Eduardo Galeano and Mario Benedetti: futbol in black and white.

• Author: Freuler, Sebastian Sanchez
• Position: Interview

They are two literary giants of Latin America, both Uruguayan and both passionate about futbol. Eduardo Galeano and Mario Benedetti were born in the cradle of South American football, a place where "everyone is bona yelling igol!," as Galeano put it at the beginning of an interview about soccer's influence on the everyday social and cultural life of Latin America. In a separate conversation, meanwhile, Benedetti took us back to his childhood and talked about the futbol of today.

The idea of talking with Galeano and Benedetti about the world's most popular sport began with four young Chileans who set out to make a documentary called Ojos rojos (Red Eyes). The idea was to explore the ties that bind sports and national idiosyncrasies, the game and the market, victory and defeat. Along with Juan Pablo Salatto, Juan Ignacio Sabatini, and Ismael Larrain, I set out to follow the Chilean team in the elimination rounds for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Chile did not make the cut mid did not go to the World Cup--and the disillusionment was total. The country was flooded with tears, then criticism, followed once again by soul-searching about defeat and the difficulty of achieving victory.

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They say the easiest and most effective way to understand yourself is to see yourself from the outside, through someone else's eyes. So to get some perspective, to better understand the passion that had so gripped our country, we went next door, to Montevideo.

Galeano: Sunshine and Shadow

In the Uruguayan capital, Galeano met us at a hotel in front of Plaza Cagancha. We watched him stroll across the park in no hurry, as if matching the pace of this laid-back city. Speaking slowly, pausing often, the author of El futbol a sol y sombra (Soccer in Sun and Shadow) talked about the relationship between the game and Uruguayans, as well fans everywhere.

Obsession with soccer is a Uruguayan's first emotion according to the author....

In Uruguay, everyone is born yelling igol!---everyone without exception. That's why when you walk by a maternity ward the noise is overwhelming. Babies come into the world yelling igol!--there between the mother's legs, the first thing they do is shout igol! I was also born yelling igol!, just like all Uruguayan children. And later I wanted to be a soccer player like all Uruguayans do, but I had a heavy foot with no chance of redemption; I was an embarrassment on the field. So now I limit myself to enjoying futbol, watching it but no longer insisting on playing it.

Galeano talked about the sport in terms of light and darkness--on and off the field.

I wrote a book, El futbol a sol y sombra, in which I tried to do with my hands what I could not do with my feet. Soccer has areas of sun and areas of shadow. It's a festival for the eyes that watch it and the legs that play it, but it's also a dirty business. Yes of course, futbol is not only the professional futbol we see in national and international championships. You can often capture the lost joy of the sport--how the ball dances--on city lots, in pastures, with improvised play on soccer fields. I do that a lot--I walk around and stop to watch the kids who play just because, for the pure joy of playing and not because they have a duty to win.

Before the professionalization that turned futbol into an industry, a key part of...