99% Invisible - 521- A Sea of Yellow

Episode Date: January 18, 2023

Back in 2017 we ran an episode about the history of Brazil's iconic, yellow national soccer jersey. We were reminded of that story during the recent world cup, and then again on January 8th as a mob of right wing rioters attacked the Brazilian capital, many of them wearing those iconic yellow shirts. Needless to say the story of the yellow jersey has taken some real twists and turns in recent years, so today we’re going to rerun the original story about the jersey’s origins, and then producer Emmett Fitzgerald is going to update us on everything that has happened since.A Sea of Yellow

Hey there listeners. Back in 2017, we ran an episode about the history of Brazil's iconic yellow national soccer jersey. We were reminded of that story during the recent World Cup, and then again on January 8th, as a mob of right-wing rioters attacked the Brazilian capital, many of them, wearing those iconic yellow shirts. Needless to say, the story of the yellow jersey has taken some real twists and turns in recent years, so today we're going to rerun the original story of the Yellow Jersey has taken some real twists and turns in recent years.

So today, we're going to rerun that original story about the Jersey's origins, and then producer Emmett Fitzgerald is going to update us on everything that has happened since. This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars. Genio Colasso, Paravilioso, Ingridio, Eceptional! When a Brazilian soccer player scores a goal, the announcer starts slow. And it builds. Until it reaches a glorious crescendo. They do this all over the world now, but it started in Brazil. And there's something particularly triumphant about it there.

That's producer Joe Sykes. That's because soccer means so much to Brazil. How can I explain what soccer means to Brazilians without sounding corny, but I think I'm going to have to sound corny, okay? That's Fernando Duarte, a BBC journalist who wrote a book about Brazilian soccer. Soccer, or football as I call it being British, arrived in Brazil in the late 19th century. At first it was a game played in elite circles and in cities, but poor and working-glass Brazilians struggled to make the game their own. The only time the elites were robbed or deprived of something by the poor people or by the common folk

is when football seized to be a game for the elites and it became a mass sport. Soccer eventually became so popular and beloved in Brazil that their national team soccer jersey has become as much a national symbol as the country's flag. We're going to see many more people in Brazil wearing the shirt than waving the flag. As a sense of belonging, no matter if you're picking up old sawdust cans on the street or if you're a millionaire, when you wear that shirt, you're just like one of us. Those shirts are extraordinary. They are Sintillating. In fact, I think the word is

Choriscating. That's the Socorita and historian David Goblatt. There are flashes of diamond light coming off of those shirts. The Brazilian soccer shirts are so iconic that non-soccer fans all over the world can often picture them, but for those of you who can't, the shirt is a bright, canary yellow with green trim around the collar and sleeves. They're worn with blue shorts, a pure primary blue. Compared with other soccer jerseys, the uniform is joyful and bold. It seems to capture something essential about Brazil. But it wasn't always this way. In fact, Brazil used to play in plain, unremarkable white shirts. The story of how the uniform changed goes back 70 years to an epic soccer game that Brazilians will never forget.

After years of lobbying, the World Cup arrived in Brazil in 1950. At the time, the country was culturally and internationally unknown. This was Brazil's big moment to show the world what it was made of. The 1950 World Cup was understood by the Brazilian population as an opportunity to say to the world, Brazil has arrived. They knew this World Cup was their chance to tell everyone. We have modernised, we have been transformed, we've moved from being an agricultural plantation economy to a new urban industrialised economy and this is our way of showing it. The main symbol of that coming out apart from what was happening on the soccer field was

the stadium named the Maricanar in Rio de Janeiro. It looks like the stadium from outer space. I mean, it is this fabulous flat white concrete oval with amazing flying buttresses. Just like this huge flying saucer that had dropped down in the centre of the city. But done with this sort of incredible sort of modernist elegance. I mean, it was the greatest stadium built since the Colosseum. So they had the stadium, the people were behind them, the government was pushing the tournament whenever possible. Now all they needed was a successful team.

The expectations were high because of this whole climate, this atmosphere of optimism. In one of their earlier games, Brazil strobe confidently onto the field in our white uniforms and proceeded to demolish Sweden 7-1. Brazil were absolutely fantastic in the opening rounds. They were slaughtering everybody, the scoring goals or over the place. They beat Spain, six one. They also beat Mexico and Yugoslavia. The tournament was going exactly to plan.

