while brazil's national team keeps a dumb person, a.k.a dunga, as its coach i think better to ignore it for a while to talk about the only brazlian team that can make me proud, always: grêmio. not mentioning that as a leader of the current Brazilian championship, it's best time to start an international campaign and get so supporters abroad. or at least, spread the gremismo around the world.

if you dont know much about this team what about relating the names ronaldinho gaúcho, anderson [ okay, this one i would skip lol], lucas and luis felipe scolari to the club? what do hey have in common? all of them were part of grêmios glorious days. and nowdays they are spreading good football around the world. even i pretty much agree ronaldinho is not is his best shape, literally. Big Phil is the most popular name among all Gremistas- Grêmio's supporters- especially because he brought us pretty much important cups and it was at its Tricolor team that he started to be recognized as a national/international sucessful coach.he's also a Grêmio supporter since he was a kid, what makes us really proud, of course.

now a bit of grêmio's history here:

Grêmio Foot-Ball Porto Alegrense were born from a football, which is the way it should be when a club are destined for the greatest glories. The road to victory started with Cândido Dias da Silva, who came from São Paulo to work in Porto Alegre – and his ball. 

The English and Germans playing for Rio Grande teams had been invited for a showdown in Porto Alegre. On the appointed day, September 7th 1903, the Várzea pitch was full of onlookers. Cândido, with his ball under his arm, was among them, concentrating greatly on the game.

The Englishmen's ball developed a puncture, to general dismay, and Cândido quickly loaned his own ball to ensure the showdown reached its end. In exchange, the players gave him his first football lessons at the end of the match and told him how to found a club.

Then, on September 15th  1903, 32 young men gathered at Salão Grau, a hotel restaurant at 15 de Novembro street, in the city centre, to begin the history of a winning club, always willing to overcome all challenges.

 Grêmio's colours are blue, black and white. The club's mascot has been a Musketeer since 1946. Their first pitch, the Baixada do Moinhos de Vento, opened in 1904 in an upper class area of Porto Alegre. They played there until 1954, when the Olímpico opened – at that time, the country's largest privately owned stadium. In 1980, after closure of the upper circle, the stadium was named Olímpico Monumental.

if you want to know more about grêmio, visit this blog weekly.

photos and history text: grêmio.net


 

It’s quite impressive the covering about Robinho’s case. I can tell. It reminds me some years ago when I was living in a building next to his mother’s apartment here in Santos and every day we noticed the 24/7 presence of press and agencies looking for information about his mother’s kidnapping.

Since he was a Santos F.C. player he was used to be in the spotlight, anyway. Not just because his natural talent as footballer but also for being the typical and favorite stereotype of Brazilian, poor boy that changed his life due to football. Everybody living in this city knows about Robinho’s trajectory and he was for a period of time here seeing as an example of professional.

Right after he left Santos to live the European dream of play for one of the biggest clubs in the world, Real Madrid, people also knew that a young boy who started to play in a very simple pitch in the city of Sao Vicente – would have some difficult moments in his career in case he wouldn’t grow up enough to deal with that EUROpean dream.

 to play or not to play?

And the boy who still young was the main responsible to bring Santos F.C. a Championship in 2002, after more than 20 years of total lack of glories really would make a brilliant career far from Brazil if it was a simple detail: maturity enough to deal with unpredictable issues. And he was successful in his first years of European dream until he started being treated as an ordinary player.

This is not just a common sense of real Madrid’s supporters but also to part of Brazilian supporters he is not the same anymore. The press here also keeps being a bit harsh when the issue is Robinho Even the Brazilian team performances- not something exciting anyway if you have a coach as Dunga in charge of your team- have being a nightmare with or without Robinho’s presence it seems he is still in the spotlight, for bad to good.

 But since Big Phil has showed genuine interesting at working with him at Chelsea, it became a real rollercoaster. While Robinho is determinate to play for Chelsea, Real Madrid is pretty sure the transferring won’t be done so soon. Not without the asked money involved being paid. After his press conference when he affirmed his interesting of leaving Real Madrid to join Chelsea I could understand he also lost the good opportunity of show himself as much more mature player.

He doesn’t need to be more mature, anyway. He’s still young and he has a manager to deal with the situation but it seems his press conference as well as the coverage around his transferring to U.K. is a bit overwhelming, especially when the football he is presenting- for the same coverage- is showed as a very ordinary thing nowadays.

so, is this a real Robinhophobia? that fear of being out of spotlight even it means to talk bad or good things about him. you tell me!

to stay or not to stay?

There is something wrong in the air and we still don’t know what it is. Is he guilty or innocent? Is he hero or villain? Is he an extraordinary or ordinary player? The only thing we know is that this brazilian-spanish-english soap opera keeps Robinho in the spotlight for bad to good. All tabloids are talking about him; even there is a bunch of wrong information on it such as São Vicente –city where he was born in- showed as a poor district of Santos. São Vicente is a city and not part of Santos. As well as Buenos  Aires is not the capital of this country. Nervermind!

If his destiny in the football is a bit blurred in the present moment, the only certain we have is that under Big Phil’s wings Robinho probably will have to show more service in the pitch and starting being on the news exclusively because his football and not his personal issues. Pretty much different from his correctly situation with the coaches he is used to work with. And this is something brazilian supporters expect, someone able to bring the old good Robinho back to the field!

the original idea of this blog is to talk about premier league starting from the moment i was going to england ithis september. unfortunately i dont have motd or even espn to check all result when i want but i am making some affort here !

and as i had to postpone my journey to maybe january 2009 but as well as big phil i would like to practice my english lol so i am here to spread my words, anyway.  :O) firstly i have to explain something about my english favourite team: aston villa.

since i was a kid i had the health habit of picking clubs around the world to support.  aston villa was the first name that came to my mind and i am very faithful in my football thoughts. in 2006 i had the opportunity to check a villas match at villa park. and i can tell watching any game of premiership once in life already is a very special moment for a brazilian that always was a big fan of football. it is absolutely fantastic and very different of any brazilian match i've  ever been to. but i am going to talk more about aston villa in the next post.this wasn't a good weekend to villa fans, anyway :O(

this season i have a special reason to give a special attention to the competition. yes, big phil. he is my favourite coach. he is part of my brazilian team, gremio, glories and i can understand chealsea fans can wait him doing his best because i can't be a kind of coach that brings you plenty of gols for match but he brings cups. loads of.

and i already started to check his performance as chelsea coach. fortunately i can check the interviews at motd website and it is amazingly how he is expressing himself well in english. i know he is a studious of football so everything he does it has to be done well. not different in england. it sounds that deco the portuguese-brazilian one is doing pretty well in this season too andsicne last world cup between england-portugal match i was making some predictions that someday i could see big phil working with joe cole. crazy thinking , i know!!!

would spell is again, please?

three points later against wigan and i have to say i also just loved the way big phil said the name of the team he is coaching ! the pronunciation of chealsea at motd interview was so full of brazilian accent and i hope british people or at least chelsea fans get used to this because it is just impossible to have big phil coaching a team without have some brazilian fingerprint on it. he tries to speak in english a very good one and he is a gentlemen. so c'mon let him call his team the way he likes :O)

1- yay!

interj.