Vídeos de assédio na Copa da Rússia levantam a questão: o que isso diz sobre nossa sociedade?

por Gustavo Autran, especial para O GLOBO / Luiza Barros 

Nelson Rodrigues gostava de usar o futebol como ponto de partida para descrever a alma do brasileiro. O dramaturgo e cronista esportivo sabia que o esporte era capaz de mexer com a autoestima da população e atiçar o orgulho nacional. Pois antes mesmo da estreia da seleção brasileira na Copa do Mundo da Rússia, no último domingo, aquela corrente pra frente foi substituída por uma enorme sensação de vergonha.

Na véspera do empate contra a Suíça, um vídeo com um grupo de torcedores brasileiros assediando uma jovem que não falava português e debochando dela levou muita gente a se perguntar: o que passa na cabeça de homens que agem assim?

Professora da UnB e pesquisadora do Instituto Anis, a antropóloga Debora Diniz acha que o grupo se comportou como quem adquire um “souvenir”.

— Quiseram ter algo como uma lembrancinha de viagem, porque viram na Rússia o objeto erótico de seus sonhos, a mulher branca e loura, em uma situação vulnerável.
Em menos de 20 segundos, o vídeo expôs o machismo e os preconceitos de uma sociedade estruturada em torno de desigualdades entre sexos, raças e classes sociais. No lado dos algozes, estava a parcela mais privilegiada da população brasileira: homens, brancos e de alto poder aquisitivo, já que, segundo levantamento feito pelo GLOBO, em março, ir à Copa da Rússia não saía por menos de R$ 13 mil.

— Quando os autores do vídeo fazem a moça pronunciar “boceta rosa” sem que ela saiba o significado, há, além da objetificação, uma exaltação da branquitude do órgão sexual daquela mulher — argumenta a professora da USP Marcia Thereza Couto, doutora em Sociologia e especialista em violência e relações de gênero.

ARGENTINOS E COLOMBIANOS

Pior foi saber que não se tratou de um caso isolado: logo começaram a circular pelas redes outras gravações que mostram comportamentos semelhantes de homens brasileiros, argentinos e colombianos. Em um vídeo com brasileiros, o alvo é uma criança, um menino convidado a repetir frases como “eu sou um viado” e “eu dou para o Neymar”. Fica a imagem de que o comportamento chulo e bravateiro, além da homofobia, são traços da América Latina. Será?

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OPINIÃO: Não é normal chorar num 2º jogo da fase de grupos, Neymar

— O machismo latino está tão entranhado que não importa para esses homens onde eles estão, eles não sabem agir de outra forma — aponta Debora.

Mesmo em outro país, o fato de esses homens estarem na maior parte das vezes em grupo pode, de acordo com especialistas, ter servido como elemento encorajador: no vídeo de maior repercussão, a jovem loura, cercada por estranhos, é a minoria.

— Agir em bloco empodera, mesmo quando se está em um outro país, regido por outros códigos de controle e licenças sociais — explica o antropólogo Roberto DaMatta. — Muitas vezes, quando se está em grupo, a consciência das responsabilidades individuais se dilui porque quem faz parte do coletivo se sente mais protegido, a ponto de fazer desaparecer qualquer sensação de “timidez”.

LEIA MAIS: Conheça quem luta para acabar com o machismo, o racismo e a homofobia no futebol

As imagens também levantam outra discussão: o ambiente do futebol seria mais fértil para esse tipo de manifestação, mesmo num momento em que o debate público é dominado pela condenação a atos racistas, misóginos e homofóbicos?

— O futebol sempre foi um território de disputa, dominado por homens. E muitos deles ainda não se libertaram dos mitos da masculinidade e da mentalidade patriarcal, que se instalaram no inconsciente coletivo há cinco mil anos — pondera a psicanalista e escritora Regina Navarro Lins.

SE FOSSE SUA IRMÃ OU FILHA

Passada uma semana da aparição do primeiro vídeo, a náusea coletiva não arrefece. A cada momento, um novo agressor é identificado, em parte graças à indignação de amigos e conhecidos dos próprios envolvidos. Eles terão que responder a inquérito aberto pela Procuradoria da República no Distrito Federal. O órgão apura se eles cometeram crime de injúria ao expor a torcedora a uma humilhação pública.

O debate em torno do caso e as justificativas dos envolvidos revelaram ainda outras nuances. Ao se defender da reação ao vídeo, um dos participantes afirmou que “fosse na favela ou no carnaval, isso seria considerado normal”, culpou o álcool em excesso e ainda frisou que quem estava no vídeo eram “pais de família” e “trabalhadores”. Para Marcia, esse tipo de resposta evidencia uma recusa em reconhecer um desvio inaceitável no ato, independentemente de local e circunstâncias.

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— Discursos como os que usam o termo “chefe de família” reforçam a imagem de que esta é uma “gente diferenciada”. Ao usar esse recurso, o agressor procura aliados, homens da mesma condição social, que também vejam isso como uma falha episódica — avalia a professora, ao lembrar que os sujeitos apresentados como líderes da família são simultaneamente infantilizados em outro tipo de discuso minimizador, que reduz o assédio a “falta de maturidade”, “molecagem”, “brincadeira”.
ARTIGO: Crime e castigo para os homens extraordinários

Mesmo no diálogo de quem repudia o assédio, ela identifica problemas. Afinal, um dos questionamentos mais comuns é: e se fosse sua irmã ou sua filha?

— Eis aí uma característica própria da nossa cultura, que é o familismo. Encaramos a família como elemento moral para justificar quem somos. É muito diferente da cidadania plena, em que, não importa a relação com o outro, ele merece respeito.

How Argentina Lost Its Way. (Spoiler: It’s Not Messi’s Fault.)

• By Rory Smith, www.nytimes.com
•  
• In the early hours of Friday morning, Argentina’s World Cup squad returned to its training facility at Bronnitsy, a few miles outside Moscow, in almost complete silence, the mood funereal. The country’s World Cup hopes hang by a thread: not of winning it, but of merely qualifying for the knockout rounds, of avoiding immense embarrassment.

  A crushing 3-0 defeat to Croatia in Nizhny Novgorod on Thursday left Argentina reliant on others to stay alive in the tournament: the team’s coach, Jorge Sampaoli, and his players must beat Nigeria in their final game, and hope that Iceland — the smallest nation to qualify for the World Cup — fails to beat Croatia.

  This is not how Argentina’s summer was supposed to go. Boasting the world’s best player, Lionel Messi, a phalanx of outstanding forwards and a coach with a fine record at the international level, Argentina arrived in Russia with hopes of going one better than it had in Brazil four years ago, when it lost in the final, and winning its first World Cup since 1986. So, what has gone wrong, and what can be done about it?

  
  

  Does it make sense to put all of the blame on the coach?

  In his postmatch news conference on Thursday, Sampaoli could barely raise his eyes to face his interrogators. On half a dozen occasions, maybe more, he made it clear that only one person should take responsibility for the fact that Argentina was now on the brink of elimination: him.
  “Had I set things up differently, they might have turned out much better,” he said. “I probably did not understand the match as I should have.”

  Sampaoli made mistakes, without question, in terms of player selection, in terms of tactics, in terms of preparation. Following their tie with Iceland in the opening game, Argentina’s players only had three training sessions to get used to the system Sampaoli introduced for the game against Croatia, the most dangerous opponent in Argentina’s group. It looked it, too: against Croatia, Argentina had a defense left exposed, a midfield that was overrun, and an attack that was blunted.