It was this whole atmosphere of like sporting bliss. And all they had to do is get a draw of your way into the last match. Because of a quirk in the tournament structure, all Brazil had to do to win the World Cup was tie against Uruguay in their final game. Uruguay historically had been a really strong team, even though they're a tiny country almost 50 times smaller than Brazil. But by the time this 1950 World Cup came along,

Uruguay was a waning power in soccer, so beating them or at least tying them seemed totally doable, not a problem. Still, Uruguay was no pushover, especially when they were playing against Brazil. Uruguay actually used to be a Brazilian province, so they had this chip on their shoulder about their older, bigger, next door neighbor. The whole thing of being a Uruguayan, going against the odds, fighting against an old colonial power. It spurred them on. Meanwhile, the whole of Rio is now thinking about just one thing, the World Cup Final.

There really is mass hysteria about it. Everybody knows about it. Everyone's engaged with it. Everyone wants to go. No one can talk or think about anything else. In Brazil, people like to say that if everybody who claimed to have been in the stadium that afternoon was actually there, the stadium would have needed to be the size of the moon. And it was a big crowd. Some estimate that there were 250,000 screaming fans packed into this flying saucer stadium, which is something like 80,000 people over a capacity. And the players, when they walked out, would just hit with this roll of noise.

The place is noisy, it is real custom. But in the first half neither team scores. So the crowd was getting nervous, everybody was getting tense. Then finally Brazil scores a goal. Just after half time, a low shot across the goalkeeper into the bottom corner of the net. And there's just this relief that surges all around the crowd. Even the journalists run on and embrace the players. Because basically everyone there thinks the game is all over. That Brazil has won the World Cup. But then... Uruguay scores.

About halfway through the second half. The description by whoever was there is that the stadium fell very, very nervous and this nervousness went to the players, almost like they were losing the game. And then comes the moment that everybody will always know right. Our seedest Gigi, one of the Uruguayan wingers, gets the ball and dribbles down the right side

toward the goal. And just as he's looking up to pass the ball, he notices that the goalkeeper Barbosa was actually walking to try to anticipate across which meant Barbosa was out of position. So instead of passing the ball, Gigi shoots and scores. All of the reports talk about the most extraordinary silence in the stadium. I'll see the GDO1's said in his book, only three people in the history of the Maracaná, silence that crowd. Frank Sinatra, Pope John Paul II, and me is almost like a graveyard.

Some of the players don't even remember what happened. It was a state of catatonio, something like that. As you have probably guessed by now, Brazil does not manage to get another goal to tie the game in Uruguay, wins. As the game ends, the fans stream out of the stadium and back onto the streets of Rio. It's almost like some kind of apocalypse happening people just when somewhere else. There was this feeling of solitude, this feeling of numbness. And Rio de Janeiro wasn't a party city on the night, on the night of July 16th, 1950.

There was a lot of public crying, there's a lot of hyperbole. One Brazilian playwright caused the defeat Brazil's Hiroshima. All right, well that's just ridiculous. Wish I think is both in bad taste and exaggeration, but people were really blind away. The recriminations came thick and fast, and soon racist accusations started to fly. Barbosa, the guy who played goalkeeper for the Brazilians, was Black. He and two other Black players on the team were scapegoated in the popular press, and Barbosa was even hassled on the street.

His life was made difficult. There's a tragic story he tells later in life of hearing a woman whispering to a child, this is the man who made all Brazil cry. After that, the Brazilian team didn't pick another Black Goldkeeper to start in the World Cup for over 50 years. And this wasn't a coincidence. After that game, Black Goldkeepers were regarded as less reliable than white ones in Brazil,

which is disgusting. But Barboso wasn't the only focus of Brazilian blame. In fact, everything about Brazilian soccer was scrutinized down to the uniforms the players were wearing. The authorities father the white shirt was cursed, and I think everybody else in Brazil did. And above all, there was a determination never to play in white shirts again. It was pretty unusual for a team to completely transform their uniform. Most countries have played in the same colors since the first world cup back in the early 20th century. But

the Brazilians decided their uniform was a problem. So in 1953, the Brazilians soccer authorities set up a competition and advertised it in a national newspaper that's distributed all over Brazil. They wanted people to write in with their designs for a new uniform. The contest had only one stipulation. The color of the uniform had to include all the colors of the Brazilian flag. Green, blue, white, and yellow,

a design that would truly represent Brazil. Hundreds of people entered the contest, including this guy. My name is Aljígor C.S.L. and I'm from Jaguaron, on the board with Uruguay. Aldea Garcia Schley. He was just 19 when he entered the competition, a young man who had grown up in a little town right on the border between Brazil and Uruguay. Schlä wasn't a designer, he was working at a local newspaper as an illustrator. He says when he first heard about the competition, he thought it would be too difficult.

