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"Celebrations took place, and futebol was played. But protests raged, too, and a city being watched by hundreds of millions showed that not all Brazilians are happy to be hosting one of the world\u2019s largest sporting events \n\nFacebookPinterest\n\n The Protest\n\n It\u2019s morning in S&amp;amp;#xE3;o Paulo, the sun a warm amber glow above this sprawling megapolis of 20 million, but nobody around me is talking about soccer.\n\n&amp;quot;This patriotism, this nationalism, it\u2019s a disgrace,&amp;quot; says David Luiz, who is sitting on the curb texting some friends, a black bandana tied around his face. In a few moments, a line of riot police rapping Billy clubs against their shields will march down this street, lobbing tear gas canisters at our feet, which will fill the air with a searing, choking smoke. But for now, all is calm.\n\n See Luiz Maximiano\u2019s Photo Essay Here\n\nThe first game of the World Cup is set to begin in a few hours, but what\u2019s happening here in the Villa Carr&amp;amp;#xE3;o neighborhood has been the defining narrative in the run up to the Cup. Brazil will spend a staggering $11 billion on the tournament, erecting glittering stadiums in remote cities that don\u2019t even have serious pro teams, while infrastructure throughout the country crumbles. In this soccer mad country, the people around me wish there were no World Cup at all.\n\n They\u2019ve been saying this for a while now, and conventional wisdom held that once the World Cup got closer things would change and get back to normal, that people would paint their streets green and yellow and party like it was Carnaval. But instead a strange malaise has settled like a pall over the country.\n\nThe night before, I was sitting in a bar in Vila Madalena, S&amp;amp;#xE3;o Paulo\u2019s hipster version of Williamsburg, talking with a photographer friend named Luiz, who shot the accompanying photo portfolio, about the lack of excitement for the World Cup. He pointed towards the street. &amp;quot;Usually there would be Brazilian flags hanging everywhere, the street would be painted, but this year is different,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;It\u2019s like, people are embarrassed to wear the jersey of the national team. It\u2019s come to represent the corruption of the government.&amp;quot;\n\nI had heard this in Rio days before, on the beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana. Street vendors selling coconut water complained about the state of the hospitals, college-age girls strolling along the promenade complained about the subways, and boys in Neymar jerseys playing soccer on the beach told me that the university system was a joke. During previous World Cups they had helped decorate their neighborhoods, even painting the walls surrounding their apartment buildings green and yellow weeks before the tournament. But this year? They were apathetic at best, conflicted between their love for the national team and the political corruption the tournament had come to represent.\n\nI asked my friend Luiz how long this could last. Soccer is Brazil\u2019s national religion, after all, and the country is the sport\u2019s holy land. Sooner or later the fever of the tournament would grip the populace, wouldn\u2019t it? He sipped his beer in Vila Madalena and shrugged. &amp;quot;I don\u2019t know man,&amp;quot; he said, smiling. &amp;quot;Maybe by tomorrow people will be excited. We do everything late.&amp;quot;\n\nBut now, standing beside protestors who are carrying sheared off shards of wood, the excitement I feel is something closer to fear. As two police helicopters hover overhead, someone drags a plastic sack heavy with trash in to the street. The protestors rip the bag open, douse it with gas, and light a match. As the flames reach higher, sending a plume of black smoke in to the sky, a sense of foreboding rises. Members of Blac Bloc, the anarchist group behind many of the protests, are tearing down street signs and loading empty beer bottles in to trash cans. I hear one of them say that if the police fire rubber bullets in to the crowd (which they will), the Blac Bloc will throw the beer bottles back at them.\n\nTo say that everyone in Brazil is upset about the World Cup would be a gross oversimplification, something akin to saying that everyone in Brazil loves soccer. But when it comes the World Cup and whether it\u2019s good for Brazil, the country is sharply divided, and nowhere is that more evident than in Vila Carr&amp;amp;#xE3;o. As the riot police march towards us, residents of the high rises that ring the neighborhood have come out on their balconies to watch, protected from the chaos below by metal gates and cream-colored walls ringed with razor wire. A man on the fifth floor of one of the buildings, wearing the yellow jersey of the Brazilian national team, begins yelling at the protestors with a ferocity that curdles his face in to an ugly sneer.