  

  Argentina’s coach, Jorge Sampaoli, as the game against Croatia disintegrated.Foto de: Gabriel Rossi/Getty Images

  There was an emotional failure, too. Sampaoli’s style has always relied a little on organized chaos: it was the relentlessness of his Chile teams that led him to such success with that country, and in no small way led to him being given the Argentina job. Against Croatia, though, cooler heads were required, particularly after falling behind in such unexpected circumstances, on a goalkeeping blunder. Sampaoli did nothing to help. He threw on attacking players seemingly at random, with little apparent design and to no obvious end. He proved incapable of thinking his way out of the problem.

  Diego Simeone, the Atlético Madrid coach, described it as “chaos,” pointing to a “total lack of leadership” in a WhatsApp message to his assistant, German Burgos, that somehow went viral. Simeone, who played in three World Cups for Argentina, had been a contender to take charge of the national team before Sampaoli took the job.
  Maybe, in hindsight, he would have done better. In 13 games as coach of Argentina, Sampaoli has used 13 lineups, and a total of 59 players. He has never given an impression that he knows what he wants this team to be, or who — beyond Messi — he wants to be in it. There was no plan B, to be used in an emergency, because he had not yet settled on plan A.
  And yet, it is impossible to avoid the suspicion that all of this is more deep-seated than poor team selection, or just one underwhelming managerial tenure. In the last 13 years — the span of Messi’s senior international career — Argentina has had 8 coaches.

  Some have been cross-the-fingers, hope-for-the-best appointments: Diego Maradona and Sergio Batista, say. Others, like Alejandro Sabella, Alfio Basile and Edgardo Bauza, have been uninspiring, but experienced, relatively well-regarded coaches. Sampaoli, like José Pekerman and Gerardo Martino, came with impressive résumés and widespread public support.

  Though Argentina’s international record is not quite as poor as is often claimed — a World Cup final and two Copa America finals in recent years is better than most — it has still not won a trophy since 1993, and given the talent at its disposal, it has failed to live up to its own standards. Should Argentina fail to reach the round of 16 in Russia, Sampaoli will be fired. If past experience is anything to go by, that alone will not solve the problem.

  So, if it’s not all Sampaoli’s fault, it must be Messi’s?

  Before we get to that, let’s make one thing abundantly clear: Lionel Messi does not need to win the World Cup to have a case to be the greatest player of his era, or even of all time.

  The logic that only World Cup winners could be true greats is an antiquated one. It was true enough when it was only on that stage that the very best on the planet regularly encountered each other: a time when Pelé spent his entire career on one side of the Atlantic, and when Maradona played only a handful of European Cup games in his career.
  It is not true now, given that we have the Champions League, and Messi can face his peers over and over again, from September until April or May. That is the stage where greatness is bestowed, and Messi has shone on it often enough certainly to be one of the two finest players of the 21st century.

  Whether he’s better than Cristiano Ronaldo — and whether either of them are better than Pelé, Maradona, Johan Cruyff or anyone else — is, more than anything, a matter of personal taste, but it should not be determined by whether he has won a World Cup or not. It is, after all, hardly Messi’s fault that Nicolas Otamendi is the best defender Argentina can produce.

  Messi, though, does not seem to see it that way. There has been a longstanding, and now somewhat clichéd, allegation that he does not deliver for his country, one that somehow managed to linger after he carried it to the World Cup final four years ago and a couple of Copa América finals at the same time.

  
  
  

  Lionel Messi does not need to win the World Cup to have a case to be the greatest player of his era, or even of all time.Foto de: Gabriel Rossi/Getty Images
   
  Even more hackneyed is the idea that he does not care, that because he has spent so much time away from Argentina that he somehow lacks the requisite passion to represent his nation.

  His behavior in the last week or so should expose that thinking as flawed: the stress was evident as he stood for Argentina’s anthem in Nizhny Novgorod; he had avoided a family barbecue at Argentina’s training facility in Russia in the days preceding the game, preferring to stay alone in the room he shares with Sergio Agüero.

  Even before that, his determination to do something for his country — to win the World Cup, to cement his greatness — was clear. Messi volunteered to change his own role so as to enable Sampaoli to make more use of the likes of Agüero, Ángel Di María and Gonzalo Higuaín. He has made tactical suggestions, too, to try to improve the team. In some lights, perhaps that looks like the sort of egocentrism more associated (rightly or wrongly) with his great rival, Ronaldo. In others, it is a veteran player, one of the best of all time, desperate to succeed.
  That none of it has worked, that Messi still seems such a shadow of himself in the blue and white of his nation, could be one of two things. Perhaps he is inhibited by the pressure, crushed by the weight of his country’s expectations, and his own. That seems unlikely: he is well used to performing under pressure, and in an environment that is, at times, no less dysfunctional, at Barcelona.

  Perhaps, then, as Sampaoli said, the flaws in the rest of the team “cloud” Messi’s abilities, and prevent him from shining in the way that Ronaldo can for Portugal. His brilliance cannot disguise the shortcomings of the others.

  
  

  Wait, what? This is a team with Higuaín, Agüero, Paulo Dybala, Di María and the rest: 

  Messi’s teammates are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Are they really that bad?

  
  

  There are two issues here. One is psychological: all of those players rank among the best in the world in their positions at club level, but they have long seemed totally dependent on Messi for Argentina.

  Against Iceland and Croatia — and for years now — it was striking how few of them seemed willing to try to ease the burden on him. Too often, Argentina’s plan seems to be to funnel the ball to Messi and hope for the best. It almost worked in Brazil four years ago, but much of the time it makes the team predictable, and easily contained.

  Croatia, for example, deployed Marcelo Brozovic to shut down Messi in Nizhny Novgorod. He did his job extremely well — Messi did not have a shot until the 64th minute, and made just 15 passes in the first hour — but, more tellingly, none of Messi’s teammates was able to take the reins. If Messi is not firing, Argentina does not seem capable of coping. The rest of the players are diminished in his presence.
  The other issue is that Argentina’s squad is almost comically front-loaded. That signifies two issues: one is that Sampaoli can not, realistically, squeeze all of it into the same team. No system could adequately accommodate Dybala, Higuaín, Agüero and Messi, let alone the likes of Mauro Icardi, the prolific Internazionale striker left out of the squad (purportedly to suit Messi). Sometimes, having that many choices can be paralyzing: it may be that the richness of his resources is what has left Sampaoli so indecisive in his time in charge of Argentina.

  
  
  

  Sergio Aguero took a shot on goal against Iceland.Foto de: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
  

  Paulo Dybala of Argentina held off Andrej Kramaric of Croatia.Foto de: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
   
  The other, more serious, issue is what that abundance of attacking choices says about the team’s defense. There is a valid question over whether the midfield Argentina has brought to Russia is capable of playing the way Sampaoli desires — the intense, high-pressing style that has brought him so much success — but it is at the back that Sampaoli has had to make do with what he has got.

  Otamendi, Marcos Rojo, Gabriel Mercado, Federico Fazio: these are not elite central defenders. And at fullback, with the noteworthy exception of Ajax’s Nicolas Tagliafico, the problem is just as pronounced. Eduardo Salvio, an attack-minded right-winger, has played as a fullback and a wingback in Russia so far.

  In effect, Argentina’s strength is all in one place; too much of the rest of the team is a wasteland. In contrast, Portugal — and all discussions of Messi must come back to Ronaldo — boasts a well-drilled defense and midfield. Ronaldo is the only star, but he has a reliable platform from which to perform. Messi’s situation is the polar opposite: no matter how much he excels, there is always a chance the ground will shift beneath his feet.

  
  

  Why is that? Why does Argentina have such a dearth of defenders?

  
  

  This is the key issue, the one that has trapped Argentina below the waterline, and the one the country must start to address if its time in the international wilderness, at least trophy-wise, is to come to an end.

