Brazil Soccer Quotes

No matter how old you are now. You are never too young or too old for success or going after what you want. Here’s a short list of people who accomplished great things at different ages 1) Helen Keller, at the age of 19 months, became deaf and blind. But that didn’t stop her. She was the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. 2) Mozart was already competent on keyboard and violin; he composed from the age of 5. 3) Shirley Temple was 6 when she became a movie star on “Bright Eyes.” 4) Anne Frank was 12 when she wrote the diary of Anne Frank. 5) Magnus Carlsen became a chess Grandmaster at the age of 13. 6) Nadia Comăneci was a gymnast from Romania that scored seven perfect 10.0 and won three gold medals at the Olympics at age 14. 7) Tenzin Gyatso was formally recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama in November 1950, at the age of 15. 8) Pele, a soccer superstar, was 17 years old when he won the world cup in 1958 with Brazil. 9) Elvis was a superstar by age 19. 10) John Lennon was 20 years and Paul Mcartney was 18 when the Beatles had their first concert in 1961. 11) Jesse Owens was 22 when he won 4 gold medals in Berlin 1936. 12) Beethoven was a piano virtuoso by age 23 13) Issac Newton wrote Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica at age 24 14) Roger Bannister was 25 when he broke the 4 minute mile record 15) Albert Einstein was 26 when he wrote the theory of relativity 16) Lance E. Armstrong was 27 when he won the tour de France 17) Michelangelo created two of the greatest sculptures “David” and “Pieta” by age 28 18) Alexander the Great, by age 29, had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world 19) J.K. Rowling was 30 years old when she finished the first manuscript of Harry Potter 20) Amelia Earhart was 31 years old when she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean 21) Oprah was 32 when she started her talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind 22) Edmund Hillary was 33 when he became the first man to reach Mount Everest 23) Martin Luther King Jr. was 34 when he wrote the speech “I Have a Dream." 24) Marie Curie was 35 years old when she got nominated for a Nobel Prize in Physics 25) The Wright brothers, Orville (32) and Wilbur (36) invented and built the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight 26) Vincent Van Gogh was 37 when he died virtually unknown, yet his paintings today are worth millions. 27) Neil Armstrong was 38 when he became the first man to set foot on the moon. 28) Mark Twain was 40 when he wrote "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and 49 years old when he wrote "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" 29) Christopher Columbus was 41 when he discovered the Americas 30) Rosa Parks was 42 when she refused to obey the bus driver’s order to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger 31) John F. Kennedy was 43 years old when he became President of the United States 32) Henry Ford Was 45 when the Ford T came out. 33) Suzanne Collins was 46 when she wrote "The Hunger Games" 34) Charles Darwin was 50 years old when his book On the Origin of Species came out. 35) Leonardo Da Vinci was 51 years old when he painted the Mona Lisa. 36) Abraham Lincoln was 52 when he became president. 37) Ray Kroc Was 53 when he bought the McDonalds Franchise and took it to unprecedented levels. 38) Dr. Seuss was 54 when he wrote "The Cat in the Hat". 40) Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III was 57 years old when he successfully ditched US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009. All of the 155 passengers aboard the aircraft survived 41) Colonel Harland Sanders was 61 when he started the KFC Franchise 42) J.R.R Tolkien was 62 when the Lord of the Ring books came out 43) Ronald Reagan was 69 when he became President of the US 44) Jack Lalane at age 70 handcuffed, shackled, towed 70 rowboats 45) Nelson Mandela was 76 when he became President

Here's why I will be a good person. Because I listen. I cannot talk, so I listen very well. I never deflect the course of the conversation with a comment of my own. People, if you pay attention to them, change the direction of one another's conversations constantly. It's like being a passenger in your car who suddenly grabs the steering wheel and turns you down a side street. For instance, if we met at a party and I wanted to tell you a story about the time I needed to get a soccer ball in my neighbor's yard but his dog chased me and I had to jump into a swimming pool to escape, and I began telling the story, you, hearing the words "soccer" and "neighbor" in the same sentence, might interrupt and mention that your childhood neighbor was Pele, the famous soccer player, and I might be courteous and say, Didn't he play for the Cosmos of New York? Did you grow up in New York? And you might reply that, no, you grew up in Brazil on the streets of Tres Coracoes with Pele, and I might say, I thought you were from Tennessee, and you might say not originally, and then go on to outline your genealogy at length. So my initial conversational gambit - that I had a funny story about being chased by my neighbor's dog - would be totally lost, and only because you had to tell me all about Pele. Learn to listen! I beg of you. Pretend you are a dog like me and listen to other people rather than steal their stories.

