‘I AM NOT A FOREIGNER ANYMORE’: A MICRO-SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE EXPERIENCES OF BRAZILIAN FUTSAL PLAYERS IN EUROPEAN LEAGUES

Abstract

This paper represents the first stage of a longer term study of sport and migration. It focuses on Brazilian futsal players who have left their country of origin to play in Europe. Futsal is an indoor game with 5 players in each team. In some European countries, such as Spain and Portugal, it is a popular form of entertainment that is sufficiently commercialised to sustain full time professional players. Brazilian players are assigned stereotypical virtues of skilful styles of play. We interviewed XX players when they returned to Brazil for vacations. The focus of the questions were on three key themes: adaptation to the new country in social and sporting terms, questions of national identity, and some general questions about their attitudes and plans. The answers provided suggested migration has broadly turned out to be a positive experience, but the respondents make similar comments about their sense of ‘otherness’, their relationship with ‘home’ and their understanding of exile. From this point, we suggest that responses can only really be understood through a discourse theory framework of interpretation – they reveal the limitations of exile discourse rather than any inherent truth of their experience.