  Argentine domestic soccer is in a state of almost permanent financial crisis. Many of its clubs lead a hand-to-mouth existence, their business models entirely reliant on selling players — ordinarily very young players — either directly to European clubs or, until the practice was banned, to investment firms hoping to profit on the country’s vast resources of talent.

  That model, naturally, tends to place the focus much more on attacking players than defensive ones: it is the gifted forwards and wingers who attract the premium fees, who are more likely to be sold on to Europe for the sorts of sums that can keep a club afloat.

  
  
  

  Argentina’s Nicolas Otamendi tried to stop Croatia’s Mario Mandzukic.Foto de: Petr David Josek/Associated Press
   
  Argentina used to produce rafts of central defenders: recent World Cup squads have included players of the caliber of Roberto Ayala, Mauricio Pochettino, Jose Chamot, Walter Samuel and Oscar Ruggeri.

  By those standards, the current crop — Otamendi, Rojo, Mercado — is hardly vintage. And it is an entirely predictable consequence of an approach to youth development that now prioritizes short-term profit over long-term need.
  Argentina was, for many years, the gold standard for nurturing young players. Its production line seemed to be endless, despite a comparative lack of investment, players emerging from the barrios of Buenos Aires to take on the world. It has won the Under-20 World Cup a record six times, most recently in 2007, with a squad that included Di María and Ever Banega, both in Russia this year with the senior team.

  Since then, though, the success has stopped, leading to concerns that the talent has dried up.

  That is unlikely to be the case: Cristian Pavon, a 22-year-old winger with Boca Juniors, has emerged from this World Cup with his reputation enhanced. But the system does not seem to be working as it once did.

  
  
  

  Cristian Pavon of Argentina and Birkir Saevarsson of IcelandFoto de: Yuri Kochetkov/EPA, via Shutterstock
   
  Players leave for Europe too young, stunting their development at the crucial moment; energies are directed toward identifying attacking phenomena, rather than the painstaking work of educating defenders.

  There is a lack of scheming midfielders, too, a byproduct of what might be called the Bielsa Orthodoxy: the intense, hard-running style of play of Marcelo Bielsa, Sampaoli’s mentor, is now so widespread in Argentina that players capable of stopping and thinking are in short supply.

  Argentine soccer used to be defined by what they call pausa: a playmaker’s ability to wait for the exact moment to play a pass. There is no pausa in Argentine soccer any more. The game against Croatia was the perfect example: all running, no thinking, an advertisement for a country that has lost its way.

  
  
  © 2018 The New York Times Company.
   

Messi sofre. Cristiano desfruta. E Neymar?

Martín Fernandez



As duas primeiras rodadas da Copa do Mundo deixaram claro o que vieram fazer na Rússia os dois maiores jogadores de futebol destes tempos. Messi veio sofrer. Cristiano Ronaldo está aqui para desfrutar. Tarefa bem mais difícil é decifrar o papel que caberá a Neymar. Retratos perfeitos do que as seleções de Argentina, Portugal e Brasil exibiram até aqui.

Messi está cansado de carregar nas costas as frustrações de um país, as comparações injustas, os vacilos de um técnico incapaz de tomar uma única decisão correta. Ver Messi em campo tem sido uma agonia. Desde que perdeu aquele pênalti contra a Islândia, no sábado passado, o camisa 10 se arrasta pelos gramados russos, angústia pura, enquanto Sampaoli faz uma substituição equivocada atrás da outra em nome de uma doutrina tática condenada ao fracasso.

Todo o contrário com seu rival pelo posto de melhor jogador deste século. O artilheiro da Copa do Mundo já fez gol de cabeça, de pé direito, de pé esquerdo, de falta, de pênalti. Cercado por jogadores menos talentosos, Cristiano Ronaldo não se importa em pagar a conta sozinho, nem de ouvir piada de Fernando Santos, o técnico português, que explicou assim a fase brilhante do craque que ele tem o privilégio de dirigir: “Encontrou um treinador à altura”.

Até nos subterrâneos dos estádios de Moscou é possível notar as diferenças. Após todos os jogos da Copa do Mundo, os atletas são obrigados a percorrer um corredor apinhado de jornalistas desesperados para arrumar alguma declaração dos protagonistas do espetáculo. Só fala quem quer, ninguém é obrigado. Messi se detém ante os microfones, a mesma expressão triste que exibe em campo, o mesmo olhar para o chão. Com um fiapo de voz, usa um verbo que diz tudo: “Dói”.
Cristiano Ronaldo passa rindo e com pressa. Finge falar ao celular, que segura a um palmo de distância da orelha. Ignora os pedidos de entrevista feitos em português, espanhol, inglês, russo, chinês.

Em algum lugar entre esses dois extremos está Neymar. Como sempre, tudo o que envolve o camisa 10 da seleção é enigmático, turvo.

Apenas encerrado o jogo contra a Costa Rica, caiu num choro desses que parecem ser sentidos, profundos. Minutos depois fez um autodesagravo no Twitter: “Na minha vida as coisas nunca foram fáceis, não seria agora né!". Entre o pranto no gramado e desabafo para seus 40 milhões de seguidores, houve tempo para um tuíte patrocinado: um vídeo de 15 segundos no qual um sorridente Neymar em versão desenho animado faz embaixadinhas com uma música russa ao fundo.

Quando ainda defendia o Santos, Neymar decidiu um Mundial de Clubes contra o Barcelona, clube para o qual já estava vendido sem que ninguém soubesse. Como ninguém sabe direito para onde vai depois da Copa do Mundo. Como ninguém sabe do que será capaz no jogo contra a Sérvia, que decide a vida do Brasil no Mundial. Com a mesma habilidade com que dribla zagueiros e anota golaços, Neymar confunde quem tenta entendê-lo.

Peru Invades Russia. Well, at Least Many of Its Fans Have.By Tariq Panja

By Tariq Panja

SARANSK, Russia — Augusto Caceres, 81, had all but given up hope of seeing his beloved Peru at a World Cup again during his lifetime.

He has been to 13 straight World Cups, beginning with the 1970 tournament. And for much of that time, Peru had failed again and again to make it to soccer’s biggest showcase. Still, Caceres kept going, and hoping that Peru might somehow be a part of the World Cup for the first time since 1982. And now Peru is.

Dining in a restaurant here on Friday, a day before Peru made its return to the World Cup in a frustrating 1-0 loss against Denmark, Caceres spoke about his adventures, of the great players and the great teams he has seen over the years, and of Peru’s continued absence from it all.

“I went back home every year and they didn’t improve,” he said, recalling all the years of failure and of the Peruvian national teams that did play good soccer but had bad luck. “In soccer, you win by scoring goals, and when 10 years had passed by, I thought they will never make it.”

But they did, and now Caceres will have a lot of company. For after a 36-year wait, Peruvians are not taking any chances. Who knows how long it will be until the next World Cup opportunity arises. Better to take part in this one.

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Good things sometimes come to soccer fans who wait. So Augusto Caceres, shown at a Saransk restaurant on Friday, will finally get to see Peru play in the World Cup again.CreditTariq Panja/The New York Times

 

As a result, thousands upon thousands of fans from the Andean nation and the greater Peruvian diaspora have descended on Russia, with more arriving daily, giving Moscow’s Red Square the air of Lima’s own Plaza Mayor. Even at the World Cup opener on Thursday, between host Russia and Saudi Arabia, Peru’s distinct uniform shirt — a white shirt with a red sash — was a regular presence among the throng.

Francois Braendle, a Swiss banker based in Russia, said he hadn’t seen anything quite like the Peruvian invasion. “Honestly, I believe the whole country of Peru is here,” he said on Thursday. Behind him, in Moscow’s early evening sunshine, the red-and-white tide marched on toward Nikolskaya Street, a gathering point for fans from across the world, but another place where Peruvians now seem to outnumber the rest.

