After Brazil was knocked out of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, many fans were quick to blame the team\u2019s poor performance on the evangelical beliefs of some players. On social media, some complained that Brazil\u2019s team was much better when its players were \u201cbehaving like Catholics\u201d and that \u201cevangelical Protestant sterilization has flattened their ball, ruined their samba and obliterated their swag.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While such commentary can be described as semi-serious soccer banter, it speaks to the broader religious shifts taking place in Latin America. Protestants (often referred as evang\u00e9licos<\/em>) in Latin America now comprise about 11 per cent of the population \u2014 a notable change in a region where a larger share of Christians traditionally self-identified as Roman Catholic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most significant expression of Protestantism is people affiliated with Pentecostal or Charismatic churches. These affiliations represent about 30 per cent of the Latin America\u2019s population, with some 195 million adherents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPentecostal\u201d often refers to Christian movements that emphasize \u201cspeaking in tongues\u201d as the initial sign of the \u201cbaptism in the Holy Spirit,\u201d and direct, personal experiences with God. \u201cCharismatic\u201d (or \u201cneo-pentecostal\u201d) refers to expressions of this mode of faith within both newer religious movements and traditional mainline churches, including in Catholicism, Anglicanism and Orthodox Christianity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity has a significant presence in the Global South. It\u2019s experienced explosive growth with 676 million adherents in 2026 (one in four Christians globally) and is expected to reach 1.1. billion in 2075 (one in three Christians globally).<\/p>\n\n\n\n My teaching and scholarship focus on the study of global Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity and how it intersects with society, culture and politics. My 2026 book, Chr\u00e9tiens en qu\u00eate de puissance. Pr\u00e9sence globale et politque des pentec\u00f4tismes<\/em>, (Christians in Quest for Power. Global Presence and Politics of Pentecostalisms<\/em>) provides readers with a history of Pentecostals, their global impact in terms of statistics, their experience of \u201cspiritual gifts\u201d and their political involvement in the United States and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Latin America, the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement originated from a 1909 revival spearheaded by Willis Hoover, an American Methodist missionary who pastored in Valparaiso and founded the Methodist Pentecostal Church in Chile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People are often drawn to Pentecostal and Charismatic churches because they encourage a deeply personal, physical experience of God. This approach appeals to those who feel traditional churches are too rigid, formal or focused purely on abstract ideas rather than active faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In all branches of Pentecostalism, the presence of the Holy Spirit is perceived as a concrete manifestation of divine reality within the body itself. Pentecostals\/Charismatics emphasize the diversity of bodily experiences of faith and value the charismata<\/em>, the \u201cgifts\u201d of the Spirit, such as healing, speaking in tongues (glossolalia) and prophecy, to name a few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As my research has documented, for Charismatics\/Neo-pentecostals, \u201cspeaking in tongues\u201d is one gift among the many others, and isn\u2019t necessarily understood as the initial sign of the \u201cbaptism in the Holy Spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Believers view these spiritual gifts as supernatural abilities given by God that are beyond human logic, given to help them serve and support others in their church community and witness to their faith through \u201csigns and wonders.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are currently 105 million Pentecostals\/Charismatics in Brazil. The Assemblies of God and the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, the largest Protestant and independent denominations in Latin America, are based in Brazil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Born out of the 1906 Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, Brazil\u2019s Pentecostal movement began with two early missions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, Italian missionary Luigi Francescon founded the Congrega\u00e7\u00e3o Crist\u00e3 do Brasil in S\u00e3o Paulo in 1910 to serve Italian immigrants. Francescon had emigrated from Italy to the U.S. in 1890, accepted the Pentecostal message in 1907, became a leader in the Assemblea Cristiana<\/em>, the first Italian-American Pentecostal church in Chicago, and later left for Argentina and then to Brazil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, in 1911, Swedish missionaries Daniel Berg and Adolf Gunnar Vingren established the Apostolic Faith Mission in Bel\u00e9m, a congregation that eventually became the Assemblies of God and spread nationwide. Both had been dedicated as Pentecostal missionaries by the prominent pastor of Chicago\u2019s North Avenue Mission, William H. Durham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Founded by Edir Macedo in 1977, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God has become one of the most significant Neo-Pentecostal denominations in Brazil. Macedo\u2019s church has learned to navigate within the framework of a service economy, functioning like a global business empire across more than 100 countries and supported by massive media holdings and a national TV network. Its Temple of Solomon Church in S\u00e3o Paulo is of Biblical inspiration and proportions; it\u2019s 55 metres high and seats 10,000 worshippers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Brazil, professional soccer and Pentecostal churches work in similar ways. Both compete for the same crowd by using standard business strategies, such as mass media, branded merchandise, massive venues and charismatic influencers to capture the attention of their consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Professional soccer players act as the perfect bridge between the two. When athletes openly talk about their deep Pentecostal faith, they become living proof of the \u201cprosperity gospel.\u201d They show regular people that faith and hard work brings divine favour and blessings in riches and athletic stardom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In terms of embodied experience, a Sunday church service and a stadium soccer match function as experiential cultural products. Both offer consumers bodily expression, intense emotional catharsis and a profound sense of communal belonging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pentecostalism in Brazil often appeals to the poor and marginalized. Similar to Afro-Brazilian traditions, Pentecostalism is a religion of the spirit and places strong emphasis on bodily experiences. Because it competes so aggressively like a business in a service economy, marketing what it claims is a better spiritual product causes deep friction with these traditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The aggressive evangelistic nature of many Brazilian Pentecostals frequently manifests in open hostility toward Afro-Brazilian religious communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether religious beliefs caused Brazil\u2019s poor performance is up to fans to decide for themselves. The team has been lacklustre for some time, and maybe Brazil\u2019s collapse at this year\u2019s World Cup was to be expected. It should also be said that Brazil won the 2002 World Cup in South Korea with evang\u00e9licos<\/em> like Kak\u00e1, L\u00facio and Edm\u00edlson on the team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It might be that Pentecostalism has simply outperformed Brazilian soccer. And perhaps Pentecostal and Charismatic churches are offering some players and fans better personal support and more powerful experiences than soccer culture does today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Andr\u00e9 Gagn\u00e9<\/a>, Full Professor, Department of Theological Studies, Concordia University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After Brazil was knocked out of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, many fans were quick to blame the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[430],"tags":[63],"class_list":["post-15124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-football"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\tLatin American evangelicalism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Soccer and church<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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