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| Bruno, still guilty of murder but bafflingly welcome to walk back into football | Bruno, still guilty of murder but bafflingly welcome to walk back into football |
| (about 4 hours later) | |
| Carmen Miranda said she had Brazil “in every curve of my body”, which if it were true would involve having a body made of traffic, grilled meat, half-finished infrastructure projects, deep-fried rice balls and smog. All of which would make it quite difficult to dance around smiling in a hat made of fruit. | Carmen Miranda said she had Brazil “in every curve of my body”, which if it were true would involve having a body made of traffic, grilled meat, half-finished infrastructure projects, deep-fried rice balls and smog. All of which would make it quite difficult to dance around smiling in a hat made of fruit. |
| You get her point though. Brazil is a brilliant country in which to travel and watch sport and generally lose yourself. In fact the only Brazilian city I haven’t enjoyed much was mild-mannered, elegant, slightly twee Belo Horizonte. Before the last World Cup people talked about Belo Horizonte’s fine food, its music, its street culture. Frankly it gave me the creeps. | You get her point though. Brazil is a brilliant country in which to travel and watch sport and generally lose yourself. In fact the only Brazilian city I haven’t enjoyed much was mild-mannered, elegant, slightly twee Belo Horizonte. Before the last World Cup people talked about Belo Horizonte’s fine food, its music, its street culture. Frankly it gave me the creeps. |
| It didn’t help that I was staying in a huge, brown, oddly stricken hotel room that used to gurgle and sigh and hum in the night, an experience that felt a bit like sleeping inside a giant cancerous lung. At one point I tried to jazz things up by going for a walk in the city park and enjoying the sad, furtive-looking ducks, the fully integrated rats living openly and proudly among the human population and what seemed to be an unusually large number of men lurking in bushes. | It didn’t help that I was staying in a huge, brown, oddly stricken hotel room that used to gurgle and sigh and hum in the night, an experience that felt a bit like sleeping inside a giant cancerous lung. At one point I tried to jazz things up by going for a walk in the city park and enjoying the sad, furtive-looking ducks, the fully integrated rats living openly and proudly among the human population and what seemed to be an unusually large number of men lurking in bushes. |
| The oddest moment came on a trip downtown to try and rake up some colour for an article on local boy Fred before Brazil’s quarter-final against Chile. Fred was still Brazil’s centre-forward at that stage, a rakishly mustachioed, bafflingly ineffective figure who would later fail to register a single tackle, cross, run or interception during the 7-1 defeat by Germany. | |
| This was a chance to get the real lowdown from his home fanbase, the hard core Fred-heads. It turned out people did like Fred. Yes, Fred is a great man. Fred is better than Wayne Rooney. How good is Fred? You have no idea how good Fred really is. | This was a chance to get the real lowdown from his home fanbase, the hard core Fred-heads. It turned out people did like Fred. Yes, Fred is a great man. Fred is better than Wayne Rooney. How good is Fred? You have no idea how good Fred really is. |
| Throughout this people kept mentioning Bruno, too. Fred, yeah he’s good. But Bruno is a lovely guy. Bruno’s a hero. Bruno used to drink in this bar. Ask anyone. Great goalkeeper. Played for Atlético Mineiro here in the city. Barcelona were after him for while. | |
| In fact good old local Bruno might have had a decent shout to be Brazil’s No1 goalie at his home World Cup had his career not been cruelly derailed, not by injury or poor form, but by his imprisonment over the murder and dismembering of the mother of his only child, whose body was then fed to his pet rottweilers. | |
| The ballad of Bruno, and more to the point his victim Eliza Samudio, is a genuinely horrendous story. In 2013 Bruno was convicted of ordering the murder of Eliza, a former model he met at a party, who may have also dated Cristiano Ronaldo. Eliza became pregnant with Bruno’s child. She had the baby and eventually sought financial support from Bruno, who was at the time being linked with a big-money move to Milan. | |
| At which point Bruno and assorted friends conspired to have her tortured and murdered in a shed in suburban Belo Horizonte. Bruno was arrested after a tip-off from a teenage cousin. “In the future, I’ll be able to laugh at this,” Bruno scoffed as he entered the courtroom, but he later confessed to his part in her killing and was sentenced to 22 years in prison. | |