The first impression I had was that Jesus was foolish, that was ridiculous. Primeira impressão que eu tive que estar tava de uma bobagem. Sim, a primeira impressão que eu tinha foi que Jesus foi fulhante, que foi ridiculous. Sim, porque é sempre que tem um team com 4 colars. O que 4 colars no justo do chute era bem difícil, mas, eventualmente, a Shlay se fez que ele poderia usar o uniforme de um uniforme para poder treinar os colars. Ele tentou白ar com a grinsha, um chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de chute de ch spread out the colors. He tried blue shorts with a green shirt, a yellow and green striped shirt with white shorts, a green and yellow striped shirt with blue

shorts. He came up with over 200 different designs. Until eventually he had it. Blue shorts, white socks, and a yellow shirt with green trim around the neck and the sleeves. He sent the design off and a few weeks later he looked down at the Ele sentou o desenho e há um pouco de semana. Ele se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na péssima e se olhou na p in the newsroom where I worked, it was like something impossible had just happened. After he won, Schlagotte Bask in the glory of it all for a while. He went to Rio, did an internship with the newspaper that had sponsored the contest, he even lived with the Brazilian players for a few months. But eventually, he returned to his small town and kind of forgot about the shirt for a while. But pretty soon, the shirt was Brazil.

In 1962, the Brazilians won the World Cup in Chile, and they were wearing Schles uniform. Players like Pele wore the yellow shirt and dazzled the world with their extraordinary skill and beauty. Then color TV comes along, and the whole world can watch Brazil in brand new technical Here's soccer historian David Goblaggan. For me, there's a memory there that I think lots of people have, even if they didn't see it, of dazzle, of brilliance, of amazing, sort of global South sunshine, of flour. Where Brazil had failed in 1950, the following years saw success after success. They won World Cup after World Cup. They yellow shirts becoming as much a hallmark as their intricate footwork and dazzling play.

Shlays' design became iconic, a symbol of Brazil, full of sun and life. But for Shlays, life wasn't quite living up to the image of Brazil he had created. He started working as a writer in academic. In a 1964, a brutal US-backed military dictatorship took power in a coup. The new military government cracked down on people it considered to be subversive, including academics. Like a lot of other professors and students, Chile was arrested for basically being on the political left. When he got out of jail, he was expelled from his teaching job and was banned from leaving the country. Por cima, mas de qualquer maneira ultralma... Sim, eu estava traumatizando minha vida e meus sonhos,

nós sofremos muito. E sofremos muito. A dictação foi mais forte há 20 anos, mas, despitea as dificuldades de viver entre o maior e o maior de militares, Shlay foi um sucesso para o ritor, e ele developed uma espécie de espacial. Shlay spente seu seu life writing about the border between Brazil and Uruguay. I am a citizen who has a heart and a body divided between Brazil and Uruguay.

Shlay was technically born in Brazil, but less than a mile from the border with Uruguay. In fact, when he was a kid, his father helped build a bridge across the river that separates Uruguay from Brazil. I am from the era where the bridge was built. My father went to help build the bridge. So I was being very connected to Uruguay. Shlays experience growing up between two countries and his experiences under military rule have helped shape his feelings about Brazilian nationalism. Even though he designed a shirt that could be considered more patriotic than the Brazilian flag,

he's actually very wary of patriotism. It is an idea that I have, it is an idea that I compete with the ones that I have é uma ideia que concorre com aquelas que eu tenho a respeito e isso é uma ideia de competir com as coisas que eu tenho para limitar e limitar e limitar os bordes. Shlay não pode ser um patrioto brasileiro, mas o soccer fan em ele não pode ser muito prato de o brasileiro. O Brasil foi cinco vezes, campeão. Brasil é um campeão de 5 vezes. Brasil é um campeão de 5 vezes.