It seems that soccer tournaments create those relationships: people gathered together in pubs and living rooms, a whole country suddenly caring about the same event. A World Cup is the sort of common project that otherwise barely exists in modern societies.

Whereas fanatic is usually a pejorative word, a Fan is someone who has roots somewhere.

The Stadium Have you ever entered an empty stadium? Try it. Stand in the middle of the field and listen. There is nothing less empty than an empty stadium. There is nothing less mute than stands bereft of spectators. At Wembley, shouts from the 1966 World Cup, which England won, still resound, and if you listen very closely you can hear groans from 1953 when England fell to the Hungarians. Montevideo’s Centenario Stadium sighs with nostalgia for the glory days of Uruguayan soccer. Maracanã is still crying over Brazil’s 1950 World Cup defeat. At Bombonera in Buenos Aires, drums boom from half a century ago. From the depths of Azteca Stadium, you can hear the ceremonial chants of the ancient Mexican ball game. The concrete terraces of Camp Nou in Barcelona speak Catalan, and the stands of San Mamés in Bilbao talk in Basque. In Milan, the ghosts of Giuseppe Meazza scores goals that shake the stadium bearing his name. The final match of the 1974 World Cup, won by Germany, is played day after day and night after night at Munich’s Olympic Stadium. King Fahd Stadium in Saudi Arabia has marble and gold boxes and carpeted stands, but it has no memory or much of anything to say.

Nightmare completed, another humiliating defeat. 10 goals in 2 game. It will take time to come out from such humiliating defeat for Brazilian fans. But I think when you like something, when you fall to someone, when you are in love, you like them whatever happens, even they give tears to you time to time because you liked it from your heart.

I watched my first penalty shoot-out during the World Cup 2014 (Brazil vs. Chile): men cried, I cried, Neymar cried. I was done for. I loved it.

Here's why I will be a good person. Because I listen. I cannot speak, so I listen very well. I never interrupt, I never deflect the course of the conversation with a comment of my own. People, if you pay attention to them, change the direction of one another's conversations constantly. It's like having a passenger in your car who suddenly grabs the steering wheel and turns you down a side street. For instance, if we met a party and I wanted to tell you a story about the time I needed to get a soccer ball in my neighbor's yard but his dog chased me and I had to jump into a swimming pool to escape, and I began telling the story , you, upon hearing the words 'soccer' and 'neighbor' in the same sentence, might interrupt and mention that your childhood neighbor was Pele, the famous soccer player, and I might be courteous and say, Didn't he play for the Cosmos of New York? Did you grow up in New York? And you might reply that no, you grew up in Brazil on the streets of Tres Coracoes with Pele and I might say, I thought you were from Tennessee, and you might say, not originally, and then go on to outline your genealogy at length. So my initial conversational gambit - that I had a funny story about being chased by my neighbor's dog - would be totally lost, and only because you had to tell me all about Pele. Learn to listen! I beg of you. Pretend you are a dog like me and listen to other people rather than steal their stories.

You can't hold a conversation in Brazil without jokes . . . you knowhow Brazilians are. Brazilians are women, booze, soccer, carnival, and dirty jokes.

