{"id":73593,"date":"2014-07-07T12:21:06","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T16:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=73593"},"modified":"2014-07-07T12:21:06","modified_gmt":"2014-07-07T16:21:06","slug":"o-jogo-bonito","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/","title":{"rendered":"O Jogo Bonito"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"battle-of-santiago\"<\/a>

\u201cThe Battle of Santiago\u201d\u2014Italy vs. Chile, 1962.<\/p><\/div>\n

A little more than halfway through Brazil\u2019s horrible, galling victory over Colombia last Friday, I began to wonder what type of foul might actually persuade the Spanish referee Carlos Velasco Carballo to issue a yellow card: A studs-up, two-footed, kung-fu fly-kick to the chest, like the one launched by Eric Cantona against a fan in the stands back in 1995? Any one of the number of egregious fouls, including punches to the head, committed by Italy against Chile, and then by Chile on Italy, in the infamous Battle of Santiago in World Cup 1962? Maybe multiple Su\u00e1rez-type bites by a hyena pack of players on a prostrate Colombian felled by a scything tackle might have done the trick.<\/p>\n

As it was, Thiago Silva eventually received a yellow card for stupidly impeding the Colombia goalkeeper David Ospina as he was about to drop-kick the ball upfield (hardly a big deal); Mario Yepes received one for a tackle no worse than countless that had preceded it; J\u00falio C\u00e9sar received one for understandably wiping out Carlos Bacca on his way to a goal that resulted in a penalty for Colombia; and, cruelest of all, the superb James Rodr\u00edguez\u2014who, throughout the tournament, embodied all the skill, verve, and fluidity that\u2019s supposed to be the hallmark of Brazilian <\/em>soccer, including the ability to smack the ball sweetly into the back of the net\u2014received a yellow card for a tackle he had half pulled out of, his first offense. Then, from the ensuing free kick, David Luiz scored what turned out to be the winning goal for Brazil\u2014an even greater injustice, as Rodr\u00edguez had been targeted and pummeled, mostly by Fernandinho, more or less from the opening whistle. As Sam Borden observed in an excellent article in the Times<\/em><\/a>, it is all very well for Luiz Scolari, Brazil\u2019s coach, to claim that Neymar had been \u201chunted\u201d after Juan Camilo Zuniga had kneed his star player in the back and broken his vertebra\u2014no yellow card\u2014but it was his team, under his direction, that had set the tone. Brazil has lost its reputation and doesn\u2019t look likely to recover it in a hurry. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Louis van Gaal may soon be challenging Nate Silver for sure-thing statistical predictions. Aware that his reserve goalkeeper, Tim Krul, had a longer reach than his first-choice goalkeeper, Jasper Cillessen, he subbed in Krul with seconds to go in the 121st minute of the game against Costa Rica, and Krul dutifully stretched his arms to save two penalties in the ensuing shoot-out.<\/p>\n

And so the last of the little guys have been eliminated from the competition: Belgium, the smallest country; Costa Rica, population 4.5 million; and Colombia, the perennial South American also-ran who had never reached a quarterfinal before. France went out, too, but they haven\u2019t been the same since the Zidane head-butt. And what are we left with? Teams that rely significantly on bullies (Fernandinho et al, Brazil), on divers and fakers (Robben of Holland, M\u00fcller of Germany) or, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 Dieu<\/em>, on the soccer genius of Lionel Messi (Argentina).<\/p>\n

