Scenarios and rituals: thinking the World Cup Argentina 78 with Roberto DaMatta

Abstract

Objective: This work develops a reading of the 78 World Cup. Universo do futebol by Roberto DaMatta is guide to retrace a set of problems. Method: From a re-reading of testimonies preserved in different formats (periodical press, official documents, audiovisual records and images), the organization and rituals that delimited the 78 World Cup are reconstructed. Results and discussion: The article shows how the preparation of the military government tried to erase the popular heritage of the World Cup put into play by the Peronist governments and how it deployed through the opening ceremony its political imagination and its government project for the Argentine society. Conclusion: By approaching the celebrations of the Argentinean victory in the final, we analyze the mismatches evidenced by that project from celebrations capable of suspending, at least momentarily, the meaning and hierarchies imagined by the military authorities. Roberto DaMatta's proposal about the relationship between sport and society and his focus on rituals and liminarities continues to be a powerful inspiration to read an extraordinary event such as the World Cup Argentina 78.