New Rule: America must stop bragging it's the greatest country on earth, and start acting like it. I know this is uncomfortable for the "faith over facts" crowd, but the greatness of a country can, to a large degree, be measured. Here are some numbers. Infant mortality rate: America ranks forty-eighth in the world. Overall health: seventy-second. Freedom of the press: forty-fourth. Literacy: fifty-fifth. Do you realize there are twelve-year old kids in this country who can't spell the name of the teacher they're having sex with? America has done many great things. Making the New World democratic. The Marshall Plan. Curing polio. Beating Hitler. The deep-fried Twinkie. But what have we done for us lately? We're not the freest country. That would be Holland, where you can smoke hash in church and Janet Jackson's nipple is on their flag. And sadly, we're no longer a country that can get things done. Not big things. Like building a tunnel under Boston, or running a war with competence. We had six years to fix the voting machines; couldn't get that done. The FBI is just now getting e-mail. Prop 87 out here in California is about lessening our dependence on oil by using alternative fuels, and Bill Clinton comes on at the end of the ad and says, "If Brazil can do it, America can, too!" Since when did America have to buck itself up by saying we could catch up to Brazil? We invented the airplane and the lightbulb, they invented the bikini wax, and now they're ahead? In most of the industrialized world, nearly everyone has health care and hardly anyone doubts evolution--and yes, having to live amid so many superstitious dimwits is also something that affects quality of life. It's why America isn't gonna be the country that gets the inevitable patents in stem cell cures, because Jesus thinks it's too close to cloning. Oh, and did I mention we owe China a trillion dollars? We owe everybody money. America is a debtor nation to Mexico. We're not a bridge to the twenty-first century, we're on a bus to Atlantic City with a roll of quarters. And this is why it bugs me that so many people talk like it's 1955 and we're still number one in everything. We're not, and I take no glee in saying that, because I love my country, and I wish we were, but when you're number fifty-five in this category, and ninety-two in that one, you look a little silly waving the big foam "number one" finger. As long as we believe being "the greatest country in the world" is a birthright, we'll keep coasting on the achievements of earlier generations, and we'll keep losing the moral high ground. Because we may not be the biggest, or the healthiest, or the best educated, but we always did have one thing no other place did: We knew soccer was bullshit. And also we had the Bill of Rights. A great nation doesn't torture people or make them disappear without a trial. Bush keeps saying the terrorist "hate us for our freedom,"" and he's working damn hard to see that pretty soon that won't be a problem.

6. ANDRES INIESTA - SPAIN   (No matter what they say six is better than seven)   5. DAVID BECKHAM - ENGLAND   (High five!)   4. KAKA - BRAZIL   (I'm number four on the list but number one in your heart)   3. DIEGO MARADONA - ARGENTINA   (I'm the trifecta!)   2. LIONEL MESSI - ARGENTINA   (Watch out I'm right behind you.)   1. PELE - BRAZIL   (Knock knock, who's there? Best, Best who, Best Ever)

At the 2014 World Cup in São Paolo, Brazil, a man kicked a soccer ball to start the games, an event witnessed by a billion people. This by itself was not remarkable. What was remarkable was that this man was paralyzed.

Though most fans would probably deny it, a love of soccer is often intertwined with a love of numbers. There are the match results, the famous dates, and the special joy of sitting in a café with the newspaper on a Sunday morning "reading" the league table. Fantasy soccer leagues are, at bottom, numbers games. In this book we want to introduce new numbers and new ideas to soccer: numbers on suicides, on wage spending, on countries' populations, on passes and sprints, anything that helps to reveal new truths about the game.

Because soccer clubs are the only businesses that get daily publicity without trying to, they treat journalists as humble supplicants instead of as unpaid marketers of the clubs’ brands. The media often retaliate by being mean. This is not very clever of the clubs, because almost all their fans follow them through the media rather than by going to the stadiums.

you are brought face to face with the great question about the soccer coach: Does he really matter? It turns out that coaches or managers (call them what you like) simply don’t make that much difference.

Books Futebol Nation: The Story of Brazil Through Soccer by David Goldblatt (Nation Books, May 2014)

Argentina has one of the most successful national soccer teams in the world, and the country has won the World Cup twice, in 1978 and 1986. In this year’s tournament, the team ranks among the most formidable competitors, with Brazil’s coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari, even predicting a final showdown with Argentina.

Aulas spotted early that most soccer fans everywhere are much more like shoppers than like religious believers: if they can get a better experience somewhere new, they will go there.

