The Beach, The Street, The Soul

Mônica Saraiva, Brazil

My name is Mônica Saraiva da Silva, Brazilian, daughter of Northeasterners from the state of Ceará, and with a beautiful cultural mix inside me: with indigenous, black and white ancestors. I am very proud of this diversity in my characteristics, and is why I love the relationship between football and culture. I am 32 years old, but since I was 9 years old I liked football. I played in the street barefoot with girls and boys, the goalposts were made with our slippers. Playing with the ball was our fun on the street!

In my house, football was also always present - my brother, my father and my mother watched Corinthians games on Sundays. So, I grew up watching the magic of football, on and off the soccer field. My brother taught me, through sticker albums, magazines and books, that football that goes beyond the field. A football that you learn with your feet, but that brings us historical, cultural and social knowledge.

I grew up, continued to admire football and started my career as a sports and cultural journalist. In 2011 I started working at the Football Museum, located at the Pacaembu Stadium in São Paulo, Brazil. There I discovered that through football I can understand accessibility, society, cultures, and tourism. And themes related to politics, arts, history. It was then that I started to get involved with football in a more cultural and social way.

I also learned that through football we can connect with people from different countries (I had this experience at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil). For this reason, I consider the ball a language. I can speak a different language than yours, but through the ball, we will connect and understand each other. Football goes beyond the four lines, whether in books, music or in the arts, on the streets, on the beaches, and beyond the stadium.

I stayed at the Football Museum until this year, January 2021. It was a beautiful cycle of learning, but now I am experiencing new challenges. I have started the Gondwana F&C project. My partner Sebástian and I want to connect cultures using the ball and a camera. We believe that football is an excellent tool for social transformation. The camera has the power to record moments that will remain in memory and history. And in parallel I run the page @Futebóis. I show the photographs that I take in different places. I am currently conducting a special gallery on the movements of the human body, which is called “The art of dancing with the ball”.

Outside the Football Museum, I participated in Várzea Games, Favela Cup, Refugee Cups. Football has also allowed me to learn from new people. Through lectures I learned about football and racism, women's football, amputee football, LGBTQIA +, and indigenous football. With the Museum team and Ginga FC, we created out the “Chuteiras para Todos” campaign. We received donations of football boots to provide to soccer teams from the regions. Football is for everyone. I learned this from my experiences as a journalist and photographer for 10 years.

Who is in the photos? Where were the photos taken?

You can see girls and boys playing with a ball in the photos. I met them during the 15 days that I was in Salvador da Bahia (Barra, Candeal, Pelourinho, Ribeira, Rio Vermelho), Olinda and Recife (both in the state of Pernambuco), all cities in the Northeast of Brazil. All the people and teams have beautiful stories and emotions. They are passionate for football and play football in different places.

What is your favourite photo?

The photo that moved me emotionally is of two girls standing in front of a goal with a ball. They were shy about playing football, so I put my camera down for a moment and went running with them on the dirt field.

We said to them: “Come on! Let’s go! Let's do it!” And they ran ahead of me, happy with the ball. I told them that we women can play football when and wherever we want. So, we started playing ball and scoring goals. I left there with the feeling of empowering the girls to play football.

What did you try to show with the photos? Was there any wider meaning with the photos? 

I want to show the “swing” (in Brazil we use the word “ginga”) of boys and girls in different places: on the beaches, streets, fields and amateur games. With each photo, I showed the “art of dancing with the ball”, the movements of the body while playing, heading or doing a bicycle kick. You can see the play and connection between people with the ball. 

Through football and the camera, I want to show the cultural and historical context of each place and to show the Brazilian and Northeastern culture of Salvador da Bahia (the neighbourhoods of Barra, Candeal, Pelourinho, Ribeira, Rio Vermelho), Olinda and Recife. And how we mix all together playing football.

There's a phrase by Carlos Drummond de Andrade that says: “Football is played on the beach, football is played on the street, football is played in the soul.” This is exactly what I want to show in my images. All the “footballs” that are out there - the many ways in which football can be played.

What are the opportunities for female footballers in Brazil? What is the future for Brazilian women's football?

The opportunities have improved over the years, but it is a constant job. There is work being done to increase visibility for women's football. I believe the future of women's football in Brazil is being worked on well by women who love this sport: sports journalists, researchers, coordinators and directors of football teams, coaches, players and students. All these people from different positions are important for the future of women's football.

The future of women's football needs us all to believe in the potential of female players, encouraging new generations and reading about the history of women's football. We will make the future of women's football! That future is today. The Football Museum, for example, will soon launch an audio guide with the history of 100 years of women's football in Brazil. So, we can talk about the future by understanding the past with the photos and stories of incredible women.

I think about the future of women's football when I am with my niece Nicole, who is 9 years old. She likes Marta and understands that women also can play football. The future is the next generation, girls who are 7, 8, 9, 10 years old, for them to understand they can play soccer. As an example: Juju Gol, at 8 years old she was the first athlete to play in a male team, becoming the first girl with authorization to compete in official under-9 competitions. Today she is 10 years old.

The last Women’s World Cup in France was successfully broadcast on TV in Brazil, with much comment and publicity; there were graffiti walls in homage to the athletes. At the Football Museum there was a special program during the World Cup. I remember how much we cheered seeing the players on the field, among them Marta, Cristiane, and the 42-year-old Bahian Formiga, who has participated in 7 World Cups. I read an article on Globoesporte.com in 2019, and they said that Women's World Cup was the most viewed in history, reaching 993.5 million people for at least one minute on television alone.

I also emphasize the Várzea Feminino Football. I have followed some games and the girls are great. They are also part of this history and visibility for women's football. So, to wrap up, I cheer for the future of women's football today, tomorrow and I hope forever!

Why is football so important for Brazil and its people?

Since we were children, football has been part of our daily lives. Through a game, we get together to play with the ball and have fun. Football is part of our culture and we are a multicultural country. There is football for everyone! When we are children, we make a sock ball, string ball, or a paper ball. We also play with lemons, a doll's head. Everything is a ball.

I also think football is important for Brazilian people in different ways. You don't necessarily need to play soccer to enjoy football. You can enjoy reading football books and listening to music or create social action for issues related to the history of society and politics. You can listen to music and understand that football and samba are part of the process of shaping Brazilian identity. One connects to the other.

What role does football play in Brazilian society and your region?

I believe that the role of football in society is to include and unite diverse groups of people. Football is related to art, culture, education - in Brazil there are songs and books about football. There are photo exhibitions, pictures painted with this theme. So football is always part of our daily lives in some way.

Football is the joy of the people after a day at work and on weekends. For example, in schools, through football you can relate football to:

Mathematics, by studying the geometry of the field and calculations.

History, by studying historical contexts of the World Cups and what happens in a country at that time.

Geography, by studying cultural diversity.

What does football mean to you?

It has so many meanings! First, play with the ball. For me, football means inclusion of all people, playing as a team and learning to respect diversity. Football thrills me with art, provokes curiosity in a book, arouses my passion for photographing players, girls and boys on the streets. Football reminds me of my childhood, on Sundays on the couch at home, watching TV with my family.

Football is part of my life! Through football I am able to talk about various topics that are part of society. “The ball is a language, to which I connect with cultures”.