It’s always nice to see Brazil playing football.
In Brazil, I didn’t have it easy growing up.
When I was a kid, my big hero was the number 10 of Flamengo and not the number 10 of Santos. His name was Dida. We didn’t have much knowledge about the championship in Sao Paolo or in the south of Brazil. We just knew about the championship in Rio because I am from there. But Pele played for the national team and was a hero.
The G8 nations, together with the five major emerging economies of China, India, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, use almost three-quarters of the Earth’s biocapacity – the capacity of the world’s ecosystems to produce natural resources and to reduce harmful substances.
To be consistent with this discourse of lifting up the military dictatorship in Brazil, the dictatorship that extended from 1964 to 1985, Bolsonaro, his whole life, has been uplifting not only the dictatorship itself but also the methods that the dictatorship used to stay in power, including torture.
He tried to convince me. He spoke to me: ‘You have to play for Belgium.’ He came to talk to me, he’s always talking to me. I told him ‘it’s difficult, Lukaku, can’t do it, it’s not the same. Playing for Belgium is something else. Playing for Selecao… It’s Brazil, I feel at home.’
Football has given me a lot of great opportunities, so now I am trying to put that to good use. I have a foundation in Brazil that supports 750 children, and am hoping to do something similar in the Middle East with a soccer academy.
I have a feeling we are going to be world champions, I can’t really explain why. Brazil are probably the best team in the world in terms of individual players. But the team with the most gifted players do not always win.
To be in the national team is wonderful in it’s own right. For me, playing against Brazil or Venezuela is the same.
God bless Neymar because this boy has changed the lives of kids in Brazil. A lot of children watch him, believe they can be the next Neymar. Sometimes, you have a great opportunity to change and impact the lives of kids.
In the face of a rising China, along with authoritarian regimes from Brazil to the Philippines to Turkey to Russia, and the constant presence of belligerent non-state actors, we need to reform our military to deal with asymmetrical threats.
I’m very professional, I would play in any club. If I go to Brazil, being Palmeiras or any other team, I will make sure I give my best.
They were two and a half decades in which Brazil had no capacity to invest in infrastructure. Just to give you an idea, in 1989, we had in Brazil about 50,000 project-engineering businesses. When I took office, there were just 8,000. Universities were no longer turning out engineers.
There are a number of parallels between the slums of Brazil and those found in my hometown, Karachi. The dichotomy that exists in Brazil is uncannily similar to that found in Pakistan, and I hope to one day make a film that follows similar themes.
The history of Brazil goes from Pele to Garrincha, Didi, Tostao, Gerson, then to all of us who followed them.
I can tell you that today 99% of my investments are in Brazil and will remain here.
I think Americans are really patriotic people, so patriotism is something they can understand. I’m very patriotic about Brazil, my country, and that includes my language.
Argentina against Brazil is the most important derby between national teams.
I was really shy when I was back in Brazil, so coming to Europe was very tough. I was arriving as a kid fresh from Brazil into a big team like Inter with a lot of star names.
I like the idea of raising a kid in my trailer. My mother was an actress. I grew up in theater with her in Brazil. I would play with set dolls. And I loved it.
Fighting in Brazil is always great because you’re close to the fans. It’s a good energy on fight day: during the open workouts, the support on social media is always closer.
My goal one day is to be Brazil coach, but to get there I need to have a club career. I started well in Turkey. I started well in Russia and I did a good job in India.
My brother and I have matching tattoos on our arms. It says, ‘Humility is strength,’ in Portuguese and Italian, because my genius brother taught English in both Italy and Brazil.
I want to go back to Brazil, get married, have lots of kids, and just be a couch tomato.
When I come to the United States, I came here illegally. I didn’t know I was going to be a fighter. I just thought I was going to work landscaping for, I don’t know, three, four years, then go back to Brazil and live my life.