In the 1966 World Cup, Pele was infamously brutalized, and as a result Brazil didn\u2019t make it out of the group stage; Maradona, on a Faustian journey to reactivate the skills that time had dulled, tarnished his reputation by removing himself from World Cup 1994 with an ephedrine cocktail. But somehow I don\u2019t think that Messi, with his low center of gravity, will be kicked in the air by either Holland or Brazil\u2014should the hosts reach the final\u2014nor does he require a pick-me-up from the pharmacy. For the sake of all those who love the jogo bonito<\/em>, may the golden boot go to Messi. There\u2019s only been one hat trick ever scored in a World Cup final, by England\u2019s Geoff Hurst in 1966; if whoever referees the final can locate his whistle and his cards, we might yet see something extraordinary on July 13.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Wilson\u2019s work has appeared in <\/em>The New Yorker, <\/em>Esquire, <\/em>The New York Times Magazine, and <\/em>Best American Short Stories, among other publications. He is the author of eight books, including <\/em>Kick and Run: Memoir with Soccer Ball. He lives in Massachusetts.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A little more than halfway through Brazil\u2019s horrible, galling victory over Colombia last Friday, I began to wonder what type of foul might actually persuade the Spanish referee Carlos Velasco Carballo to issue a yellow card: A studs-up, two-footed, kung-fu fly-kick to the chest, like the one launched by Eric Cantona against a fan in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":518,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13859],"tags":[192,14520,14517,86,89,14519,14518],"class_list":["post-73593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-cup-2014","tag-brazil","tag-lionel-messi","tag-referees","tag-soccer","tag-world-cup","tag-world-cup-history","tag-yellow-cards"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nO Jogo Bonito<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If whoever referees the World Cup final can locate his whistle and his cards, we might yet see something extraordinary on July 13.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"O Jogo Bonito by Jonathan Wilson\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"July 7, 2014 \u2013 A little more than halfway through Brazil\u2019s horrible, galling victory over Colombia last Friday, I began to wonder what type of foul might actually\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-07-07T16:21:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/battle-of-santiago.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"660\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"424\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jonathan Wilson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jonathan Wilson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jonathan Wilson\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/b0671dfee1aee11aa7334555825b4b59\"},\"headline\":\"O Jogo Bonito\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-07-07T16:21:06+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/\"},\"wordCount\":726,\"commentCount\":1,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/battle-of-santiago.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Brazil\",\"Lionel Messi\",\"referees\",\"soccer\",\"World Cup\",\"World Cup history\",\"yellow cards\"],\"articleSection\":[\"World Cup 2014\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/\",\"name\":\"O Jogo Bonito\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/battle-of-santiago.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-07-07T16:21:06+00:00\",\"description\":\"If whoever referees the World Cup final can locate his whistle and his cards, we might yet see something extraordinary on July 13.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/battle-of-santiago.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/battle-of-santiago.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"O Jogo Bonito\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/b0671dfee1aee11aa7334555825b4b59\",\"name\":\"Jonathan Wilson\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/addad001f5a43af7af8956b70c804fbff3d33470c44c99505361b20885ae8516?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/addad001f5a43af7af8956b70c804fbff3d33470c44c99505361b20885ae8516?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jonathan Wilson\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/jwilson\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"O Jogo Bonito","description":"If whoever referees the World Cup final can locate his whistle and his cards, we might yet see something extraordinary on July 13.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"O Jogo Bonito by Jonathan Wilson","og_description":"July 7, 2014 \u2013 A little more than halfway through Brazil\u2019s horrible, galling victory over Colombia last Friday, I began to wonder what type of foul might actually","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2014-07-07T16:21:06+00:00","og_image":[{"width":660,"height":424,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/battle-of-santiago.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Jonathan Wilson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jonathan Wilson","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/"},"author":{"name":"Jonathan Wilson","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/b0671dfee1aee11aa7334555825b4b59"},"headline":"O Jogo Bonito","datePublished":"2014-07-07T16:21:06+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/"},"wordCount":726,"commentCount":1,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/battle-of-santiago.jpg","keywords":["Brazil","Lionel Messi","referees","soccer","World Cup","World Cup history","yellow cards"],"articleSection":["World Cup 2014"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/","name":"O Jogo Bonito","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/battle-of-santiago.jpg","datePublished":"2014-07-07T16:21:06+00:00","description":"If whoever referees the World Cup final can locate his whistle and his cards, we might yet see something extraordinary on July 13.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/battle-of-santiago.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/battle-of-santiago.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/o-jogo-bonito\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"O Jogo Bonito"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/b0671dfee1aee11aa7334555825b4b59","name":"Jonathan Wilson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/addad001f5a43af7af8956b70c804fbff3d33470c44c99505361b20885ae8516?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/addad001f5a43af7af8956b70c804fbff3d33470c44c99505361b20885ae8516?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jonathan Wilson"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/jwilson\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/518"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73593"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73601,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73593\/revisions\/73601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}