Gisele Bündchen knows her Brazilian slang. Vanity Fair’s Style issue cover star gave VF a crash course in all things Portuguese for “Celebrity Slang School,” defining terms from “bah” (“Something you put before a sentence if you want to make something, like, extra”) to “tri legal” (“when something is extra awesome”).
Some of the words hit particularly close to home—like “pia,” which is a term for “boy,” but only in the south of Brazil. “I don’t think anywhere else in Brazil they would know what you’re talking about,” she says with a laugh. Some are slightly profane: “Putz,” Bündchen explains, “is like, putz, this broke or putz. Maybe kind of like s-h-i-” she cautiously spells, before getting censored. “I don’t know if I can say that word, but you know what I mean. Putz is like…it’s putz. It kind of is what it sounds like.”
If you’re flirting in Brazil, meanwhile, Bündchen knows what to say: gato or gata. “Gato means cat, and gata means a female cat, but we say gato and gata when someone is cute,” she says. “You show up you have a nice dress, you’re looking cute, you know? Gata. You would say it if you were flirting with someone.”
“Now I hope you speak Portuguese fluent after this. Just kidding,” Bündchen says at the end of the video. “I hope you learned something. Take care, have a beautiful day. Ciao.”
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro told the country’s Supreme Court in a private meeting on Wednesday the election is “over,” multipleoutlets reported—the closest the right-wing president has come to admitting defeat, amid speculation that Bolsonaro, who repeatedly cast doubt on election integrity, could fight its results.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro reportedly told the country’s Supreme Court the election is over, … [+] although he has not publicly conceded.
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Key Facts
Luiz Edson Fachin, a justice on Brazil’s Supreme Court, said in a video broadcast with local outlets that Bolsonaro privately told him the election is over, “so let’s look ahead.”
Bolsonaro’s comments come two days after the one-term president was narrowly defeated by left-wing challenger Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva 50.9% to 49.1% in a high-profile presidential election, following months of baseless claims from Bolsonaro and his right-wing Liberal Party that the election would likely be mired in fraud and that election officials could easily tamper with voting machines.
Some of Bolsonaro’s supporters have taken to nationwide protests following the results of the elections on Sunday, with a group of truckers blocking Brazil’s highways at 271 points and some of his most vocal supporters calling on the military to keep him in office.
Most of his political allies, however, have pushed him to recognize his defeat, while his administration reportedly signaled it will proceed with the transition of power to Lula, with Vice President Hamilton Mourão admitting in an interview with Brazilian outlet O Globo, “we lost the game.”
In a speech on Tuesday, Bolsonaro said he has “always played within the four lines of the constitution”—although he stopped short of publicly conceding, and called the highway protests a response to “indignation and a sense of injustice.”
Key Background
Bolsonaro, nicknamed the “Trump of the Tropics,” has spewed baseless conspiracies that the elections would be tampered with for months leading up to Sunday’s election. In September, members of his party shared a document supporting the unsubstantiated claim that government employees have the “absolute power” to change the results of an election “without leaving a trace.” The country’s electoral authority denied the allegations as “false and untrue,” with no “support in reality.” Bolsonaro’s son echoed those fears last week, saying his father was the victim of the “greatest election fraud ever seen.”
Tangent
Bolsonaro, a key ally of former President Donald Trump, pulled a play out of Trump’s playbook to spread doubt around election fraud before voting took place. Bolsonaro, however, has not claimed the election was stolen from him, as Trump did after the 2020 election—a claim that led to the January 6 insurrection at Capitol Hill, with rioters aiming to disrupt the congressional approval process of the election results. Before the election on Sunday, Trump said “don’t let the Radical Left Lunatics and Maniacs destroy Brazil like they have so many other countries.”
News Peg
Lula, in a victory speech on Sunday, called the result a “victory of a democratic movement,” while world leaders congratulated him, with President Joe Biden calling the elections “free, fair and credible.” Lula, 77, previously served as Brazil’s president from 2003-2010, but had his 2018 hopes of running again stymied after he was jailed on corruption charges—which were overturned by the Supreme Court last year, after he served 19 months in jail. He has run on a platform of reducing deforestation in the Amazon that was accelerated by Bolsonaro, and of lifting the country’s economic spending cap, in a move aimed at promoting economic growth.