Arsenal hasn’t been a great soccer club lately, but it has been a good business. This is what a soccer club run as a business looks like: high ticket prices, little desire to win trophies, and respectable profits. If FFP takes force, and other big clubs end up being run like Arsenal rather than like Abramovich’s Chelsea, then we predict:        •   A fall in players’ wages        •   A fall in transfer fees, which would mean less money trickling down from big clubs to the rest        •   A rise in club profits, which would mean more money being taken out of the game by people like the Glazers

Entrepreneurs who dip into soccer also keep making the same mistakes. They buy clubs promising to run them “like a business” and disappear a few seasons later amid the same public derision as the previous owners.

ANDRES INIESTA - SPAIN   (No matter what they say six is better than seven)   5. DAVID BECKHAM - ENGLAND   (High five!)   4. KAKA - BRAZIL   (I'm number four on the list but number one in your heart)   3. DIEGO MARADONA - ARGENTINA   (I'm the trifecta!)   2. LIONEL MESSI - ARGENTINA   (Watch out I'm right behind you.)   1. PELE - BRAZIL   (Knock knock, who's there? Best, Best who, Best Ever)

If you’re good at providing schools for everyone, as most democracies are, then you are probably also good at providing good soccer fields and coaches for everyone.

For those who recall Charlie Hebdo as it really, rankly was, the act of turning its murdered cartoonists into pawns in a game of another kind of public piety—making them martyrs, misunderstood messengers of the right to free expression—seems to risk betraying their memory. Wolinski, Cabu, Honoré: like soccer players in Brazil, each was known in France by a single name. A small irreverent smile comes to the lips at the thought of the flag being lowered, as it was throughout France last week, for these anarchist mischief-makers, and they would surely have roared at the irony of being solemnly mourned and marched for by former President Nicolas Sarkozy and the current President, François Hollande.

intention, rearing up against a piety. For those who recall Charlie Hebdo as it really, rankly was, the act of turning its murdered cartoonists into pawns in a game of another kind of public piety—making them martyrs, misunderstood messengers of the right to free expression—seems to risk betraying their memory. Wolinski, Cabu, Honoré: like soccer players in Brazil, each was known in France by a single name. A small irreverent smile comes to the lips at the thought of the flag being lowered, as it was throughout France last week, for these anarchist mischief-makers, and they would surely have roared at the irony of being solemnly mourned and marched for by former President Nicolas Sarkozy and the current President, François Hollande.

THE ROAR of the death blast on the Avenue of the Americas cannot be heard in faraway Johannesburg. With eight weeks to go to the opening game in Soccer City, Sepp Blatter and his South African capos have enough problems. Outraged by price gouging, fans are staying home. In the townships citizens protest every day; ‘Service riots’ send messages to politicians that public money should be spent on homes, water, sewage plants and jobs, not stadiums that will become white elephants. Why should they listen? They have the police beat back the protestors. The World Cup is good news for Danny Jordaan, leader of the bid and now chief executive for the tournament. Quietly, his brother Andrew has been given a well-paid job as Hospitality liaison with MATCH Event Services at the Port Elizabeth stadium. A stakeholder in the MATCH company is Sepp Blatter’s nephew Philippe Blatter. The majority owners are Mexican brothers Jaime and Enrique Byrom, based in Manchester, England, Zurich, Switzerland and with some of their bank accounts in Spain and the Isle of Man. The Brothers are not happy. Sepp Blatter awarded them the lucrative 2010 hospitality contract aimed at wealthy football patrons, mostly from abroad. If that wasn’t enough, Blatter also gave them the contract to manage and distribute the three million tickets. The brothers are charging top rates for hotels and internal flights and expected to make huge profits. Instead, they are on their way to losing $50 million. They plan to recoup these losses in Brazil in four years time.

It is one of the eternal stories that are told about soccer: when Brazil gets knocked out of a World Cup, Brazilians jump off apartment blocks. It can happen even when Brazil wins. One writer at the World Cup in Sweden in 1958 claims to have seen a Brazilian fan kill himself out of “sheer joy” after his team’s victory in the final. Janet Lever tells that story in Soccer Madness, her eye-opening study of Brazilian soccer culture published way back in 1983, when nobody (and certainly not female American social scientists) wrote books about soccer. Lever continues: Of course, Brazilians are not the only fans to kill themselves for their teams. In the 1966 World Cup a West German fatally shot himself when his television set broke down during the final game between his country and England. Nor have Americans escaped some bizarre ends. An often cited case is the Denver man who wrote a suicide note—”I have been a Broncos fan since the Broncos were first organized and I can’t stand their fumbling anymore”—and then shot himself. Even worse was the suicide of Amelia Bolaños. In June 1969 she was an eighteen-year-old El Salvadorean watching the Honduras–El Salvador game at home on TV. When Honduras scored the winner in the last minute, wrote the great Polish reporter Ryszard Kapuscinski, Bolaños “got up and ran to the desk which contained her father’s pistol in a drawer. She then shot herself in the heart.” Her funeral was televised. El Salvador’s president and ministers, and the country’s soccer team walked behind the flag-draped coffin. Within a month, Bolaños’s death would help prompt the “Soccer War” between El Salvador and Honduras.

