Everything I know about soccer I learned from my Father

 

This is the first World Cup game that I am watching ever since my dad passed; Brazil´s very first game is against Serbia. As soon as the national anthem started playing the tears started rolling down my cheeks with so much saudades - Saudades is a word in Portuguese which is not translated in any other language.  It is a noun which means that you really miss someone or something and at this moment, while I was standing in my TV room singing the national anthem, as my dad and I always used to do, I realize how much I miss him. Don't get me wrong! I think about my father every day, it's just that all the 1st events hurt or are more painful than the others for example, the first Christmas, the 1st birthday, the first family gathering, the first Sunday dinner without his presence, and so on hurt much more than the second and 3rd and 4th … however this is the first real soccer World Cup games that I I'm watching without him since his passing in 2017.

The World Cup in 2018 was in Russia and the time zone or time schedule for me was not applicable therefore, I didn't bother to watch the games and I guess that I did not want to watch the games without my father's presence. Nevertheless, this time it's hitting me hard because of my emotional state I'm crying more. As I'm watching the game, I am speaking to my father as if he were watching the game with me.

You know, when people meet me, they judge that I might not know much about soccer, but dad taught me a lot. It makes me proud that I learned my lesson. It's funny how I still have the habit of yelling at the TV believing that the words that I'm saying is reaching the coach telling him who to whom with and also yelling at the players that whoever is on the left is free; things like, kick the ball, pass the ball to the guy, don't be so egoistic as to wanting to make the goal, just play the play, no! get the ball out of there… These things that I yell at the TV just like my father used to do. When Brazil makes a goal, there is jumping, there is screaming but that is like for what 15 seconds and then it's back to concentrating on the game.

Boy, do I miss him or as we would say in Portuguese: “aí que saudade!”

 Written: November 24, 2022

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