And before Saturday’s game, the streets of Saransk, the smallest of the World Cup host cities, were swamped by Peruvians, heralding chance meetings of friends and neighbors that usually take place an ocean away in places like Lima, Arequipa and Cusco.

“Everywhere you go you see someone you know,” said one fan, Balere Ortúzar. Her uncle Carlos Mariátegui said he had already bumped into 50 people from back home.

Peru’s presence in the World Cup was hanging in the balance until the very end of South America’s qualifying tournament, widely accepted to be the toughest in soccer. And had Brazil scored either one fewer goal in its 3-0 victory over Chile, or had Paraguay beaten last-place Venezuela at home (instead, it lost), Peru would have been shut out of the World Cup again.

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Peru’s players saluted fans of the team during a recent training session in Russia.CreditTatyana Makeyeva/Reuters

But instead it was Peru that was handed a secondary route into the World Cup via a playoff game against New Zealand, and its 2-0 victory unleashed the sort of celebrations one might expect in a soccer-mad nation. A national holiday was declared, and travel agencies in Peru and FIFA’s ticketing website were swamped by people wanting to go to Russia. Officially, in its most recent update, FIFA said it allocated 43,583 tickets to Peruvians, but the real number might be considerably higher, since those supporting Peru in Russia this week seem to have come from anywhere and everywhere, including Australia, which Peru will meet in its final group game.

Being at the World Cup can be an expensive proposition. Caceres, who splits his time between a home in Connecticut and Lima, said he spent $2,000 securing resale tickets for Peru’s three group games, starting with its matchup with Denmark in Saransk on Saturday. He has committed to spending $20,000 in total.

Already, there are all sorts of tales of the lengths that Peruvians have gone to pay for their World Cup odyssey. At least some of those tales, no doubt, are true. There are the ones about remortgaging a home or selling a car. And there are the more exotic solutions, such as the one hatched by Diva Rivera, 24, who is an actress and the owner of a clothing store in the Amazon city of Iquitos. Rivera started a campaign called “donate one sol so I can go to the World Cup” and traveled across the country with a plan to gather one Peruvian sol, the equivalent of 30 cents, from each person she met.

“It was a challenge that came about from a kind of fever that arose when the team qualified for the tournament,” Rivera said in a telephone interview from Saransk after arriving by train for Peru’s game on Saturday. She was joined in Russia by a man who was said to have gained 25 kilograms (about 55 pounds) in three months to qualify for seats reserved for obese spectators after finding regular seats for Peru’s matches had been sold out.

“Thirty-six years,” said Sergio Inamine, 33, his short answer to what has been described as “una locura,” or a madness, that has descended upon Peru. “That’s the answer, that’s all you need to know,” added Inamine, who had traveled from Peru to Moscow and was headed to Saransk.

Peru’s years of soccer failures came as the country struggled to cope with political and economic crises as well as a destructive, and prolonged, guerrilla war with the Maoist insurgent group Shining Path. “Soccer is a reflection of society, and we were lost, we had terrorism, bombs all the time, we had the worst presidents, corruption, and sport was forgotten,” Inamine added.

Failure to reach the World Cup had become so regular that Peruvians adapted it as a motif for everyday life, including the repayment of debts, said Martin Llerena, 33, who was with Inamine. “When you owe someone money it became usual to say, “I’ll pay you when Peru goes to the World Cup.’ ”

In a strange twist, the man behind Peru’s renaissance, Coach Ricardo Gareca, known as el Tigre, is partly responsible for the wait having been so long. In a World Cup qualification game in 1985, Peru was leading Gareca’s Argentina, 2-1, when, with the game entering its final stages, he poked the ball into the net to snatch a 2-2 draw and take away a place in the tournament from Peru.

It turned out to be a bittersweet moment for Gareca. When Argentina later announced its final squad for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, Gareca was left off, and he has been waiting to be involved in the event ever since.

Now Gareca and a new generation of Peruvian players finally have their chance, and when they looked up into the stands on Saturday, they were met by the sight of Peruvians just about everywhere.

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On the eve of Peru’s World Cup opener — on Saturday against Denmark — this was the scene in the city center in Saransk.CreditMartin Meissner/Associated Press

This multitude — including 93-year-old Wyenceslao Ferro, who had never been to a World Cup — marched on Mordovia Arena in Saransk before the game, transforming the stadium into the Estadio Nacional del Perú, the Lima bear pit where the South Americans finally clinched their World Cup berth.

As a result, ear-piercing whistles greeted the Danish team as it came out to warm up before the game. From there, the intensity only increased, even affecting Coki Gonzales, a well-known commentator from Peru’s Latina Televisión. Colleagues motioned for him to take deep breaths and drink water so he could steady himself for the game.

“I broke down,” Gonzales said later. “I’m 39 years old now, and never seen Peru at the World Cup. It has been my life’s dream, the most important moment in my life.”

The emotions attached to the game even seemed to overcome Peruvian midfielder Christian Cueva. Given a chance to score Peru’s first World Cup goal in four decades, Cueva skied a penalty shot over Denmark’s goal just before halftime. The miss proved costly when Denmark’s Yussuf Poulsen slotted what would be the only score of the game with 30 minutes left to play.

Denmark’s goal didn’t dampen the singing in the stands or Peru’s repeated efforts to find a tying goal, which ultimately came to nothing.

Age Hareide, Denmark’s coach, said his team almost buckled under the pressure created by Peru’s fans and players, and described the victory as a lucky one. Referring to the atmosphere, he said: “We were a little scared of it, and it did affect us.”

The Peru circus now moves to Yekaterinburg, where the frenzy will commence anew on June 21 in a game against imposing France. Peru’s fans will be hoping their team will still be able to do something it has not managed since 1982: score a goal at the World Cup. And in the process, maybe even come up with a victory against the French or at least a tie. Having traveled all the way from Peru, why think small?

Andrea Zarate contributed reporting from Lima, Peru.

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Trump’s Envy of Kim Jong-un

• By Roger Cohen, www.nytimes.com
•  
•  
  I’ve just watched footage of Donald Trump saluting a North Korean general, and it occurs to me that what’s really going on here is that the president is envious of Kim Jong-un, who has the absolute authority to execute his uncle with antiaircraft machine guns, consign tens of thousands of people to the gulag, and rule through a personality cult based on ruthless indoctrination.

  
  

  This, the last hangover of Stalinist totalitarianism, must be the society for which Trump yearns as, remote control in hand, he wanders the corridors of the White House searching for Melania or a late-night burger. It’s one in which prostration to the leader is the norm, critical thought is punishable with death, and the whole tedious apparatus of American constitutional democracy — checks and balances, the rule of law, a free press, an independent judiciary — has been relegated to history’s trash heap.

  
  

  The real enemy, you see, is not the North Korean general Trump saluted, or Kim himself, the erstwhile “rocket man” turned “great personality” and “very smart guy.” No, it’s the forces within American society working to limit Trump’s power and so keep the Republic. As he tweeted upon his return from the summit with Kim in Singapore, “Our country’s biggest enemy is the Fake News so easily promulgated by fools.

  ”

  Biggest enemy! A monstrous regime, still armed with nukes, gets a pass because Trump dreams of building condos on its deserted beaches and seeing a Trump Boulevard in Pyongyang, but no pass for CNN or The New York Times if they refuse to kowtow. A Russian attempt to subvert the last election also goes ignored.

  
  

  
  
  The evidence is now overwhelming that Trump cannot resist a dictator. Kim is “funny.” (You read that right.) Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippine president, is doing “an unbelievable job on the drug problem” through mass arrests and extrajudicial killings. Xi Jinping is just “great.” Vladimir Putin’s human rights violations are not worth a mention because, “What do you think, our country’s so innocent?”