\n\n&amp;quot;Vagabundos!&amp;quot; he says again and again, his neck reddening. &amp;quot;Lixo! Trabalha!&amp;quot; Rough translation: bums, trash. Get a job.\n\nI stop and talk to a boy standing in the courtyard of his building. His name is Matheus and he\u2019s 15. He says the protestors embarrass him because they don\u2019t represent how most Brazilians feel, and they make the country look bad. His dad may be upper middle class, but he works hard, unlike these protestors. He hopes Brazil puts on a World Cup that impresses Americans like me. When I ask him if he\u2019s excited about the national team he looks at me like I\u2019m stupid. &amp;quot;Of course,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;I\u2019m Brazilian.&amp;quot;\n\nBefore long, the police are tossing tear gas grenades at the protestors, each canister trailed by looping arcs of smoke that suffocate my lungs and make my eyes raw and bleary. I have no choice but to run, stumbling across the broken pavement for cover under a tree as tears stream down my face. And then just as quickly, the protest is over, the fires in the street smoldering in to cold ash, the bands of rioters dressed in black disappearing in to the surrounding streets to avoid arrest. In the grand scheme of things, the protest meant little, and accomplished next to nothing. S&amp;amp;#xE3;o Paulo is a massive, teeming city of dizzying proportion, spanning 3,000 square miles. While this protest may make the midday newscast, it barely registers as blip in most of the city.\n\n The Kickoff Game\n\n I realize this fact an hour later, standing in Pra&amp;amp;#xE7;a Rep&amp;amp;#xFA;blica in downtown S&amp;amp;#xE3;o Paulo. This is one of the most beautiful spots in the city, a place of ornate stone bridges and gas-style lamps. It\u2019s also the site of the FIFA Fan Fest, the official viewing area for for the World Cup matches. When the protest movement against the tournament began a year ago, corporations became main targets, but at this party, no one seems bothered by the bright red Coke stand, or the fact that Budweiser is the main sponsor. Brazilians dance with Colombians waving their country\u2019s flag, Mexicans in lucha libre masks and sombreros mug for selfies, and the sharp smell of the tear gas that burned my lungs not long ago is a distant memory and a world removed. Here, the air smells of spilled beer and cigarette smoke. For the first time since I arrived in Brazil five days ago, it feels like a party is about to start.\n\nOn the subway to the game, Brazilians turn out in force, and any lingering shame in the national team jersey has evaporated. Inside the stadium, the crowd roars as the national team takes the pitch, a thundering boom of noise. As the first chords of the national anthem ring through the stadium you feel the divisions melting away, the anger over money wasted to build this stadium forgotten. The woman sitting next to me, dropping any decorum expected in the press box, drapes herself in the Brazilian flag as she sings, tears streaming down her face.\n\nThe Brazilian people may argue amongst themselves about the pros and cons of hosting the World Cup, but once their team takes the pitch, all of that is gone. Soccer unites them like nothing else. This surfaces in the most unexpected way towards the end of the game, when suddenly the entire crowd begins a chant that\u2019s hard to fathom ever happening in the United States, directed at the country\u2019s president, Dilma Rousseff: Fuck you Dilma, they chant, again and again, as if to say, the national team belongs to us, the people.\n\n The Celebration\n\n Long after the game is over, when S&amp;amp;#xE3;o Paulo is bathed in darkness, I return to Vila Madalena, the city\u2019s most bohemian neighborhood, to meet my friend Luiz. We go to a bar popular with the city\u2019s writers, artists and actors who work in S&amp;amp;#xE3;o Paulo\u2019s theater district. The crowd spills out in to the street, rolling joints, drinking wine from the bottle, the smell of weed thick in the air. These are the city\u2019s intellectuals, its children of privilege. They identified with the protest movement from the beginning, and would have been embarrassed to wear the jersey of the national team just a few days ago. But tonight is different. Girls wear green and yellow plastic flowers in their hair. College students wave the Brazilian flag above them proudly. &amp;quot;I\u2019ve never seen the street this crowded,&amp;quot; Luiz says. &amp;quot;Not even on Carnaval.&amp;quot; This is the sort of scene Luiz expected. Finally, it has arrived.\n\nAs we head home, he looks down and notices a large Brazilian flag painted on the street. The paint is fresh.\n\n&amp;quot;This wasn\u2019t here yesterday,&amp;quot; Luiz says, smiling. &amp;quot;Things are getting back to normal.&amp;quot;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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