The northeast plays football, too: World cup soccer and regional identity in the Brazilian northeast

Abstract

This article examines how ideas about northeastern regional identity circulated in discussions of World Cup football. It first presents the preparations of and discussion around the 1950 World Cup match between Chile and the United States in Recife. Then, it analyzes attention given to World Cup football by regionalist intellectuals and artists, including musicians, clay artists, poets, and authors of cordel literature. This analysis shows that World Cup football provided a space within which the terms of regional (and national) identity were contested and debated, emphasizing the multivalence of regional discourse.