  
  

  By contrast, America’s democratic allies are a bunch of losers. Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, is “dishonest and weak.” Germany refuses to pay up and is “bad, very bad.” Trump even seems to have lost patience with his one European buddy, President Emmanuel Macron of France. The trouble with these wimpy leaders is they don’t starve their citizens or execute troublemakers with antiaircraft guns.

  
  

  Asked by Greta Van Susteren, in an interview with Voice of America, what he would like to say to North Korean citizens, Trump said: “Well, I think you have somebody who has a great feeling for them. He wants to do right by them, and we got along really well. We had a great chemistry — you understand how I feel about chemistry.

  ”

  We understand. Chemistry supplants facts and is an excuse for laziness. Trump has no interest in reality. When allies, the leaders of democratic nations, try to speak to him about reality, his eyes glaze over.

  
  

  Dictators can make up their own worlds. They can make words mean the opposite of what they were intended to mean. They can turn “fake news” into propaganda that’s impossible to contest.

  
  

  
  
  This is what makes Trump so envious. He wants a country where everyone succumbs to his make-believe, a nation where everyone, without exception, would pound the sidewalk in inconsolable grief if he had the extraordinary temerity to die.

  
  

  The United States now has a president who would have told East Germans in 1961, as the Berlin Wall went up, that the Soviet and East German leaders were to be congratulated for walling them in because they were concerned about their people’s safety, happiness and well-being.

  
  

  Trump, in Singapore, saluted evil. That’s a pretty ignominious way to bring down the curtain on more than seven decades of American stewardship of the world after the defeat of evil in 1945.

  
  

  Of course, history is not our esteemed leader’s strong point. Trump also tweeted that the nuclear threat from North Korea is over — abracadabra, just like that! He urged Americans, in this light, to “sleep well tonight!” This recalled nothing so much as the British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, on his return from Munich in 1938, declaring “peace for our time” and saying, “Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.”

  
  

  A year after Chamberlain’s “ultimate deal” with Hitler, the Nazi leader invaded Poland, igniting World War II. North Korea, whose recent history does not encourage trust, still has its nuclear arsenal. In Singapore, it committed only to “work toward” denuclearization.

  
  

  That could mean anything. But Trump insists, “We’re going to denuke North Korea” — less than a year after he threatened to nuke it!

  
  

  
  
  This was an unserious summit, cobbled together in haste by an unserious man, and summed up by the video fantasy of a glorious shared future, shown by the Trump administration in Singapore just after the meeting. This was billed as a “Destiny Pictures Production,” but it was in fact produced by the National Security Council, as the council later sheepishly admitted.

  You can’t make this stuff up.

  
  

  
  
  © 2018 The New York Times Company.

Lava Jato, 227 vezes fora da lei

Janio de Freitas

 Foram quatro anos e três meses de ações judiciais e de críticas públicas de numerosos advogados. Enfim reconhecidas, há três dias, com a sentença que proíbe levar alguém à força, tal como um preso, para prestar depoimento.

Nesses 51 meses, ao que verificou o ministro Gilmar Mendes, a Lava Jato executou 227 desses atos de coerção, ou de força, por isso mesmo chamados de "condução coercitiva". Em média, mais de quatro por semana, desde o início da Lava Jato. Mas a proibição à prática irrestrita desses atos, só admissíveis em caso de recusa a prévia intimação, já existia como velho e comum artigo do Código de Processo Penal. Por que repetir a proibição, até com mais abrangência?

Porque o Tribunal Regional Federal do Sul, o TRF-4, aceitou a arbitrariedade de Sergio Moro; o Conselho Nacional de Justiça concedeu impunidade à violação do Código por Sergio Moro; o Superior Tribunal de Justiça e o Supremo Tribunal Federal substituíram o direito pela demagogia, a lei pelo agrado à opinião ignara, e o dever pela sujeição. Da segunda à última instância da Justiça, tornaram-se todas confrontadas pelo direito paralelo criado por Moro, Deltan Dalagnol, alguns outros procuradores, e absorvido por parte do TRF-4.


Como a lei é arma de combate à corrupção, violá-la é uma forma de corromper o combate à corrupção. A decisão do Supremo repõe e impõe uma das várias medidas de prevenção a deturpações, mas permanecem algumas não menos antidemocráticas.

A limitação do tema votado não impediu, no entanto, que fosse um bonito julgamento: as ideias de liberdade pessoal e de respeito aos direitos da cidadania tiveram forte presença. O ministro Celso de Mello, entre outros, trouxe ao debate um princípio cujo desconhecimento, pelo direito paralelo da Lava Jato, tem produzido situações deploráveis.

"O ônus da prova é do Estado", disse o decano do Supremo, e como o inquirido "não deve contribuir para sua própria incriminação", ele "não tem obrigação jurídica de cooperar com os agentes da persecução penal".

Pelos quatro anos e três meses, a Lava Jato eximiu-se do ônus da prova. Transferiu-o ao próprio inquirido, exigindo-lhe a autoincriminação, forçada de duas maneiras.
Uma, a prisão protelada até o desespero, método recomendado pelos americanos para uso em terras alheias, não na sua, onde não ousariam adotá-lo. Como complemento, a compra da autoincriminação e da delação, pagas com a liberdade como moeda. Não mais nem menos do que suborno. Feito em nome da moralidade e da justiça.

O ministro Dias Toffoli, por sua vez, formulou o despertar de um sentimento há muito já disseminado no país: "É chegado o momento em que o Supremo (...) impeça interpretações criativas que atentem contra o direito fundamental" de cada ser humano.

O momento não devia ser necessário jamais, já chegou há muito tempo e percebe-se que ainda sensibiliza só seis ministros --é o que indica a vantagem de um só voto, na derrota por 6 a 5 da combinação ilegal de arbitrariedade e coerção em nome da Justiça.

Barred From Stadiums at Home, an Iranian Activist Enters a New World in St. Petersburg

• By James Montague, www.nytimes.com
•  
•  
  
  
  

  ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — The envelope might have been kept securely in her bag, but she still checked it every few minutes, just to make sure that the most precious of things was still there. It was something she had always wished for, but until now had always been denied.

  “I keep coming back and checking, checking, checking,” she said, pulling out a long card from a zip pocket. “It is like a treasure to me.”

  Held carefully in her two small hands was a prize millions of other soccer fans sometimes take for granted: a match ticket. To be precise, this was a ticket to Iran’s opening game at this World Cup, against Morocco in St. Petersburg on Friday. Her first ticket to see her national team play live. That she held it at all was the reason she could not stop checking to ensure that it was safe, and that it was real.

  Video

  “It is so beautiful,” she said.

  She had traveled to Russia from Iran, where women are barred from attending men’s matches. She has become an activist in a 13-year campaign to persuade the authorities to rescind the ban and, as such, uses the name Sara to conceal her real identity for fear of arrest.

  Sara’s campaign began in 2005. At first, Sara, a sports obsessive who also follows volleyball and basketball, would protest with a few dozen other women outside Tehran’s vast Azadi Stadium. Azadi means “freedom” in Farsi.

  “I remember in 2005, we wanted to watch football, and many educated people didn’t recognize it as something that is a women’s rights issue,” she said. Initially, there was some success as they were allowed to gather. But after a violent crackdown, and following the failed Green Revolution in 2009 that led to a period of repression under the former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the protests stopped. Instead, Sara moved to social media, where she set up an anonymous account on Twitter, calling it @openstadiums.

  

  Sara, which is not her real name, held her ticket for Friday’s World Cup match between Iran and Morocco.Foto de: James Montague for The New York Times

  Her Twitter account has helped give her local campaign global exposure, and won her new supporters.