My first assignment was 12 weeks in Afghanistan. After that, I covered the Indian election for two months. Then I got a phone call saying, ‘Hey, we want you in Brazil,’ and the same happened for Somalia.
Yes, Brazil, like the whole world, stands to lose a lot in a climate-altered world. But it’s also one of the major forces determining our future: It’s the home of most of the Amazon rain forest.
The heat doesn’t bother me as much as it does other people. I’m from Brazil, where it’s hot anyway.
I will go to Rio to support Brazil even if I’m not in the squad.
I was very young when I left Brazil.
When I was youn,g I always saw Brazil winning games on television with fantastic players and a fantastic team.
Getting fan mail from Brazil is kind of funny.
The Japanese people treated me very well. They appreciated how I considered the martial arts, the jiu-jitsu and judo. There’s some good points and bad points to fight there. The distance was too far from where I used to live in Brazil. It was a 27-hour flight.
Playing in the Copa America would be an important thing for me, just like the Olympics, because Brazil has never won the gold medal there.
Google is omniscient of what people search for and do. Facebook has over a billion subscribers, meaning Mark Zuckerberg has personal information about one in every seven people on Earth. U.S.A., Brazil, Mexico, India and Indonesia are at the top of that list.
If they had listened to me and had equal partnerships in China, the U.K., Germany and Brazil, maybe Yahoo in those countries could have become positioned like Yahoo Japan.
I always had the dream to play for Brazil, and that dream has come true already.
One of the best moments was playing for this small team in Brazil called Uniao Sao Joao – the first match was the best, the most interesting, I loved it.
What really swings is the music of the United States, Cuba, the Caribbean and vicinity, and, of course, Brazil. The rest is all waltzes.
Let’s make Brazil Great!
I started very young… I learned my martial arts first in the street. There were always fights. That’s the culture in Brazil.
Since I was born and raised in Brazil, the steps to becoming an entrepreneur in the United States have not always been easy.
My father played for Sao Paulo for several years. I played in Brazil, too, and made a lot of friends there.
I started writing an album on flights to Africa and Brazil, but it was crazy because I left the notebook on the plane. It had seven or eight songs in it. After that, I’m not writing any more songs on notebooks – and I keep my Blackberry close!
I believe that modern slavery is the most outrageous assault on the rights of an individual. It is something that touches me deeply because I grew up in rural Brazil and could see first-hand how poverty forced people to work in harsh, exploitative conditions.
Here in Brazil, homophobia is everywhere. If Brazil looked up to good things that other countries do, it would become a better place. I’m not talking about homosexuals only, but for everything else.
I could not spend the rest of my life sitting in Brazil writing down who called whom uncle and aunt.
Maybe I will end my career here in Milan, but there is a possibility of going back to Brazil.
We are going to change Brazil!
The first goal I scored for Brazil will live with me forever.
I have dreamed of Brazil all my life. As a child, I had videos of Brazil, of their World Cup wins, of Pele, and of all the big players.
Brazil remains a reference to the sport.
I am a man of Brazil, of F1. My middle name needs to change to Rubens F1 Barrichello. I have no intention of saying goodbye.
In Brazil, U.S., Japan and some other countries, there are many sports being played and I hope that will be the case in India as well. Sports is good for the country.
I consider the relationship with the U.S. very important to Brazil. I will try to forge closer ties with the U.S.
Every team going to Brazil 2014 will be there to win, and it’s going to be a fiercely contested World Cup.
Brazilian boys as young as 14 and 15 are now based in Europe. They spend their best years in Europe and come back to Brazil when they are past their prime. This has destroyed local clubs and championships.
Brazil needs the individual creativity of Neymar, Philippe Coutinho, Douglas Costa. But it needs the collective creativity that sometimes people don’t pay attention to.
I get letters constantly from all over the world, telephone calls from America, Brazil, Australia, all over, especially on my birthday. A family? I have a huge international family. That’s all I need.
My goal is to continue in Europe, but never rule out a return to Brazil.
