Gabriel Lima: Itaú echoes our 2018 "Forward Brazil" anthem.

By Gabriel Lima - Less than a month before the start of the World Cup in Russia, Brazilian screens are filled with an advertising series from Banco Itaú, sponsor of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF). The commercials feature coach Tite motivating the Brazilian team and its 200 million potential fans with his famous catchphrases.

This refers to the "Between the Lines" series, an institutional campaign carried out by the agencies Africa and DM9DDB for Itaú, focusing on exploring the bank's sponsorship of the Brazilian men's national football team. The series uses countless semiotic elements to construct a narrative of a united and virtuous Brazil. On the CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation) jersey worn by the players, the space intended for player identification is replaced by the words "Respect," "Ethics," and "Hope," along with the already familiar motivational soundtrack and Tite's voice narrating decontextualized success stories from his career.

At another point, representing the average Brazilian, random people speak with the coach's voice. Among them are Black people, like the singer Thiaguinho, transvestites, and workers who fulfill the quota of advertising demagoguery, composing the utopian reflection of a reconciled Brazil cheering for the sixth World Cup title, a Brazil that only exists in the hallucination of the Setúbal family and the advertising executives who serve them, or the directors of the white Bahia in the "Novela das Oito" (a popular Brazilian soap opera). The films are made using storytelling, a technique that seeks to promote the product without necessarily talking about it. For this, the real stories of the character, in this case coach Tite, are told in a way that moves and persuades the audience. However, in the case of the "Entrelinhas" series, what is noticeable is an abysmal detachment from reality in several aspects. The first of these is social. As already mentioned, the reconciled and united Brazil that Tite speaks of is far from existing.

Regarding football, the commercial also grossly deviates from reality. Tite invokes the 1982 Brazilian national team, mentioning Sócrates, Falcão, and Zico. This is the only limit to the advertising's deceit: it insinuates, but doesn't allow, a comparison between them and Paulinho, Renato Augusto, and Fred. Tite then talks about the model national team and the recovery of self-esteem and good football. Even from this, it's clear that the advertisers, the bankers, and the national team coach know a lot about self-esteem—not the people's, but their own. As for football, they really don't know, or if they do, they prefer not to discuss it. In fact, the advertising campaign that seeks to excite Brazil for the World Cup talks about everything except football. It even quotes the late reactionary Nelson Rodrigues in the voice of a supposed reporter. Coach Tite quickly responds, when questioned about the inferiority complex: "I used to have it, but not anymore," as if the prostituted tactical scheme that violates the most unique characteristics of our football and the stereotype of white, trendy commentators in sweaters and loafers weren't an unfolding of that complex.

In 1970, during the darkest years of the military dictatorship, the national team replaced the controversial João Saldanha with the subservient and impartial Zagalo. The core of the team changed little, and Brazil won its third World Cup title. The reason for the coach's replacement was evident: João Saldanha refused to comply with the interventions that the military regime was trying to impose on the national team. Furthermore, Saldanha had very close ties to the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), and the military feared that the third championship would be won under the command of a communist. That year, while opposition political leaders were being assassinated, television and radio stations played the jingle "Pra frente Brasil" (Forward Brazil). 1970 and 2018 are closer than we imagine.

Tite says, or the script says, that "winning is winning on the field, not just on the scoreboard," and that "we can even leave without the star," referring to the World Cup title and reinforcing one of the campaign's aims: to give another meaning to the word "winning" and to say that it is possible to win even when we don't actually win. Paradoxically, through the antonyms of the words, the text reveals what we lack as a people: that in the case of Brazil in 2018, when the conservative wave advances, Black people, women, and homosexuals are murdered, rights are violated all the time, the nation is subjected to political mediocrity, diplomatic pettiness, and economic chaos, we have already lost even if the sixth title comes. We lost when, at Ronaldo Nazário's request, Neymar went to social media to ask for votes for Aécio Neves in the second round of the 2014 elections. Even after the fateful 7-1 defeat, the player wasn't ashamed to make his political statement, a genuine display of ignorance, where he can't even grasp the most basic level of knowledge about his own country. We lost when Thiago Leifert, the meritocratic presenter, son of a Globo magnate, stated that sport is not a place for political expression. We lost when Felipe Melo returned to Palmeiras and forgot about football to anchor himself in a media persona, whose common practice is to incite violence and declare support for the fascist presidential candidate. When fans insist on chants in the stands that offend women and homosexuals, or when fans are racist. When Galvão Bueno tries to force the issue of rivalry with Argentina. When Globo tries to censor a Casagrande who is completely disheartened by the terrible quality of our current football. We've lost on all these occasions before, even if Tite's sterile and uninspired football is victorious in Russia.

*Gabriel Lima is an audiovisual producer, a writer as a hobby, and an activist with the PCdoB-MS (Communist Party of Brazil - Mato Grosso do Sul).