  “We first connected via social media,” said Moya Dodd, an Australian soccer official who once sat on FIFA’s ruling executive committee. “It was my job to represent those without a voice. I had to figure out how to do that.”

  Dodd managed to raise the issue of Iran’s stadium ban with the former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who in turn raised it privately and publicly after meeting with Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, in 2015. What was once a minority issue was now moving into the mainstream.

  “She’s helped make the stadium ban a symbol of something much more: Iranian women’s right to fully participate in society,” Dodd said.

  The issue is now a talking point in Iran. Last July, after Iran qualified for the World Cup, the team was invited to meet with Rouhani. Iran’s captain, Masoud Shojaei, took the opportunity to raise the ban on women at stadiums during the meeting. “Masoud is incredible,” Sara said. “We are really proud we have this kind of captain.”

  But speaking out in Iran can have consequences. And Shojaei later was dropped from the national team after conservative politicians and commentators criticized him for playing a match with his Greek club against an Israeli team, something considered a red line in Tehran. (He was reintroduced into Iran’s team shortly before the World Cup by the team’s coach, Carlos Queiroz.)

  In March, Sara was among three dozen female soccer fans and activists arrested and held for a number of hours after trying to enter the Azadi — some while dressed as men — for the biggest match in the country, a local showdown between Persepolis and Esteghlal that was watched by as many as 100,000 men. Sara managed to escape that day, with the FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, in the stadium as he watched the game with Iranian officials.

  
  

  

   

  A sign supporting the right of Iranian women to attend soccer matches in Iran was on display at Friday’s World Cup game in St. Petersburg.Foto de: Dylan Martinez/Reuters

  Infantino did not raise the issue of the ban on women publicly while in Iran, but he later said that he had brought it up privately, and had been assured by Rouhani that there were plans to end it.

  “It is really stressful, it is difficult when you are living in such conditions,” Sara said of her efforts to end the ban as a private citizen. “Any move you make, you have to think, is going to put myself or my family in danger. You feel terrorized.”

  But with only a few hours until kickoff on Friday in St. Petersburg, Sara was torn. On the one hand, she wanted to enjoy a match without pressure, the way most women in the world can. Yet she was also aware that the World Cup was a platform to let a wider audience know her cause in Iran.

  “It is their right, they have to be in the stadiums,” she said of Iranian women. “Football is not for men only.”

  On Friday, many Iranian women joined the procession of fans to the St. Petersburg stadium. Some of the women were from Tehran, others were drawn to Russia from the global Iranian diaspora. Sara met another Iranian activist who lives in the United States, and they unfolded two banners. The one held by Sara said: “Support Iranian Women to Attend Stadiums #NoBan4Women.” Passing Iranian fans, buoyed by their pregame excitement, offered support, or took a moment to pose for photographs with the signs.

  Russian police officers looked on but did not intervene.

  As the start of the game approached, the groups that had gathered split up and began to head to their seats. Sara found her gate, and took her place in line. Ever since getting off the bus that had brought her near the stadium, she said, she had been unable to suppress a smile.

  “Every time we went to demonstrate, it never happened,” she said of her previous attempts to buy a ticket in Iran. “Now, football is going from two dimensions to three dimensions.”

  This time, she knew, would be different. This time, for the first time, her ticket would be accepted. This time, she would be welcomed inside.

  “Wish me luck,” she said as she disappeared into the crowd beyond the security check.

  More than 60,000 supporters, split fairly evenly between the two nations, watched the game. Morocco looked the more accomplished of the teams as the game proceeded, and the stadium was filled with the incessant buzz of vuvuzelas. Both teams had good chances, which they squandered, and there was a huge ovation for Shojaei when he limped off midway through the second half.

  The game looked to be drifting toward a 0-0 stalemate when, in the final minutes, Morocco’s Aziz Bouhaddouz accidentally diverted a swerving pass past his own goalkeeper.

  The Iranian players on the bench invaded the field to join in the celebration until they reluctantly returned to count down the final few seconds of the first World Cup victory for Iran in 20 years. The last, in 1998, was a famous 2-1 victory against the United States.

  After the final whistle, the players made three laps of honor as Iran’s fans seemed reluctant to leave. Finally, the fans poured into the concourses and onto the plazas outside. Sara, who had maneuvered her way through the crowds to the exit, looked dazed.

  “I don’t know how to celebrate,” she said, trying to explain the feeling of watching her first World Cup match. “I was shocked.”

  But the shock didn’t last long.

  “It was something I had never experienced before,” she said before rejoining the party. “I need to go to more games.”

  
  

  © 2018 The New York Times Company.
  

Decisão do STF põe algum freio em atos excepcionais adotados na Lava Jato

André Singer

 

O julgamento do STF (Supremo Tribunal Federal) na última quinta (14), declarando inconstitucional a condução coercitiva, coloca algum freio nos procedimentos excepcionais adotados pela Lava Jato.
Desta feita, Rosa Weber, o fiel da balança no plenário, votou com o bloco garantista.  Ajudou, assim, a impor, por 6 a 5, certo limite à ação dos policiais, procuradores e juízes que há quatro anos se atribuíram, em nome do necessário e positivo combate à corrupção, a prerrogativa de atropelar os direitos individuais.

No período, pelo menos dois casos de interrogatório “sob vara” mostraram o poder e a arbitrariedade que a condução dava aos investigadores.

No primeiro, em março de 2016, em manobra apoiada por tropas em uniforme de camuflagem, o ex-presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva foi buscado às 6 da manhã em casa, sem intimação prévia, e levado ao aeroporto de Congonhas, onde prestou longos esclarecimentos antes de ser libertado.
No segundo, em dezembro de 2017, o reitor da UFMG (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais), Jaime Arturo Ramirez, também pego na residência sem qualquer chamado anterior, foi conduzido a uma delegacia em Belo Horizonte. Lá, ficou detido durante algumas horas, respondendo por acusações que nunca resultaram suficientemente claras.

O factoide envolvendo Lula serviu para alimentar o movimento de massas em favor de sua condenação, o qual se confundia, na época, com as manifestações pelo impeachment de Dilma. Para dizê-lo de modo direto: o intenso efeito midiático obtido pela sua condução coercitiva constituiu elemento decisivo para a mobilização do 13 de março, o qual sacramentou nas ruas o golpe parlamentar desfechado um mês depois.

A captura de Ramirez, por sua vez, foi o ápice de um processo persecutório que atingiu os reitores das federais do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), de Santa Catarina (UFSC) e do Paraná (UFPR). No caso da UFSC, o reitor Luiz Carlos Cancellier, sobre o qual recaiu mandado de prisão preventiva, matou-se 18 dias depois, sem que até hoje esteja claro de que era suspeito.

A decisão do STF nem de longe elimina os mecanismos de exceção presentes nesta etapa de ameaça generalizada à democracia no Brasil. Representa, porém, um bem-vindo sinal de que o Estado de Direito resiste. Resta a ser explicada, no futuro, a conversão de ministros que, nomeados como democratas, aderiram à agenda de caça às bruxas que vem destroçando as garantias civis. 

Galvão Bueno ataca árbitros e vira piada

Nelson de Sá

São Paulo

​
Foi sair gol contra o Brasil e Galvão Bueno se descontrolou. Miranda "foi empurrado", exaltou-se ele, vendo falta da Suíça no lance. Até os comentários finais, atacou sem parar a "lambança" da arbitragem de vídeo. Sobrou também para o "juizinho fraco" César Ramos.

Apresentador e locutor Galvão Bueno em entrevista para Monica Bergamo - Eduardo Knapp - 2mai.18/Folhapress

Os comentaristas Caio Ribeiro e Arnaldo César Coelho se mostraram solidários, desenvolvendo o questionamento em teorias de conspiração, mas não foi muito além o apoio a Galvão --agora definitivamente sozinho na narração de TV aberta.

