Brazilian fans are a notoriously fickle bunch: not only are their teams expected to win but they’re supposed to do it with style, and in the same week that the Brazilian women’s national team won new fans with beautiful flowing samba-style futebol, Botafogo, one of the country’s biggest clubs, saw its stock sink to a new low after a mid-week collapse to Argentine giant River Plate in the Copa Sudamerica.
As BBC News South America correspondent Tim Vickery says, a couple of key defeats can turn a club’s supporters against its management and reduce the players to “a shameless rabble who have no right to wear the shirt,” which in the case of Rio-based Botafogo is a shame, he says, because one bad week has suddenly undone a year’s worth of good progress and erased the otherwise pleasant memory of a fine first win their new stadium just two weeks ago.
Indeed, that win came against River in the first leg of the Copa Sudamerica, but the 1-0 victory proved to be not enough to beat the Buenos Aires club, which won the return leg at home last Thursday, 4-2. The manner of River’s victory was particularly embarrassing for Botafogo and Coach Cuca: trailing 2-1 and having lost two men to Botafogo’s one, the Argentines managed to score three goals in the final 20 minutes to win the series and move onto the Copa Sudamerica quarterfinals. As a result, Cuca quit, management blamed the players, and all were treated to showering of lingerie once the team touched down in Rio.