Dancing with mangoes
By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo
I hardly watch a football game. The last time I watched was at Princeton University, and I do not even remember who played. What I remember was the excitement, as opposing teams compete for the goal, and we shouted from the bleachers to cheer.
After the afternoon walk, I made myself coffee and relaxed my feet while browsing my options at Netflix. I clicked on Pelé: Birth of a Legend. Pelé, a Brazilian former professional footballer was regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, and labelled “the greatest” by the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). “In 1999, he was named Athlete of the Century by the International Olympic Committee and was included in the Time list of the 100 most important people of the 20th century. In 2000, Pelé was voted World Player of the Century by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS), and was one of the two joint winners of the FIFA Player of the Century. His 1,279 goals in 1,363 games, which includes friendlies, is recognised as a Guinness World Record.”
What fascinated me was Pelé’s early life, dancing with the mangoes, with his father, using them to practice, instead of a round or oval ball as used in football. His family was poor, and he and his friends had to steal sacks of peanuts to sell, in order to buy the appropriate shoes for the game.
The dance moves called ginga “consists of many different moves, some of them include dribbling, using different parts of your foot and juggling” and hones “skills in kicking, head-butting, deception and evasion”. It is based on agility and how a player “dances” with the ball. It’s about those subtle moves and touches that can catch the opposition off guard. Ginga comes from the Capoeira, the Brazilian fighting-dance. It is used to describe someone who can “flow”. Capoeira originated from Angola, when Africans were brought as slaves to the area by the Portuguese during the 19th century. For decades, football has been the soul of Brazil. Every Brazilian, boy or girl, had at least played the sport once and lived the thrill of the game. Pelé flowed and danced, elevating Brazilian football to an art form.
I was curious too, if the word “ball” in football was derived from the Latin word ballare, meaning to dance, as in go to a ball. I found that, a ball was used to describe a formal dancing party in French in the 12th century, and during the Italian Renaissance, ballo was a type of elaborate court dance, and evolved to also mean the event at which it was held.
Literally, I surmised that football really is dancing with the foot. That took away some of the violence I associated with the sport, which prevented me from watching the game early in my life.
Mango dance
roll me over your face
your hands
make me dance in your belly
between your legs
dip me over, take me
hit me, I’m your ball!
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