| Amazingly, though, his story is far from over. The breaking news is that Bruno is now out, freed from prison with 15 years still to serve while an appeal is mustered up by his lawyers. A video has appeared of Bruno celebrating with family and friends on the outside, doing thumbs-up to the cameras and, as predicted, laughing about all this. | |
| Meanwhile it gets odder still. Murdering Bruno, who as things stand is guilty of ordering a woman’s murder and feeding her to his dogs, wants to play football again. And soon. He’s still only 32, in his prime for a goalkeeper. He’s been training in prison. But wait. There’s a problem with Murdering Bruno returning to football. No, not mass protests, a life ban and questions in parliament. The problem is he’s not quite match fit. Just give it a few weeks, his agent says. He’s back, baby. Murdering Bruno is back. | Meanwhile it gets odder still. Murdering Bruno, who as things stand is guilty of ordering a woman’s murder and feeding her to his dogs, wants to play football again. And soon. He’s still only 32, in his prime for a goalkeeper. He’s been training in prison. But wait. There’s a problem with Murdering Bruno returning to football. No, not mass protests, a life ban and questions in parliament. The problem is he’s not quite match fit. Just give it a few weeks, his agent says. He’s back, baby. Murdering Bruno is back. |
| In fact, several Brazilian clubs have already been in touch trying to secure his signature. And why not? He’s a good goalkeeper. Brazil don’t really have a settled No1 right now. The current regular is Alisson of Roma (whose older brother is also a goalkeeper, called Murial). It’s not inconceivable Bruno could be pushing for a spot in the squad six months from now, maybe even making it to Russia 2018. Who knows we might even see Murdering Bruno at Wembley, ruffling the mascot’s hair, shaking Trevor Brooking’s hand, staring with cold, flat, glazed eyes out of your TV screen while he mouths the national anthem. | |
| What are we supposed to make of all this? Even football’s slightly wonky register of values seems to have lost all sense of scale here. Five matches for stamping on Zlatan’s head is one thing. Dismembering him and feeding him to the dogs? For me Mings is bang out of order there and that’s an extended ban. | What are we supposed to make of all this? Even football’s slightly wonky register of values seems to have lost all sense of scale here. Five matches for stamping on Zlatan’s head is one thing. Dismembering him and feeding him to the dogs? For me Mings is bang out of order there and that’s an extended ban. |
| Except, of course it really isn’t funny at all, other than in a burgeoning end of the world kind of way. Brazil has its problems. Life seems at times both super-numerous and super-cheap. Certainly some shocking attitudes persist. Don’t whatever you do read the comments under any Brazilian news stories on Bruno unless weird, grisly, oddly churchy psychopathic misogyny is your ticket. | Except, of course it really isn’t funny at all, other than in a burgeoning end of the world kind of way. Brazil has its problems. Life seems at times both super-numerous and super-cheap. Certainly some shocking attitudes persist. Don’t whatever you do read the comments under any Brazilian news stories on Bruno unless weird, grisly, oddly churchy psychopathic misogyny is your ticket. |
| Some might say such oddity doesn’t exist in a vacuum, that to condemn Brazilian football as rapacious and morally suspect is to condemn also the gathering cloud of interests and agents and sharks and trading partners that surround it and pick away at its bones. That’s probably an argument for another, less mind-bogglingly weird stage. | Some might say such oddity doesn’t exist in a vacuum, that to condemn Brazilian football as rapacious and morally suspect is to condemn also the gathering cloud of interests and agents and sharks and trading partners that surround it and pick away at its bones. That’s probably an argument for another, less mind-bogglingly weird stage. |
| For now it seems baffling that while his appeal is in train Bruno should be out there playing football, apparently without resistance. A while back Fifa threatened the Brazilian FA with fines if its players wore T-shirts with slogans like I Belong To Jesus, or 100% Jesus or I Really Honestly Like Jesus. It seems clear the least they can do now is suggest very strongly that the world’s most unwelcome late-blooming homicidal goalkeeper shouldn’t be anywhere near a football pitch while justice is served. | For now it seems baffling that while his appeal is in train Bruno should be out there playing football, apparently without resistance. A while back Fifa threatened the Brazilian FA with fines if its players wore T-shirts with slogans like I Belong To Jesus, or 100% Jesus or I Really Honestly Like Jesus. It seems clear the least they can do now is suggest very strongly that the world’s most unwelcome late-blooming homicidal goalkeeper shouldn’t be anywhere near a football pitch while justice is served. |