The viewing figures we saw earlier in this book suggest that sport is the most important communal activity in many people’s lives. Nearly a third of Americans watch the Super Bowl. However, European soccer is even more popular. In the Netherlands, possibly the European country that follows its national team most eagerly, three-quarters of the population watch Holland’s biggest soccer games. In many European countries, World Cups may now be the greatest shared events of any kind. To cap it all, World Cups mostly take place in June, the peak month for suicides in the Northern Hemisphere. How many Exleys have been saved from jumping off apartment buildings by international soccer tournaments, the world’s biggest sporting events?

The Global Texan Being a Texan today is about driving your Japanese Toyota Tacoma pickup truck to an Irish bar to have a Mexican Corona and snort a line Colombian coke. Then grab some some Italian pizza for the kids after getting a call from your wife on your Swedish Nokia phone. You pull into the garage next to your daughter's German Mini Cooper, kick back on pleather Chinese recliner and watch a soccer match match between Brazil and Argentina on your 65 inch Korean Samsung TV.

In other words, Brazilian soccer is different from the rest of the world's because Brazil employs the sporting equivalent of a Link trainer. Futsal compresses soccer's essential skills into a small box; it places players inside the deep practice zone, making and correcting errors, constantly generating solutions to vivid problems.

Before he left, Sartre took a small side trip to Araraquara, in the interior of São Paulo state, where he had an unlikely encounter with a Brazilian of truly global stature. The episode is retold in Joseph A. Page’s fine book The Brazilians: As Sartre stood outside a building conversing with a cadre of intellectuals, down the street came Pelé, the world’s greatest soccer star, accompanied by several fans. The two groups converged on a street corner. When they separated, the intellectuals realized they were now following Pelé, and Sartre was walking alone. The intellectuals ran back down the street, a bit embarrassed, and rejoined their French hero. According to Page, many residents still refer to the spot as “Pelé-Sartre Corner.

That summer, two of Wenger’s French boys went off to join their national team at the 1998 World Cup in their home country. Les Bleus marauded their way to the final, where they overpowered Brazil, 3–0. The final goal was swept in by Petit and assisted by Vieira. In London the next morning, the front page of the Mirror carried a photo of those two players locked in a hug beside a headline that showed just how much their stodgy old London club—and English soccer—were changing. ARSENAL WIN THE WORLD CUP, it read.

They brought in players from other national teams around the world, including Germany, Brazil, Mexico, and others to sign a letter asking FIFA and the CSA to reconsider using artificial turf. When that didn’t work, they filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, arguing the decision to play the tournament on artificial turf was gender discrimination under Canadian law. After all, no men’s World Cups had ever been played on artificial turf, and the upcoming men’s tournaments had been planned to be on grass through 2022.

That never-say-die mentality, Sundhage says, was something she found in the American players when she took over as the USA coach. She certainly didn’t teach it to them. “In Sweden, we talk about attacking, defending, positioning, this and that,” Sundhage says. “I think we are fairly smart when it comes to tactics. But here, the Americans have another component: They just go for it.” Marta was once asked by a reporter why the Americans were so hard to beat. She pointed to her head, and the reporter thought she was saying they had a strong aerial presence. “No, no,” Marta interjected. “It’s the mentality.” * * * After that dramatic thriller versus Brazil, the Americans had still only advanced to the semifinal.