LONDON, ENGLAND – OCTOBER 09: Gabriel Martinelli of Arsenal celebrates scoring their first goal … [+] during the Premier League match between Arsenal FC and Liverpool FC at Emirates Stadium on October 9, 2022 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Charlotte Wilson/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
Offside via Getty Images
What a difference a year makes. Ahead of the 2021 season, some Arsenal fans were calling for technical director Edu to be fired.
Dismayed about the performances of signings, such as Willian and David Luiz, supporters argued the Brazilian was out of his depth and needed replacing.
“Arsenal should sack Edu as the inexperienced technical director can’t be trusted for summer rebuild,” said fan blog PainintheArsenal, “more fingers need to be pointed at Edu.”
It was a sentiment echoed by former Arsenal midfield Paul Merson, “It’s worrying at Arsenal. You’re still thinking, where are they going? Edu has come in, and the recruitment has been lazy if I’m being honest.”
A member of Arsenal’s legendary ‘Invincibles’ side Edu was a lightning rod for criticism, a symbol of the unpopular Kroenke ownership regime’s missteps.
Manager Mikel Arteta’s stock was not too much higher either. The inconsistencies shown by the side had prompted criticism, but the overarching feeling was he was dealt a bad hand because of poor strategy higher up.
But fast forward a year, with the club sat on top of the Premier PINC League, suddenly the Brazilian is being praised.
A transfer window, where the club landed the likes of Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko, has been hailed a masterstroke, the perfect compliment to Edu’s continued faith in youth players.
Now it is his “genius transfer calls” Arsenal fan writers like Bailey Keogh of Football.London is highlighting.
“The current summer transfer window has epitomized the successful job Edu has carried out to ensure Arsenal remains at the top in the years that are to follow,” Keogh wrote.
“While rival clubs continue to franticly panic buy to improve their team before the end of the window, Edu has already undertaken the necessary ground to ensure this is not the case for the north London side.”
It would be ridiculous to suggest that in the space of 12 months Edu had somehow acquired the “experience” to become a technical director whose recruitment isn’t “lazy.”
What the reversal of the narrative shows is the importance of maintaining perspective in good times and bad.
The ‘process’
LONDON, ENGLAND – OCTOBER 09: Mikel Arteta the Arsenal Manager before during the Premier League … [+] match between Arsenal FC and Liverpool FC at Emirates Stadium on October 09, 2022 in London, England. (Photo by David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
Arsenal FC via Getty Images
If reports at the time of Edu’s criticism were to be believed it wasn’t just the fans who were considering his future.
Some media outlets suggested the club was exploring the possibility of replacing him with Marc Overmars, Ralf Rangnick or Michael Emenalo.
Despite not generating the same ire amongst fans, reports linking Arteta with the sack have been even more frequent and the Arsenal boss has revealed he developed methods for dealing with this possibility
“It will happen. Today, tomorrow, in a month, in ten years. I don’t know when it will happen,’ he told Michael Calvin’s Football People podcast, “that cannot drive my emotion and this cannot be the reason why I do certain things or not.”
Such level-headedness is a virtue in sports, the noise, particularly around modern soccer, is so intense it pushes everything to extremes.
The exhaustive online analysis of defeats, drops in form and disappointing signings is such that it often feels, at any one time, that multiple clubs at the elite level require wholesale root-and-branch reform.
But constant overhauls are not the basis for success, as Arteta is acutely aware.
“We have to respect the process,” the Spaniard said back in 2020 when asked about the scale of the task at Arsenal, “but we will get it right I am convinced of that.”
Since then there have been many moments when Arteta must have had to hark back to that sentiment.
From the disastrous start to the 2021/22 season to the collapse at the end of it, which cost the club Champions League soccer, belief in the long-term vision has been essential.
The phrase ‘trust the process’ was popularised by former Philidephia 76s general manager Sam Hinkie who wanted to communicate to the basketball team’s fanbase that if they had patience in its long-term rebuilding plan they would be rewarded.
Supporters bought into the philosophy even chanting the slogan at games and the team was able to rebuild.
Ultimately, however, it was only a qualified success the club never delivered a title to truly vindicate the struggle.
At Arsenal, we are beginning to see evidence that faith in its process might yield some dividends on the pitch.
But, until it has been delivered, the possibility remains that managers and fans alike will have to fall back on that long-term vision again.
In the same way, the dramatic criticisms about Edu look ridiculous a year on, the proclamations of genius are early too.
To be successful both Arteta and those above him will need to block out all the noise good and bad. If they can patience might well be rewarded.
