巴西建成首個“足球博物館”

In Brazil, soccer is considered an art form. So it is only fitting that the sport Brazilians call "the beautiful game" gets its own museum.

This is the land that produced football greats such as Garrincha, Zico, Romario, Ronaldo, Kaka, and the most famous of all, Pele. It is the only country to have qualified for every World Cup, and the only one to win it five times.

But until now, Brazil has never had a truly national museum honoring the sport that has become synonymous with Brazilian culture. That changed last month when the Museu do Futebol, or Football Museum, opened at Pacaembu Stadium in Sao Paulo.

Upon entering the museum, visitors are greeted in Portuguese, Spanish and English by a life-size image of Pele, who is so revered in Brazil that he is known simply as "O Rei," or "The King."

"The Louvre has the Mona Lisa. We have our own piece of art -- Pele," said Hugo Sukman of the Roberto Marinho Foundation, which helped fund the construction of the museum.

In many ways, the museum is a shrine to Pele.

One of its most impressive displays is a temporary exhibit with 140 items from Pele's personal collection, including the wooden shoeshine box he used as a boy to earn spare change and the ball from his 1,000th goal in 1969.

The museum traces football's transformation from an elite sport to the passion of the masses in this vast, multiracial country of 190 million people. From the jungles of the Amazon to the slums of cities like Rio de Janeiro and Recife, soccer is a constant that unites Brazilians from all walks of life.

"Inevitably, a museum about football is also a museum about the history of Brazil and Brazilian culture," said Leonel Kaz, the museum's curator.

在巴西，足球一直被視爲一門藝術。既然是門藝術，這項巴西人眼中的“美麗的運動”就應該有它自己的博物館。

在巴西這片土地上，曾誕生了加林查、濟科、羅馬裏奧、羅納爾多和卡卡等衆多足球巨星，還有“天王級”球星貝利。巴西是全世界唯一一個打進歷屆“世界盃”決賽的國家，也是唯一五次奪冠的國家。

但即便如此，巴西一直都沒有爲這項代表國家文化的“國寶級”運動建一個真正意義上的國家博物館。不過這一狀況在上個月終於得到了改變——巴西的“足球博物館”在聖保羅的Pacaembu體育場落成開館。

走進博物館，一個“真人貝利”大小的模型用葡萄牙語、西班牙語和英語三種語言向你問好。貝利深受巴西人民尊敬，被稱爲“球王”。

“羅伯特·瑪林赫基金會”爲博物館建設籌集資金。該基金會的雨果·薩克曼說：“羅浮宮有蒙娜麗莎，我們也有自己的藝術珍品——貝利。”

這個博物館在很大程度上就是一個貝利紀念館。

其中一組重頭展品是貝利曾用過的140件私人物品，包括他兒時打零工用的一個木製鞋油盒以及1969年他打入的個人職業生涯中的第1000粒進球。

博物館的展品追溯了巴西足球從貴族運動發展爲深受1.9億國民喜愛的大衆體育項目的過程。從亞馬遜的叢林到里約日內盧和累西腓的貧民窟，足球將這個廣闊多民族國家各階層的人凝聚在了一起。

博物館館長雷奧內爾•卡茲說：“一個關於足球的博物館必然也是關於巴西曆史和文化的博物館。”