Por mídia social, não se percebeu maior movimento nas tabelas de compartilhamento. Se alguns o seguiram, para outros a revolta se mostrou nova oportunidade para piadas condescendentes.
Coisas como "Galvão Bueno já dando o nome completo do árbitro para os torcedores macumbeiros" ou "Galvão fala o nome como um mafioso dando ordem para a gente ir matar o cara".Mas também não causou outro "Cala a boca, Galvão", tuitaço que há oito anos foi parar no New York Times. Ele não é mais percebido com poder para merecer tanta raiva --apesar do monopólio da transmissão aberta.

Até na Globo, sua influência parece se restringir agora à própria partida, a qual, aliás, terminou com repórter tentando convencer Miranda a atacar a arbitragem também, sem sucesso.

Do zagueiro: "Talvez se eu tivesse me jogado mais naquele lance... Mas tem um árbitro de vídeo, eles acharam que não foi pra tanto".

Os protegidos de Moro

TEREZA CRUVINEL

O apelido “república de Curitiba” nunca foi tão adequado à Lava Jato como nesta última demonstração da onipotência do juiz Sérgio Moro, revelada pela Folha de S. Paulo. Em um despacho de abril, que só teve o sigilo levantado ontem, ele proibiu organismos federais de controle, como CGU, TCU, AGU e Receita Federal, de usarem as provas obtidas pela Lava Jato, em acordos de delação premiada, para impor sanções administrativas aos criminosos delatores.

Com esta determinação, Moro declara a independência processual de Curitiba, como se dissesse: “nos meus delatores ninguém tasca”. Graças a eles, o juiz obteve informações que lhe propiciaram seus maiores louros, a prisão de políticos notáveis, em sua maioria do PT, com destaque para a do ex-presidente Lula. Em troca, os delatores tiveram as penas reduzidas, pagaram multas, salvaram parte do patrimônio, foram liberados e desfrutam a vida em mansões ou apartamentos de luxo. Assim vivem, por exemplo, Alberto Youssef, Pedro Barusco, Paulo Roberto Costa e Fernando Baiano, entre os operadores. E entre os empresários, Ricardo Pessoa, da UTC, Otávio Marques Azevedo, da Andrade Gutierrez e Marcelo Odebrecht, entre outros grandes empreiteiros. Quem continua preso, entre eles, é Leo Pinheiro, da OAS.

Com seu despacho, Moro busca proteger “seus” delatores contra novas punições, em processos administrativos que buscam reparação, para o Estado, dos danos causados pelos atos de corrupção que praticaram. Na decisão, o juiz informou aos organismos de controle que eles podem realizar investigações por conta própria, mas não usar as provas obtidas pela Lava Jato. Isso atinge a AGU, que vem cobrando R$ 40 bilhões de ressarcimentos das empreiteiras envolvidas, o TCU, que também busca reparações, e a Receita, que tenta cobrar impostos devidos sobre ganhos obtidos ilicitamente. E como alguns procedimentos já estão em curso, Moro ainda condicionou à sua autorização o prosseguimento das medidas contra seus delatores de estimação, que tenham base nas provas obtidas pela Lava Jato.

Nestas condições, dificilmente avançarão os acordos de leniência que algumas construtoras negociam com a CGU e a AGU, sob a supervisão do TCU. Sem eles, o Estado dificilmente resgatará as perdas com a corrupção mas as empresas também podem ficar impedidas de firmar contratos com o setor público. Não parece haver vantagem para ninguém no monopólio das provas por Moro.
Como o Conselho Nacional de Justiça já indicou que não compra briga com a Lava Jato, caberia ao Congresso disciplinar melhor as regras da delação premiada. Há projeto neste sentido tramitando mas dali também, este ano, sairá no máximo o feijão-com-arroz.

Cineasta, goleiro da Islândia revela que estudou pênaltis de Messi

O goleiro Hannes Halldorsson foi o melhor jogador do empate entre Argentina e Islândia por 1 a 1, neste sábado, em escolha feita pela Fifa. Ele defendeu um pênalti de Lionel Messi no segundo tempo e mostrou seguranças em vários momentos. Depois da estreia na Copa do Mundo, em Moscou, afirmou que a defesa não aconteceu apenas pelo fato de ter "acertado o canto da batida"; ele estudou as cobranças do craque argentino.

"Eu fiz a lição de casa. Eu assisti várias penalidades cobradas por Messi, consegui entrar em sua mente e adivinhar o que ele ia fazer", disse o goleiro islandês.

A grande defesa de Halldorsson aconteceu na metade do segundo tempo. Ele ficou parado, esperando a definição de Messi. Deu três pequenos passos e fez a defesa no canto direito. "Foi um grande momento. Foi um grande dia estar frente a frente com o melhor jogador do mundo e conseguir defender o pênalti. Foi como um sonho que virou realidade", disse o jogador de 34 anos.

Para ele, o lance foi importante no grande objetivo da Islândia: passar pela fase de grupos. "Foi um lance que nos deu um ponto muito importante para que possamos conseguir nosso objetivo, que é passar pela fase de grupos", afirmou, cercado de jornalistas do mundo todo, no Spartak Stadium.

A exemplo dos outros jogadores da Islândia, Halldorsson teve uma carreira paralela ao futebol - ele é cineasta. Por muito tempo, dividiu a carreira de jogador com a direção de filmes e comerciais. Neste Mundial, foi responsável pela direção do comercial da Coca-Cola que circulou pelo país - a marca é patrocinadora da equipe nacional.

A paixão por futebol e cinema é tão grande que o goleiro organiza "sessões de cinema" nas concentrações. Os objetivos são distrair os jogadores e estimular o espírito de equipe.

The Sensational Idiocy of Donald Trump’s Propaganda Video for Kim Jong Un

• By Troy Patterson, www.newyorker.com

In Singapore, on Tuesday, reporters covering the summit between President Trump and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, were surprised with a screening of what appeared to be a movie trailer. You could argue that, because tax dollars likely paid for the creation of the clip, we the people ought to share a producing credit. But the nature of the film—its grandiosity, its gaudiness, its chaotic logic, its indiscriminate idiocy—is such that we must understand Trump as its author.

The clip, a four-minute overture from Trump to Kim, is styled as a movie preview. A golden production logo announces this as a presentation of “Destiny Pictures,” and frequent stock footage finds the sun shining like a dime beyond the curve of a turning world. Is Trump inviting Kim to take command of Universal Pictures? Or join him in playing God? Does either of them know the difference?

In any case, the narrator insists that the fate of the world hangs in the balance, in sentences that combine pompous syntax, palatial rhetoric, and dodgy grammar. Flattering Kim’s vanity while reflecting Trump’s own, he says, “Of those alive today, only a small number will leave a lasting impact,” while crowds scurry as if in “Koyaanisqatsi,”and postcard images of tourist sites flow past—the Great Wall, the Great Pyramid, and also Times Square, because, according to Trump’s understanding of history, the visual noise of spectacle is a postmodern wonder to revere. These sights yield to a vast North Korean flag—an invitation to a tyrant to think more bigly and take his place alongside the men who built the Colosseum and the Taj Mahal.

“History may appear to repeat itself for generations,” the narrator says. “There comes a time when only a few are called upon to make a difference.” Trump appears in oratorical postures, in still photos taken at the State of the Union address and the U.N. General Assembly, manning the lectern like the Cicero of his day. Kim waves and smiles, and waves and smiles, and walks a bit and waves some more.

