteps added a beguiling soundtrack to the occasion.
Finally, like a booming chorus suddenly breathing life into an entrancing melody, a gaggle of futsal superstars emerged, laughing, singing and dancing along to a samba beat of their own making.
It was the famous Brazilian ginga spirit, alive, well and enhanced by a 75-minute training session staged amid the white heat of a futsal World Cup knockout stages.
“We are always happy. And we always like to show it. It’s a confidence that’s always there, wherever we are.”
“It’s not just our confidence as players,” explained the two-times best player in the world, the mighty pivot Ferrão. “It’s the spirit of the Brazilians. We are always happy. And we always like to show it. It’s a confidence that’s always there, wherever we are.”
Speaking to me as his team-mates filed through a narrow corridor to the changing room in the Vilnius Arena, the man seen as holding the key for Brazil’s chances of dumping out fierce rivals in today’s Superclasico told how he’s feeling especially happy on a personal level.
“After many months of gaining fitness [after a serious knee injury], I’m now feeling 100% and I’m really enjoying futsal. Because when I’m playing, I’m happy.”
The man from Chapeco, Santa Catarina, who plays the tambourine and says he would have been a pagodeiro musician if he hadn’t been a futsal superstar, oozes confidence as the finest exponent of the art of the pivot in the modern game.
The Barcelona man boasts a sublime combination of individual freedom and ruthless attention to a team ethos that head Brazil coach Marquinhos Xavier has tried to foster in an attempt to secure the World Cup for a sixth time in the Fifa era.
Ferrao told Fifa he was “very confident” in Brazil’s chances of wresting the title back from Argentina. To do so they must defeat their arch-rival tonight to secure a final against either Portugal or Kazakhstan. But with Rodrigo, the captain with more than 100 goals for his country, and Leozinho showing why he’s seen as a potential heir to the majestic Falcão, Brazil’s confidence is built on solid foundations.
“The women’s game deserves the same equalities and conditions as the men” Ferrão
As leading goalscoring – with seven strikes – Ferrão also sits two ahead of three three players still in the tournament: Argentina’s Alan Brandi, Kazakhstan’s Brazil-born Taynan and Portugal’s Pany.
Like many of the most high-profile players in a sport with room for further growth on a global level, Ferrão doesn’t restrain his focus to narrow individual goals.
Just two weeks ago, he joined another chorus (perhaps it’s the lure of that ginga rhythm and spirit again). This time it was a mass calling for Fifa to finally make good on the promise of a women’s futsal World Cup. The women’s game “deserve the same equalities and conditions” as the men’s, he said.
He returned to the theme of the growth of the global game, with reference to futsal in places like England, where the FA axed the national men’s team and playing pathway in a bout of kneejerk cost-cutting after the Covid pandemic hit.
“England is very important football country in the world,” said Ferrão. “And I’d like to send a message to the football authorities that they have to invest in futsal and let it grow.
“This is important not only for England, but for the growth of the sport in the rest of the world.”
It’s a strong viewpoint. But that’s no more than to be expected from such a powerful figure, the smiling assassin of world futsal known as La Pantera (the Panther).
And it’s surely music to the ears of futsal fans around the world.
*The Marca.com journalist Oscar Garcia (@ogarciafustal) kindly assisted with translation
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