Esse é um sorvete de prédio. É o honor para todos nós, para todos nós. Mas a Lei tem um secret, ou algo que nunca ia te mostrar com pessoas que sabia que ele era o designer de uma famície de chão. A Lei é o ruta de Uruguai. Por muito em Brasile, esse é o plástico, mas não para ele. Nós somos um povo, A gente tem um pouco de comunidade. A gente tem um cultura identidade. A gente tem um cultura identidade. A gente tem um cultura identidade.

A gente tem um cultura identidade. A gente tem um cultura identidade. A gente tem um cultura identidade. A gente tem um cultura identidade. A gente tem um cultura identidade. A gente tem um cultura identidade. A gente tem um cultura identidade. A gente tem um cultura identidade.

A gente tem um cultura identidade. A gente tem um cultura identidade. A gente tem um cultura identidade. culturally connected to both Brazil and Uruguay, but he ultimately had to pick one country's team to root for. So these days, when Brazil plays Uruguay, Shlei, like a lot of other soccer fans, suits up in his favourite jersey, but not the yellow shirt he designed, a sky blue one, the colour of Uruguay. Then he crosses the border from Brazil to Uruguay and finds some quiet bar to watch the game. After break, we get a critical update from Emmett about the rollercoaster the yellow jersey has been on since we first aired that story.

Okay, so I'm here with producer Emmett Fitzgerald, who is going to give us an update on the state of the Brazilian soccer jersey and what's happened since 2017. Yeah, a lot has happened to the Brazil soccer jersey since we first aired that episode. It was really interesting to me listening back to the story that the designer of the jersey Schley was someone who was really wary of nationalism, especially given what has just happened in Brazil on January 8th. Yeah, and just to recap on January 8th, thousands of far-right nationalists descended on the capital city of Brasilia to protest the inauguration of Lula, Brazil's new president.

Kays and Brazil, as thousands storm the country's capital, protesting October's election results, supporters of far-right former president. The mob attacked Congress, the Supreme Court, and the palace of the president. And it all just felt really, really similar to what happened two years ago in the United States on January 6th. Like a full-on insurrection by right-wing extremists questioning the results of the legitimate presidential election. Yeah, totally it felt disturbingly familiar from an American perspective.

But if you look at videos or images from the Brazilian insurrection, you can't help but notice what the rioters are wearing. The rioters, many dressed in green and yellow, the colors of the Brazilian flag, smashed windows, ransacked offices, even set fire to a carpet inside. Yes, so many of them are wearing the yellow jersey of the National Soccer Team. It isn't just the colors of the flag, like it's the actual soccer team jersey.

And I mean, watching these videos, it feels like the jersey has fully become a symbol of the far right, which is a pretty different situation from what we described in the original piece. Yeah, so in the episode that we just played you heard from Brazilian soccer journalist Fernando Duarte, and Fernando describes the Brazilian soccer jersey as this great unifier.

For better or worse it was the symbol of this beautiful game that united what had long been a deeply unequal and divided country. So what happened to the shirt? Like how did it get from there to here? Well, I think we got to start with the 2018 presidential election. Right, what happened after the 2018 presidential election is that one side of the political spectrum claimed the shirt. This is Fernando Duarte again, and he says that after that election, the far right really latched on to the shirt as their own political symbol. He became a symbol of whoever supported

the far right president, Jair Bolsonaro. He's known as Brazil's Donald Trump, an anti-establishment politician who promises to drain the swamp and crack down on crime. This is CNN coverage from Election Night in 2018 when Jair Bolsonaro was elected. And if you look in videos of crowds on that election, coverage from election night in 2018 when Jair Bolsonaro was elected. And if you look in videos of crowds on that election,

that you'll see a lot of Brazilian flags. And you will see a lot of people wearing the colors of the Brazilian flag, yellow and green. Wearing national symbols, national colors, yellow and green, became something of a badge of identification of the president's supporters. And obviously, what is more yellow in green? What is more representatives of Brazil as a nation than the national team share? Now I want to be really clear that the roots of this connection between the Jersey and the far right go back before Bolsonaro.

