Brazilian Domingos: football, race and nationality in the history of a Brazilian hero in the "Estado Novo" [New State]

Abstract

The 1938 World Cup Soccer Tournament held in France marked a significant moment in the history of Brazilian soccer. Even though the sport had been played in Brazil since the late 1800s, for the first time many believed that Brazil's very bestplayers represented the nation in an international tournament. That was the case of the famous soccer player Domingos da Guia. Having been born in 1911 in Bangu, a suburban borough of Rio de Janeiro, Domingos became in the 1930s the most prominent of the Afro-Brazilian athletes who broke through the color barriers that limited the acceptance of brown and black players on Brazil's most prominent teams. For that reason, his career is a good way to think about some images of the Brazilian culture connected to the nationalist myth of racial harmony.