Memories From a Portuguese Past

Almost every football fan can relate to you their first experience with the game. For me, I can vividly remember kicking about a beat up football in the garage of a rundown shack that my family called a home in Portugal. Despite that the rest of this piece won’t focus on this experience, I could think of no more appropriate opening.

The year was 1995 and I was still in kindergarten in Portugal. On most days, the teacher would ask us about what we did the previous day after getting home from school. To my own shock and disbelief, I can still remember the following as vividly as I can see the time on the clock at this moment.

This particular day was after Portugal’s national team had played a game. Unfortunately, I can’t possibly recall against who and whether it was a friendly or a qualifier of any sort. Of course, when the teacher called on me to ask what I had done the day before I quickly replied about watching the Portugal game the day prior.

Then, in a moment captivated by words that I can to this day replay in my head as I like, the teacher replied that this was impossible since, and I kid you not, she said, “Portugal doesn’t have a team.”

Had I dreamt it? Was this a figment of my imagination?

A classmate of mine spoke up and let it be known that he, too, had witnessed this game, though by the reporting of the kindergarten teacher it may as well have been a UFO sighting.

I dream of going back to Portugal, finding this woman and asking her what team it was that got to the semi-finals at EURO 2000, the final at EURO 2004, the semi-final at World Cup 2006, and most recently the quarter-final in EURO 2008.

Perhaps the teacher’s ignorance was to be expected in a nation whose, at that point in time, last appearance in a World Cup competition was marred by an ugly off the pitch quarrel over monetary compensation for the players. However, even then, to say that the team didn’t exist was still too much of a stretch. Especially since, even despite the performances of the national team, the interest in football in Portugal was still as high as ever, especially having won the World Youth Cup on home soil just four years before. And on top of this players like Luis Figo, Rui Costa, João Pinto, Paulo Sousa, Fernando Couto and other well known stars were already featuring for the team on a regular basis by the time of this story in 1995.

To this day, before any game involving Portugal those words cross my mind, and a humor-induced smile accompanies it.

Paulo Pincaro is an up and coming football analyst who previously wrote for the LusoAmericano newspaper based in Newark, New Jersey and can be contacted via email at PauloNewYorker@yahoo.com

Written By Paulo Pincaro (13 Posts)

My name is Paulo Pincaro and I'm currently an international management student at Pace University in New York City. GloriousFootball is not my first football writing assignment as I had a brief but notable stint writing for the Portuguese-American, Luso-Americano newspaper based out of Newark, New Jersey. My love for the game stems all the way back to a run-down garage in Portugal where I used to kick around a football. I look forward to adding my expertise in the areas of Portuguese and European football to GloriousFootball.