Here’s why I will be a good person. Because I listen. I cannot speak, so I listen very well. I never interrupt, I never deflect the course of the conversation with a comment of my own. People, if you pay attention to them, change the direction of one another’s conversations constantly. It’s like having a passenger in your car who suddenly grabs the steering wheel and turns you down a side street. For instance, if we met at a party and I wanted to tell you a story about the time I needed to get a soccer ball in my neighbor’s yard but his dog chased me and I had to jump into a swimming pool to escape, and I began telling the story, you, hearing the words “soccer” and “neighbor” in the same sentence, might interrupt and mention that your childhood neighbor was Pelé, the famous soccer player, and I might be courteous and say, Didn’t he play for the Cosmos of New York? Did you grow up in New York? And you might reply that, no, you grew up in Brazil on the streets of Três Corações with Pelé, and I might say, I thought you were from Tennessee, and you might say not originally, and then go on to outline your genealogy at length. So my initial conversational gambit—that I had a funny story about being chased by my neighbor’s dog—would be totally lost, and only because you had to tell me all about Pelé. Learn to listen! I beg of you. Pretend you are a dog like me and listen to other people rather than steal their stories. I listened that night and I heard.

An athlete like Lionel Messi has a significant impact on Argentina's soft power on the global stage because he's able to use his talent and success on the soccer field to promote positive perceptions of Argentina to the rest of the world. His skills and success on the soccer field have helped to draw international attention to Argentina, which is not as well-known as some of its South American neighbours like Brazil. Messi's accomplishments, which include numerous individual awards and titles, as well as his massive fanbase, have helped to raise the profile of Argentine soccer and the country itself on a global scale. His success has made him a household name in many countries around the world, and as a result, his image and reputation are frequently associated with Argentina.

Here's why I will be a good person. Because I listen. I cannot speak, so I listen very well. I never interrupt, I never deflect the course of the conversation with a comment of my own. People, if you pay attention to them, change the direction of one another's conversations constantly. It's like having a passenger in your car who suddenly grabs the steering wheel and turns you down a side street. For instance, if we met at a party and I wanted to tell you a story about the time I needed to get a soccer ball in my neighbor's yard but his dog chased me and I had to jump into a swimming pool to escape, and I began telling the story, you, hearing the words "soccer" and "neighbor" in the same sentence, might interrupt and mention that your childhood neighbor was Pele, the famous soccer player, and I might be courteous and say, Didn't he play for the Cosmos of New York? Did you grow up in New York? And you might reply that, no, you grew up in Brazil on the streets of Tres Coracoes with Pele, and I might say, I thought you were from Tennessee, and you might say not originally, and then go on to outline your genealogy at length. So my initial conversational gambit - that I had a funny story about being chased by my neighbor's dog - would be totally lost, and only because you had to tell me all about Pele. Learn to listen! I beg of you. Pretend you are a dog like me and listen to other people rather than steal their stories.

Alvarenga next invented games with the animals. He used a dried puffer fish as a soccer ball and tossed it midship, which became “midfield.” Because it was covered in spines the birds could not puncture the balloonlike fish, but due to their hunger they struck it again and again, flipping the “ball” from one end of the “field” to the other. To stir up action Alvarenga tossed chunks of fish and bird entrails across the deck, then watched as the captive birds attacked and chased the puffer fish. He named one bird Cristiano Ronaldo, another Rolando and put Maradona and Messi on the same team. Alvarenga spent entire afternoons as both fan and announcer, immersed in this world of bird football. His favorite matches were Mexico vs. Brazil. In this world, Mexico always won.

But that streak wouldn’t come easily. First, Greg Ryan had to make the worst coaching mistake in the history of the national team—a miscalculation that fractured the team and tested the culture built by the players who came before. * * * The national team was two days from the 2007 World Cup semifinal versus Brazil when an assistant coach leaned over to Hope Solo. Solo was sitting at a table in the team’s meal room at their hotel in China when the assistant told her Greg Ryan wanted to talk to her once she was finished eating dinner.

