Everybody's a Winner

Almost. As I explained before, the Campeonato Pernambucano is divided into two rounds, followed by the final (if necessary). Yesterday Sport won the second round. And for that accomplishment, Sport won a trophy. I had no idea the rewards were so liberal. Should Sport lose the final to Santa Cruz (the first round winner, who presumably also won a trophy), nobody will care about that trophy, but there it was, all the same. The team even took a lap with the trophy and the crowd, myself included, screamed and cheered. There were vendors selling banners that read "Sport: Second Round Champion 2006." I was surprised by the number of people who were buying.

The game itself was one of the best non-clássicos I have seen. Sport was tense at first, whatever the soccer equivalent of holding the bat too tightly is. (They laced their shoes too tight?) About ten minutes in Vítoria, the worst team in the championship and the home town of my dinner companion tonight, scored first. I saw tears welling up in the eyes of a few people near me. The goal seemed to relax Sport, and not long after Sport scored what looked like a weak goal. (Later that night I saw a replay on tv, and it was a perfectly placed, if not particularly hard, shot.) Fifteen minutes later Sport scored again, and the party began.

Wednesday night in Arruda (Santa's stadium) and Sunday in the Ilha do Retiro, Sport and Santa will dispute the state championship. The structure is bizarre -- goals don't count, only the wins. Should Santa defeat Sport 1-0 in the first game, and then Sport crush Santa 8-0, the championship will be decided by penalties. In theory, all Sport needs to do is tie the first game and then beat Santa in front of the home crowd. The games would ideally both be on Sundays, but the CBF (the Confederação Brasileira de Futebol) is run by men who neither understand nor like the sport but who love money. They want Brazil to be like European countries, which have no state championships, and so the state championships are more compressed every year. It's questionable who has the advantage here -- Sport or Santa. Sport leads the overall championship (first and second rounds combined), and so has the second game at home. This means, theoretically, that Sport only needs to tie the first game and win at home. Of course, there are plenty of people who say that this gives the advantage to Santa, who can win at home and then play for the tie on Sunday. Financially, it gives the advantage to Sport, because more people are liktely to go to the game on Sunday than on Wednesday night (with a 9:45 kickoff for television's sake). Santa will have a better presence in Sport's stadium, since the game is on Sunday. And so on. Regardless, one thing is certain. No matter what the outcome, no matter what the advantages of playing the first game in Santa's house, we can all agree that Sport is by far the better team.