The Brazilian Periphery's Star-Player Factory

Streets painted green and yellow, shops decorated with little flags, balconies flying the Brazilian flag: these are the most visible markers of a Brazilian neighborhood during World Cup season. But what actually captures the importance of soccer in the “country of soccer” happens during the years between one World Cup and the next. In every periphery, in every corner of the country, there’s a court where a ball is played every single day.

There is an undeniable pattern not only on the Brazilian national team but also across the country’s soccer clubs: most of their players carry stories of overcoming adversity, coming from backgrounds of extreme socioeconomic vulnerability. Player Casemiro was abandoned by his father at age three and shuffled between his aunt’s and grandmother’s homes. Vinícius Júnior, meanwhile, is from São Gonçalo. Born into a poor family, he had to move in with his uncle early in his career to save on transportation to his youth soccer school.

These are just two of the countless inspiring stories among athletes in the country’s most popular sport — and the phenomenon has very concrete roots. The first is soccer’s extremely low cost: unlike sports such as swimming, tennis, or martial arts, the only equipment needed to play is a ball. Whether on the street, on a neighborhood court, or on a pitch built for weekend leisure, the game happens every day, on millions of street corners across Brazil.

Beyond being a highly accessible sport, soccer has also become the natural hobby of low-income children, who often have limited access to tech products like phones, video games, and tablets. In favelas and low-income communities, where the closeness among neighbors makes it easy to form friendships, children choose soccer as their entertainment after school and on weekends. Like any activity, practicing soccer leads to excellence.

Although great talents emerge from favelas and low-income communities, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to build a successful career in soccer — or in any sport. According to the study “Jogadores de Futebol no Brasil” (“Soccer Players in Brazil”), conducted by physical education researchers, it’s estimated that training an athlete requires roughly 5,000 to 6,000 hours of hard work. The odds of becoming a professional soccer player hover around 1.5%. Even so, this reflects the costs and rewards that characterize a market economy.

Soccer is one of the few Brazilian markets with an almost-zero barrier to entry: merit is measured objectively by technique and individual skill, and paid directly by the market, through salary and transfer fees — which reveal the athlete’s “market price.” When Palmeiras spotted Endrick, it offered a complete package: housing in São Paulo for the whole family, schooling for the boy, and a job for his father at the club. A classic voluntary exchange that defines how a free market operates and how it transforms the life of someone poor.

Compare this to the rest of the economy: starting a business requires capital and red tape, a good job requires a degree and connections, and so on. Brazil’s institutional costs — the so-called “Custo Brasil” — filter out the poor before they even get to compete. In soccer, it’s different. A 12-year-old boy at a tryout in Rocinha competes under the same conditions as the son of a middle- or upper-class family, because the club only cares whether he can play. The lesson isn’t just that sport lifts people out of poverty — it’s that it shows what happens when the barrier to entry is removed.

That’s why soccer matters so much to Brazil: it’s not just Sunday entertainment, it’s living proof that merit and free markets, when given room to operate, truly transform lives — without relying on subsidies, quotas, or political promises. Every goal scored by Vinícius Júnior, every contract signed by a boy from the periphery, is a reminder that Brazil already knows how to make free markets work well — but only on the field. That leaves the question of why that same logic still hasn’t made it to the streets beyond it.

Originally published in Portuguese by Crusoé.