16/08/2009

The Ball is Faster Than the Players

CARLOS EDUARDO LINS DA SILVA
ombudsman@uol.com.br

Folha is mistaken when it uses statistics as a more important element than the unpredictability of the soccer game itself

Last Sunday, a story about the presentation of the soccer game between São Paulo and Goiás for the Brazilian Championship started this way: "More than trying to get the trophy for the fifth straight victory and make itself the Brazilian champion for once and for all, São Paulo takes the field against Goiás today at 6:30 p.m. at Morumbi Stadium to reach a historic mark: complete a thousand games in this country's major league."

In my opinion, the wording symbolized an inversion of journalistic values which have been firming in Folha's sports coverage for many years: considering what is interesting, but complementary (historic retrospective, statistical records), to be more important that what is fundamental (the news, the event).

How would it be possible for São Paulo to not reach the "historic mark" of a thousand games unless it did not take the field to play? How would it be possible to consider it more important to simply end the game and not win it and, as a result, reach the group of the top four teams in the national championship?

It's obvious that some numerical events are more important than the event itself. For example, everyone remembers Pelé's thousandth goal (shown in the documentary indicated at the end of this text), and almost nobody remembers the scoreboard from that game of Santos against Vasco, which occurred 40 years ago on Flag Day (Nov. 19).

It was nearly a quarter century ago that Folha decided to give emphasis to statistics in sports coverage. The newsroom asked Datafolha to make a computation of everything that happened in games. And the newspaper gave a great deal of emphasis to the comparison in those results.

At the time, the newspaper was ridiculed by most of the sports press for making something bureaucratic that should be just an art. By the way, it was a little like the way soccer coaches were accused of doing things their own way.

I believe that Folha was correct in betting on dispassionate, objective treatment, compared to what up to then basically dealt with impressions, passion and thrills.

But it errs when it uses statistics as a bigger element than the major attraction of the soccer match, which the event of a ball going faster than the players, as the title of a book recommended below says, in other words, the absolute unpredictability of what can happen on a field in 90 minutes despite all the series of statistics and numeric retrospectives.

The examples are innumerable. I will cite one. On Feb. 25, the newspaper highlighted that São Caetano was the team in the São Paulo state championship which had scored the fewest goals, which allowed it to foresee a tight score for the game that day against Palmeiras, which ended up being the widest in the competition (4 to 3).

As Roberto DaMatta explained "what counts in soccer is not trained human effort, but the sensual and whimsical ball. The ball symbolizes gratitude for life and, to boot, represents good luck and the jinx."

TO READ

"The Ball is Faster Than the Players," by Roberto DaMatta, Rocco Publishing, 2006 (starting at 21.73 reals, or US$ 11.65)

TO SEE

"Eternal Pelé," by Anibal Massaini Neto, 2004 (at video shops and sites which buy and sell videos)

TO THINK ABOUT HAPPINESS AND AGING

Abílio Diniz is a great businessman. His opinions about business, the economy, entrepreneurship and governance are accompanied by undeniable successes in these areas of activity.

As a philosopher, thinker, artist and researcher of meanderings of the human psyche, his attributes are not undeniable to the point of using space here to highlight the launch of his website with "prescriptions for happiness."

With a teaser on the front page and interview on an entire page in which every question (but one) was long winded, for the interviewee to cut short, the newspaper endorsed his opinions about the mysteries of the soul as if they were important for society.

Most disagreeable was the slug for the headlines that was similar to the advertising campaign for a chain of supermarkets which belongs to Diniz. If it happened by coincidence, that was ironically unfortunate.

If it was intentional, that is worrisome. At least one reader, who contacted the ombudsman in these terms, believes that the wall between advertising and journalism was breached: "(this interview) is anti-journalistic, it is pure propaganda." Those who want to reflect about happiness and aging would be better served to read the book and watch the film recommended below.

TO READ

"Happiness," by Eduardo Giannetti, Companhia das Letras Publishing, 2002 (starting at 29.60 reals)

TO SEE

"Wild Strawberries," by Ingmar Bergman, 1957 (starting at 42.20 reals)

WHO IS LETTERS TO THE EDITOR?
Letters
from readers 49
from people in the news 16

Centimeters
from readers 347
from people in the news 175
*from Aug. 8 to 14, 2009

TOPICS MOST COMMENTED DURING THE WEEK

1. José Sarney (former president and current Senate leader)
2. Universal Church
3. Stem cells

WHAT FOLHA DID RIGHT...

HEADLINES
The week has good, diverse, interesting headlines and a big scoop: Banco do Brasil resumes being the biggest bank in the country

PAKISTAN
An excellent series of stories from its correspondent in Pakistan and now Afghanistan

INFERNO
An excellent story on Thursday about a São Paulo resident who is a fan of the Corinthians team on a charter bus with smokers ("I did everything but catch a cold")

... AND WHERE IT DID BADLY

GAME IN PALESTINE
The newspaper says in different sections that the game between Corinthians and Flamengo in Palestine is cancelled and will be played

WORTH REMEMBERING
Cases that need to be looked at again

On Aug. 7, the newspaper reported that Ricardo Mansur purchased a big sugar mill, which is 250 million reals in debt, but did not tell about the result of lawsuits due to the bankruptcies of the Mesbla and Mappin department stores

Translation by John Wright