“Destiny Pictures presents a story of opportunity,” the narrator continues, and the viewer wonders if he’s about to hear a pitch for a time-share. It’s “a story about a special moment in time when a man is presented with one chance that may never be repeated.” The man is Kim, waving, waving. The chance is to offer his nation industrial progress and material pleasure, represented by images of a seedling, an aircraft factory, a science lab, and a double-clutch slam dunk, of course. (According to Trump’s understanding of geopolitics, his appeal to Kim as a basketball fan is the sort of personal touch necessary to achieving denuclearization.) “What will he choose?” the narrator asks. “To show vision and leadership, or not?”

The key moment of the film happens underneath that last line, at the comma. This is precisely the midpoint of the film and the fulcrum of its narrative. The prospect of Kim failing to show leadership is symbolized by the use of a burning-celluloid effect, as in Bergman’s “Persona,” or “The Muppet Movie.” We watch the film melt. The image disintegrates. The implied destruction of North Korea is figured as a disruption of the story.

“There can only be two results. One of moving back”—missiles launch, a fighter jet rises from an aircraft carrier—“or one of moving forward.” At the moving forward, the narrative is back on track, with the beep and sweep of a film leader’s black-and-white countdown. The missiles return to their silos, accompanied by what sounds like the orchestral crescendo of the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.” In a God’s-eye view of the Korean Peninsula at night, the lights come on across the North. In a further montage of capitalist delights, Kim is shown a future of manufacturing prowess, medical advances, out-of-season fruit overflowing shopping baskets, and even the friendship of Sylvester Stallone, seen with Trump in a photo recently taken in the Oval Office.

Could it be, this audience with Sly? The narrator is cautiously optimistic: “When could this moment in history begin? It comes down to a choice on this day, in this time, at this moment. The world will be watching, listening, anticipating. . . .” The eyes and ears of the world are represented by telephoto lenses and by TV control rooms and by a woman alone on a sofa watching TV, because this is the sum of what Trump knows of persuasion.

Trump Was Outfoxed in Singapore

• By Nicholas Kristof, www.nytimes.com
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  It sure looks as if President Trump was hoodwinked in Singapore.

  
  

  Trump made a huge concession — the suspension of military exercises with South Korea. That’s on top of the broader concession of the summit meeting itself, security guarantees he gave North Korea and the legitimacy that the summit provides his counterpart, Kim Jong-un.

  Within North Korea, the “very special bond” that Trump claimed to have formed with Kim will be portrayed this way: Kim forced the American president, through his nuclear and missile tests, to accept North Korea as a nuclear equal, to provide security guarantees to North Korea, and to cancel war games with South Korea that the North has protested for decades.

  In exchange for these concessions, Trump seems to have won astonishingly little. In a joint statement, Kim merely “reaffirmed” the same commitment to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula that North Korea has repeatedly made since 1992.

  “They were willing to de-nuke,” Trump crowed at his news conference after his meetings with Kim. Trump seemed to believe he had achieved some remarkable agreement, but the concessions were all his own.

  The most remarkable aspect of the joint statement was what it didn’t contain. There was nothing about North Korea freezing plutonium and uranium programs, nothing about destroying intercontinental ballistic missiles, nothing about allowing inspectors to return to nuclear sites, nothing about North Korea making a full declaration of its nuclear program, nothing about a timetable, nothing about verification, not even any clear pledge to permanently halt testing of nuclear weapons or long-range missiles.

  Kim seems to have completely out-negotiated Trump, and it’s scary that Trump doesn’t seem to realize this. For now Trump has much less to show than past negotiators who hammered out deals with North Korea like the 1994 Agreed Framework, which completely froze the country’s plutonium program with a rigorous monitoring system.

  Trump made a big deal in his news conference about recovering the remains of American soldiers from the Korean War, but this is nothing new. Back in 1989, on my first trip to North Korea, officials there made similar pledges about returning remains, and indeed North Korea has returned some remains over the years. It’s not clear how many more remain.

  Trump claimed an “excellent relationship” with Kim, and it certainly is better for the two leaders to be exchanging compliments rather than missiles. In a sense, Trump has eased the tensions that he himself created when he threatened last fall to “totally destroy” North Korea. I’m just not sure a leader should get credit for defusing a crisis that he himself created.

  There’s still plenty we don’t know and lots of uncertainty about the future. But for now, the bottom line is that there’s no indication that North Korea is prepared to give up its nuclear weapons, and Trump didn’t achieve anything remotely as good as the Iran nuclear deal, which led Iran to eliminate 98 percent of its enriched uranium.

  
  

  There was also something frankly weird about an American president savaging Canada’s prime minister one day and then embracing the leader of the most totalitarian country in the world.

  “He’s a very talented man,” Trump said of Kim. “I also learned that he loves his country very much.”

  In an interview with Voice of America, Trump said “I like him” and added: “He’s smart, loves his people, he loves his country.”

  Trump praised Kim in the news conference and, astonishingly, even adopted North Korean positions as his own, saying that the United States military exercises in the region are “provocative.” That’s a standard North Korean propaganda line. Likewise, Trump acknowledged that human rights in North Korea constituted a “rough situation,” but quickly added that “it’s rough in a lot of places, by the way.” (Note that a 2014 United Nations report stated that North Korean human rights violations do “not have any parallel in the contemporary world.”)

  Incredibly, Trump told Voice of America that he had this message for the North Korean people: “I think you have somebody that has a great feeling for them. He wants to do right by them and we got along really well.”

  It’s breathtaking to see an American president emerge as a spokesman for the dictator of North Korea.

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  One can argue that my perspective is too narrow: That what counts in a broader sense is that the risk of war is much less today than it was a year ago, and North Korea has at least stopped its nuclear tests and missile tests. Fundamentally, Trump has abandoned bellicose rhetoric and instead embraced the longstanding Democratic position — that we should engage North Korea, even if the result isn’t immediate disarmament.

  The 1994 Agreed Framework, for example, didn’t denuclearize North Korea or solve the human rights issues there, but it still kept the regime from adding to its plutonium arsenal for eight years. Imperfect processes can still be beneficial, and the ongoing meetings between the United States and North Korea may result in a similar framework that at least freezes the North Korean arsenal.

  Of all the things that could have gone badly wrong in a Trump administration, a “bloody nose” strike on North Korea leading to a nuclear war was perhaps the most terrifying. For now at least, Trump seems to have been snookered into the same kind of deeply frustrating diplomatic process with North Korea that he has complained about, but that is far better than war.

  Even so, it’s still bewildering how much Trump gave and how little he got. The cancellation of military exercises will raise questions among our allies, such as Japan, about America’s commitment to those allies.

  The Trump-Kim statement spoke vaguely about efforts “to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean peninsula,” whatever that means. But that was much less specific than the 1994 pledge to exchange diplomatic liaison offices, and the 2005 pledge to work for a peace treaty to end the Korean War.

  In January 2017, Trump proclaimed in a tweet: “North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won’t happen!” But in fact it appears to have happened on Trump’s watch, and nothing in the Singapore summit seems to have changed that.

  All this is to say that Kim Jong-un proved the more able negotiator. North Korean government officials have to limit their computer time, because of electricity shortages, and they are international pariahs — yet they are very savvy and shrewd, and they were counseled by one of the smartest Trump handlers of all, President Moon Jae-in of South Korea.

  My guess is that Kim flattered Trump, as Moon has, and that Trump simply didn’t realize how little he was getting. On my most recent visit to North Korea, officials were asking me subtle questions about the differences in views of Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley; meanwhile, Trump said he didn’t need to do much homework.

  Whatever our politics, we should all want Trump to succeed in reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, and it’s good to see that Trump now supports engagement rather than military options. There will be further negotiations, and these may actually freeze plutonium production and destroy missiles. But at least in the first round, Trump seems to have been snookered.