What happened yesterday is something to rival any of the other oddities that we like to post from time to time.
The arrest of a male suspect as part of an early morning drug haul in São Vicente, coastal São Paulo. Nothing uncommon in that. But this particular stash of cocaine was divided into handy easy to use capsules complete with nozzles and branded "Neymar". Yes, Neymar.
When questioned by police over the use of Neymar's image and the accompanying slogan "Boas Festas", the man explained that it served to highlight the product is of the highest quality.
I always look forward to reading the Folha de São Paulo's sport section and it's partly because it always has a great front page photo + caption combo. Here's a couple of recent ones I liked:
São Paulo crashing out of the Copa do Brasil
Neymar taking the headlines again as Santos wins the Paulistão
All good things come to an end. And so it was yesterday. A wet and windy thunderstorm in São Paulo preceded the official farewell of Ronaldo at the legendary Pacaembu stadium where he used to play with Corinthians. The guy was clearly overweight, out of shape and out of his depth and whilst I was amazed the medics let him on the pitch at all nobody else cared; the city had stopped to say “obrigado” to “o Fenômeno” and nothing else mattered.
Official Goodbye to Ronaldo
And Fenômeno he is. Possibly the greatest number 9 we’ve seen in the modern game he was head and shoulders above his team mates at pretty much every club he went to as well as breaking all imaginable records at the highest level for the seleção. But amid the fanfare and the tears and the memories the burning question was; who on earth is going to replace him? And that is what many of the secondary headlines in today’s newspapers have picked up on. You would have thought the football factory that is Brazil would be able to produce another number 9 but the expectations are unreasonably high. The current coach has already tried André, Diego Tardelli, Hulk, Nilmar, Fred, Alexandre Pato, Jonas as well as Leandro Damião, none of which cut the mustard when you compare with the Fenômeno. Adriano and Luis Fabiano are a little better but only a little and both are ageing and injured.
So who will be the next Fenômeno? Ironically Ronaldo himself may have the answer. In fact he has already told the press who his best replacement is and it is none other than the very player he is now an agent for. It sounds a bit biased but then again we are talking about Neymar, the wonder kid from Santos (Santos is a city in São Paulo state where a certain Pelé began his career) . And when Ronaldo entered the pitch last night, it was Neymar who immediately created a chance for him, not just because he’s his boss but because the player has the unusual ability to create something out of nothing, the creativity, the wow factor. And although he’s only 19, he’s already a huge media icon in Brazil with rumours afoot that the big European clubs will come in for him soon but for now he’s just another wonder kid and to surpass Ronaldo is a big big ask…
So for today at least, let’s just pay homage and say Adeus to the one and only Fenômeno!
I landed at 5:15am which means yesterday wasn´t quite my first full day in São Paulo but it definitely felt like it. The old memories of Brazil came flooding back every time I looked out of the window, spoke to a local or had some food and I remembered why I chose to come here. But the biggest surprise of the day was when I went to try and buy a mobile phone. They started talking to me about radio calls (conexão direita) which completely threw me (radio signal yes, but radio calls?!!) It turns out that the operator, in this case Nextel, has a separate network on a proprietary frequency which enables handset to handset radio calls. It also enables multiple handset calls at low cost. I haven´t tried it yet but it seems it is hugely popular in Brazil due to it being very cheap to use and works well in places like São Paulo. The most similar product you may know is the Walkie Talkie but apparently unlike Walkie Talkies the conexão direita works long distance as it combines radio signals with the cell phone network. Pretty smart!
Obviously I figured all this out later so there I am in the shop, completely confused as to why there are 2 ways to call someone and 2 different tariffs! I explained to them this was for me a brand new technology that I have never seen before anywhere in Europe and the guy responded that it´s new in Brazil too, about 10 years old he says!!
Anyway here’s the latest Nextel campaign featuring Neymar (the guy’s becoming a huge media icon):
