|  When Brazil's Finance Minister Antonio Palocci hobbled into Congress on crutches last April, he bore an injury that resulted from a brutal confrontation with a senior union leader. Tension between government and unions is common in most countries, and scores are sometimes settled with violence. In Brazil's case, however, the minister's broken ankle was sustained during a game of football at the presidential palace.
It is now a year since was elected Brazilian president. The former shoe-shine-boy, economic migrant, lathe worker and militant has brought a change of style to political life in Bras?lia and no example is more resonant that the regular matches he plays with friends, family and colleagues. In August, when President Lula wanted his ministers to comemorate a victory in the battle for pension reform, he invited them for a kick-about. Lula's team beat the team captained by the fisheries minister 5-3. To relax by playing football with friends, as Lula does, shows that he shares the simple joys of the common man - as perhaps the country's First working class president should. It also athenticates his Brazilianness. When Lula kicks a ball, he is expressing his cultural identity. In the most successful nation at the world's most popular sport, you would have expected its leaders always to have been conspicuous for their love of the beautiful game. Yet Lula is a rare exception he is the first football-loving president in 30 years, and, as a grassroots supporter of Corinthians, S?o Paulo's most popular club, can claim to be the first genuine football fan ever to lead the country. | |
 
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