“I was afraid of playing football because I had often seen a black player get struck on the pitch for committing a foul,” said Domingos da Guia, a defender who played for Brazil in the 1938 World Cup. “But I was a very good dancer and that helped me on the pitch. I invented the short dribble by imitating the miudinho, a form of samba.”
Roy Keane did not like it but when Brazil’s players – and the coach, Tite – celebrated scoring against South Korea in their last-16 victory on Monday by performing Richarlison’s trademark pigeon dance, they were following a historic tradition that represents the very soul of the Seleção. Samba, which has its roots in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo via the African slave trade, and…