In the 60s and 70s and 80s, the military dictatorship in Brazil used the success of the national team, wearing those yellow jerseys on the pitch, to cultivate a sense of nationalism and support for the regime. And even more recently, the far right adopted the yellow and green during the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff in 2016. But when Bolsonaro gets into power, this whole thing really escalates in part because he starts to wear the jersey himself. Intentionally, it wasn't an accident. The president intentionally simulated wearing the national team shirt as a sign of true patriotism, of true love to the nation, and obviously

love to the nation. And the small print was basically support for his agenda. And as you can imagine, this created a real dilemma for a lot of soccer fans in Brazil who were used to wearing that jersey. I always joke that I look great in the yellow as well. So it was always something that I enjoyed doing. This is Julia Belastrindaji. She's a sports journalist from Brazil who's currently getting a PhD in the UK.

She says that growing up, she always wore the yellow shirt, especially during World Cups. But she stopped during the Bolsonaro presidency because she didn't want to send the wrong signals. For me, it was kind of okay, I don't want to be seen as something that I'm not. I don't want to be seen as something that I'm not. I don't want to be seen as Bolsonaro. I mean, not to take the Trump analogy too much further, but it feels like a kind of like the red hat thing. Like there's a piece of clothing that for all intents and purposes,

it's pretty neutral, immediately became an identifier of your political beliefs. Yeah, I think it is a lot like that, except, you know, instead of a sort of random piece of clothing, like a red hat, it's like the most famous and beloved piece of clothing in the country. Totally. You know, I think for the past four years, for a lot of Brazilians, it's felt as though this famous yellow jersey has been symbolically hijacked by the far right. But there were two events this past year that really started to turn things around. And the first was that Bolsonaro lost the presidential election to Luis and Naseo Lula de Silva, better known as just Lula. He was the former president of Brazil and a champion

of the Brazilian left, the Brazilian labor movement. And when he wins, Lula immediately makes a point of trying to reclaim the Jersey. He posted a lot of pictures wearing the Jersey after the election. Like whenever Brazil would play, he would post pictures of him wearing the Jersey. Just after the election, Lula was quoted saying, we can't be ashamed of wearing our green and yellow shirt. It doesn't belong to one particular candidate. It doesn't belong to one particular candidate. It doesn't belong to one particular party. Green and yellow are the colors of 213 million citizens who love this country. So this reclamation is like overt. It isn't like subtle at all.

Like he's really speaking to the issue. Yeah, it was this really intentional effort to sort of neutralize the jersey to make it for everyone again. And it was all happening in advance of event number two, which is the World Cup. Right. So we just had the World Cup Congrats to our Argentinian colleague, Martin, who was very invested in the series. Yes. Congrats, Martin. And you know, Argentina's great rivals, Brazil, ended up bowing out pretty early with the disappointing loss to Croatia But in the early stages of the tournament they really were performing very well And you know going into the tournament a lot of people in the left had kind of abandoned the national team, in part because of the associations with the jersey, but also because

a lot of the players were big Bolsonaro supporters, particularly the star Namar. But during those early games, President Alex Lula was very publicly watching and sharing the team on. He was celebrating. He was posting videos watching the game, celebrating the goals. Always with the jersey even, the people who are watching with him wearing suits and, you know, politicians. He always feels like he has to show he is a man of the people and a man of the people in Brazil. What? What's going to support the national team. Right. You can't be a man of the people in Brazil

and not support the national team. So how well did this work, this sort of intentional reclamation? Did Brazilian soccer fans start embracing the jersey again without necessarily signaling their political leanings? Yeah, I think for a while there was a feeling like it was working. I think for a while there was a feeling like it was working. The timing of Louis election with Brazil's play at the World Cup at Gave, this feeling of a sort of symbolic reset during those early games when Brazil was destroying teams like South Korea and doing their somba dances

after every goal in the yellow jersey. I think a lot of people got excited and felt sort of like things were back to normal, including Fernando. The Korea game I was watching, I got so excited, I bought a new shirt. You did? Yeah. I don't know, I just got really excited.

I said, well, maybe something to buy a shirt again. Maybe when I go running, I'm going to wear it again. It was, as a football fan, I was really, really, really enchanted by the brand of football that they played. And it's the shirt of my country. I think I mean, title to wear it as a Brazilian. So this interview that I did with Fernando happened while the World Cup was still going on. And I think at that point, he and a lot of people were feeling cautiously optimistic, you know, about the team, about the country, about the Jersey. It felt like for the

first time in a while, he could maybe wear a yellow jersey out in the world when he goes for his run and not feel like that was going to identify him as a Bolsonaro supporter. And you know, that was kind of the note that we were originally going to end this update on. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, right around that time, we were wrapping up this January 8th, right? It's happened. Right.