When Solo went up to her coach’s room to talk with him, she found out she was right to be worried. Ryan was going to start Briana Scurry in goal for the semifinal instead of Solo. “Bri has a winning record against Brazil,” he told her. “Her style just matches up better with Brazil’s style.” Scurry had been a fantastic goalkeeper for the national team, to be sure, and some of her best performances had indeed come against Brazil. In 12 career matches versus Brazil, Scurry averaged just .41 goals conceded per game. Only three months earlier, Scurry recorded a shutout versus Brazil in a friendly when Solo was away dealing with the death of her father. The problem, however, was that friendly versus Brazil in June was the last time Scurry started for the national team. By now it was September and in the middle of the knockout round of a World Cup. There was no way Scurry could be at her sharpest. If Ryan’s decision wasn’t fair to Solo, who had done nothing to lose her spot, it really wasn’t fair to Scurry, who didn’t have the proper preparation to perform at her best. The decision—as stunning as it was—was bad enough. But making it worse was that Ryan admitted he made it with input from Abby Wambach and Kristine Lilly.

In England, the country that invented the modern game of soccer, women were effectively banned by the English federation until 1971. In Brazil—another famous soccer country known for producing Pelé, one of the greatest players in the history of the sport—it was illegal for women to play soccer until 1979. In Germany, women were finally allowed to play soccer in 1970, and even then, they were required to play shorter games, just 60 minutes instead of 90, and with a lighter ball.

In the shootout that followed, Hope Solo saved one of Brazil’s penalty kicks, while the Americans buried all theirs. The Americans were advancing to the semifinal.

In the shootout that followed, Hope Solo saved one of Brazil’s penalty kicks, while the Americans buried all theirs. The Americans were advancing to the semifinal. The stunning last-second goal—Rapinoe’s cross and Wambach’s header—would captivate the nation back home. Suddenly a country that hadn’t been particularly attuned to this Women’s World Cup fell back in love with its national team. A team that had fallen off the radar since 2005 was thrust back into the spotlight again. If Abby Wambach worried in 2008 about the team not needing her, she proved her fears wrong at the perfect time.

Instead, Wambach planted her feet and jumped straight up into the air, thrusting her head toward the ball. She beat Andréia to the ball and snapped it toward the goal. Wambach’s eyes were closed, but the sound of the ball rattling the back of the net was unmistakable. Goal, USA. The score: 2–2. “OH, CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS?!” ESPN announcer Ian Darke shouted at the top of his lungs to American viewers through their TV sets. “ABBY WAMBACH HAS SAVED THE USA’S LIFE IN THIS WORLD CUP!” Wambach ran over to the corner flag and slid, releasing a primal scream. The players closest to her—Tobin Heath and Alex Morgan—hugged her first. Kelley O’Hara leapt off the bench and raced over to Wambach, and everyone else soon followed. Rapinoe fist-pumped furiously and pounded on her chest. It was perhaps the most exhilarating moment in the national team’s history—perhaps it could rival the 1999 World Cup win, which had fittingly happened exactly 12 years earlier. Either way, coming after 121 minutes and 19 seconds, it was the latest goal in World Cup history—men’s or women’s—and it was a thrilling boost for the Americans. There was no way they were going to lose to Brazil on penalty kicks now.

The truth is, there was no one else around. Months later, not at first, one of them would say that the office was a “desert of souls.” The other one agreed, smiling, proud that he wasn’t included in that description. And little by little, between beers, they came to share sour stories about unloved and hungry women, then soccer banter, secret Santa, wish lists, fortunetellers’ addresses, a bookie,  Jogo do bicho, cards for the punch clock, the occasional pastry after work, cheap champagne in plastic cups. In a desert of souls that were also deserts, one special soul immediately recognizes another—maybe for that reason, who knows? But neither of them wondered.

Sports Soccer, or football, is the most popular sport in Italy. Children play soccer in squares, on streets, and in fields. Almost every community has a soccer team, and when local teams play on Sunday afternoon, everything else stops. The Italian League, which has existed since 1898, is regarded as one of the toughest in the world. Rivalries between towns can be bitter and raucous, and sometimes even violent. In Rome, the two main competing teams--Roma and Lazio--play their home games in the same stadium, Stadio Olimpico, which holds more than eighty-two thousand spectators. Every four years, national soccer teams from around the globe compete in the World Cup, the world’s biggest soccer tournament. Italy has won the World Cup four times, in 1934, 1938, 1982, and 2006, making the country’s team second only to Brazil’s in number of wins.