Flamengooooooooo!
\
\
\ MARCELO DEDA
\
I don't know when I started liking soccer. I don't remember if the children's pick-up games with sock balls in Praça de São João or the running around during recess at Grupo Fausto Cardoso in Simão Dias, in the interior of Sergipe, were responsible for introducing me to my favorite sport. Even without concrete proof, I dare say that my passion for Flamengo came before my love for soccer.
\
There were no fanatics for the British sport at home. My father, perhaps to honor the Iberian roots of his name, Manoel Celestino, declared himself a Vasco fan, but I don't remember him ever shouting a goal during a game. Cacau, my older brother, was already a Flamengo fan and to this day claims to have introduced me to the red-and-black nation. I don't know if that was the case.
\
\ I kept in my memory a unique moment, without a precise date, nor absolute certainties,\ but which I recorded as a true and authentic epiphany.
\
It was a hot morning at my grandfather's house, and I was in a storage room next to the kitchen and parallel to a huge horizontal cistern where rainwater was stored. The room was littered with dozens of old newspapers and abandoned contraptions. I pictured myself as a boy rummaging through those mysterious papers. I already knew the letters, but I hadn't yet mastered the mysterious craft of putting them together, of giving them meaning, of using them to produce words, articulate sentences, of creating or decoding ideas. A virgin of all grammars, what was I looking for in that forgotten little room? Images, the precious images that illustrated the newspapers of that time. Cartoons published in "Semana," my grandfather's newspaper, comic strips from old editions of newspapers from the South, photos showing people I didn't know. Suddenly, a large newspaper, printed on pink paper with black and red letters, caught my attention (much later I discovered it was the "Jornal dos Sports"). On one of its pages, as if it were a poster, stood a giant photo of a group of men gathered in two lines, one standing and the other crouching. They wore a shirt whose beauty dazzled my eyes and invaded my soul with feelings that resonate to this day. With parallel and successive stripes in black and red, the shirt immediately conveyed the idea of ​​struggle, race, bravery, passion, and beauty. That group and that uniform reminded me of a mythical army, Macistes and the Argonauts captured at a matinee performance. Perhaps they were characters from some Trancoso story told by Aunt Esterzinha during a break in the radio soap opera "The Right to Be Born"? In the middle of the photo, someone held a ball—a cuirass, as they were called back then—almost like a symbol of power, a magical scepter from whose wielding the victories of those heroes were born. I didn't remember any faces, names or dates, but I remember that on the warriors' chests three letters were intertwined, making it difficult for the boy who was still learning to read and write to discern them: CRF.
\
\
\
I don't know how long I spent examining that photo, captivated by the magnetism of that shirt. I was overcome by this revelation and gripped by the anguish of not understanding it until someone, I don't remember who, entered the room and, shaking me, uttered the fatal, canonical phrase that effectively baptized me, conveying that moment and naming those feelings that took over my boyish heart:
\
\
\
\ - Marcelo, it's Flamengo!
\
\
\
From that day on, my life changed. My Aunt Didi gave me a battery-powered radio so I could listen to games broadcast on Rádio Globo, always leaning it against a lamppost to improve signal reception. I discovered that my city was populated by hundreds of members of the red-and-black nation, and I joined my first tribe head-on. Soon after, I donned a Flamengo shirt, whose thick, flannel-like fabric caused rivers of sweat in the Simão Diense heatwave. I attacked my father's judgment for weeks, until he bought the special Flamengo magazine, from the "Great Brazilian Clubs" collection, published, if I'm not mistaken, by Rio Gráfica, with the club's entire history. I celebrated fantastic victories, but felt the bitter taste of defeat, the most terrible of which came in 1970, live at the Batistão stadium, when Bahia, playing in Aracaju after the Fonte Nova disaster, defeated Mengo with a goal from Baiaco. I suffered, but I saw Ubirajara, Paulo Henrique, Onça, Tinteiro, and the unforgettable Fio Maravilha. The pain of defeat was numbed by the anxiety of returning to Simão Dias and recounting the epic to the circle of friends who would surely gather at the church door after Mass. I waited months for that decisive match against Vasco (the absolute rival, the mythological antagonist who marked the great battles and staged the great battles) to be shown on Channel 100, on Cine Brasil, feeding me with unforgettable images and providing fodder for endless controversies about missed penalties, nonexistent offsides, and the entire perverse arsenal of dirty tricks of the thieving referees, always conspiring against Fla.
\
\
\
\ All this came to mind during these final rounds of the Brazilian Championship that came to consecrate the round-robin method (I prefer the knockout\ of quadrangular and hexagonal, but I give up). Flamengo,\ managed by one of its most beloved former athletes, Andrade, a member of that\ team that in the 80s enchanted the world, with Zico, Nunes, Júnior, Leandro and\ so many others, is having a campaign worthy of its history. A motivated, well-armed, and attacking team, led by Adriano, a true emperor, served by the great Petkovic's playmaking talent, reminiscent of the old strikers, and protected by efficient midfielders, a solid defense, and a goalkeeper, Bruno, a terror for penalty takers. Framing all this is the overwhelming strength of the fans, driving the team forward, breaking revenue records, and creating one of the most beautiful spectacles sport has to offer—there's no corner of Brazil where Flamengo isn't a major passion. For all these reasons, we're in the running again, undeniably competing for a championship we've already won five times.
\
\
\
Cheering at these last few games, I realized I've never regretted my decision to support Flamengo. The first gift I gave my five children was a Mengo jersey, the sacred mantle. To this day, neither the girls nor the boys have given up; quite the opposite, they always create a magical moment every time we get together to watch a match. I'm proud to have spoken as a representative of the Workers' Party (PT) at the formal session celebrating the club's centennial in the Chamber of Deputies—which earned me a diploma from the club, which reads: "Deputy of the Red-Black Nation."
\
Today (Sunday) and in the coming days, the Flamengo hurricane will once again stir our emotions in decisive matches. I don't know if we'll win the sixth title, but I'm certain that Flamengo has already accomplished a great mission: it has regained its prestige and respect, restored joy to its fans, and made a championship that seemed allergic to emotions more beautiful and competitive. Watching my team's final matches brought back the beauty of that magical moment from my childhood when I was swept away, in a Flamengo epiphany, by the passion for Flamengo. As I reminisce about those last matches, that phrase I heard forty years ago feels more relevant than ever: It's Flamengo!
\
\
\
\ MARCELO DÉDA is governor of Sergipe.

\ \