And obviously, that's like a huge story that is way more important than the story of the Jersey. And there's so many different angles that we're not going to get into. But for the purposes of this episode, I wanted to call Fernando back just to sort of check in with him and see how he was feeling about the jersey and about everything that was going on. Well, what a difference a couple of weeks make, we thought that after the World Cup there will be some, be some reconciliation. No, I think the situation is actually worse now than he was before the World Cup. I think that the situation is actually worse now than he was before the welcome. Fernando says that he certainly is not going to be wearing that new yellow jersey that he

bought anytime soon. It's going back in the closet. I think a lot of people will refrain from being seen in any other shirt because of what happened. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I asked Fernando what he thought was gonna happen next with the jersey. And I mean, I honestly was pretty surprised by his answer.

I mean, he, first of all, he doesn't know. He has no idea what's gonna happen, but he says it's conceivable that the country could abandon the yellow jersey. Maybe this is the point where we depart from the yellow one. I think it's difficult to say now, oh, yes, definitely, something's gonna change. But clearly, something has to happen

in regards to this association with the far right. Whoa. I mean, is that something that you think could actually happen? Well, I mean, even before the World Cup, there was some talk of turning away from the yellow jersey from people on the left who felt that it was just too far gone as a symbol. That movement always felt like a long shop. And now, after January 8th, Fernando is not so sure. He's not totally ridiculous to think they might change the color of the shirt?

There are rumors in Brazil that the Brazilian football Confederation and Nike are to discuss what to do. Because clearly the product is tarnished, right? Imagine if you're Nike, you're paying gazillions of dollars for the right to produce something that now has got a bad reputation. Well, a bad reputation for some. It's really fascinating. I mean, if they were to move away from the yellow jersey, isn't that just kind of like letting one side win this debate, you know, like it just feels like a sad outcome. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I get that. I feel kind of similarly, I think. And I think, I think

Fernando feels that way too. Honestly, he seemed, he seemed pretty unsure of what he thinks should happen next. And I get it. I mean, I think if you're a Brazilian soccer fan who doesn't support Bolsonaro or, or, or, who certainly doesn't support the insurrection, I don't know if there's a great solution here. So if they were to change the jersey, what do you think they would change it to? Well, there are a few options. Brazil has an alternate blue kit

that they've been wearing for years. It looks pretty nice. And then they could always go back to white. You know what? White is the color of peace. And it's a New Year's tradition in Brazil to wear white underwear or white gloves if you want peace in the New Year.

So maybe this is a way to kind of like wish for something different. Wow, that would really bring it all full circle. Yeah, I don't know how likely that is given the history. I mean, I think, you know, if I had to say, I think the most likely outcome is probably that the yellow jersey continues and people just keep fighting about what it means. But there's really no doubt that real damage has been done to the Jersey as this symbol of Brazilian unity. You have to watch the space, but clearly something happened, you Well, thank you for that update Emmett, and it's been really fascinating to hear from

Fernando again and all the people that are affected by this, so I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you, Roman. 99% Invisible was produced this week by Joe Sykes and Emmett Fitzgerald, mixed by Shreve Usif and Martín González, music by Swan Real and Melodium. English Voice Over by Nea Araúgio. We like to thank Alex Bellos for his help. Alex was the first English journalist to write about this story and helped point us in the right direction.

Junior Mazza and Famiu Arnalde also fixed everything up for us in Brazil and translated our interview with Shlei. FAMIO are on Nalde, also fixed everything up for us in Brazil, and translated our interview wishlay. The rest of the 99 PI team includes senior editor Jalini Hall, digital director Kurt Colstad, Vivian Le, Christopher Johnson, Chris Barube, Lashmodon, Jason De Leon, Jacob Moltenado Medina, Kelly Prime, Joe Rosenberg, Sophia Klatsker, and me Roman Mars. The 99% visible logo was created by Stefan Lawrence. We are part of the Stitcher and Serious XM podcast family, now headquartered six blocks north in the Pandora building. And beautiful. Uptown, Oakland, California. You can find the show and join discussions about the show on Facebook. You can tweet at me at Roman Mars and the show at 99PI org. We're on Instagram and Reddit too. And now TikTok, our first TikTok video story produced by the insanely talented talent

Stradley premiered today. Please check it out. You can find links to other literature shows I love, as well as every past episode of 99PI at 99PI.org. work.