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foreign countries, being neglected, going hungry and not even having the money for the journey back.’ Maria de Fátima, Marcelo’s sister-in-law, comes in and insists that she bakes me a cake. By now the room is crowded with another five children. One of them, a young boy, tells me that he plays for a football team on the beach. He says that when he grows up he wants to be like his uncle and play in Europe. The Marcolinos are a football family. Maria Nazareth was sixteen when she married her husband, who played professionally for teams in Rio. He never earned enough to leave the favela. Friends said that if his children were half as good as him they would be footballers too. Marcelo started in the junior divisions of Fluminense and Botafogo, two good local clubs. He turned professional at Madureira, a weaker team in the suburbs and then moved to clubs progressively lower in the Brazilian food chain. Until he fell out the bottom and ended up on the other side of the world. Had Marcelo not inherited his father’s ball skills he would be in a job like his Cabritos Hill contemporaries – who are waiters, maids and motorbike couriers; the bottom of the labour market, servicing middle-class Copacabana below. Dilma tells me she works in a bikini factory. The cake arrives and we eat it with fizzy guarana juice. Maria Nazareth thinks she understands how football works, since both her husband and a son devoted themselves to the game. ‘There are so many good players in Brazil that to be a success you need someone behind you. He found himself a backer there in Denmark. He is now a big success there. People love him.’ Maria Nazareth installed her first telephone last year. She says she knows Marcelo’s decision to go was the right one since he rings home every week and says: ‘Mum, I scored lots of goals.’ Dilma adds: ‘He really fought hard to be a footballer. He’s happy because he’s doing all he ever wanted to do.’ *
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