Saturday, June 10, 2006 | 7:20 a.m.
Eight years ago, Las Vegas resident Jan Landy watched Brazil's national soccer team for the first time on a 27-inch television set in the corner of a bar in Sao Paulo.
He and business associate Gabison "Gabi" Ferriera, who owns the largest sound company in the world, were in the neighborhood where Ferriera was raised. Landy can't recall if the volume of that TV was on or off.
"You could hear it from all the apartment buildings," he said. "It was as if it were being played on a PA system. It was hard to hear anyone talking, because the game was in the air. It surrounded you."
The two heard an uninterrupted flow of the game, from restaurants and stores and passing cars and those apartments, as they walked the streets.
Like it was coming from heaven, Landy said.
Brazil scored, and he heard one big explosion of yells, firecrackers and cherry bombs. Landy thought he was in a war zone.
"I have never been so scared," he said. "I thought people were shooting guns."
Landy can't quite grasp the country's affair with soccer.
"They are certainly emotional about the game," he said. "I can try to explain it, but I can't understand it."
Jobim, Ipanema, futebol. Something about the passion of Brazil has hooked the 55-year-old Landy, who has been splitting his time between Las Vegas and Rio de Janeiro for four years.
Vonage and the Internet enable him to run his company - he sells professional entertainment production equipment - from his apartment a block from Copacabana Beach. He recently bought a motor bike.
He now speaks conversational Portuguese.
So we turned to Landy for some insight into the soccer-crazed culture of a country that is favored to win its sixth World Cup title in the quadrennial tournament that started Friday in Germany.
No other country has won the Jules Rimet Trophy more than three times.
Landy has seen two games at the famous Maracana, the world's largest stadium that is surrounded by a moat. An estimated 200,000 saw the 1950 World Cup final, when Uruguay beat Brazil.
"The Grand Canyon," Landy thought of the monstrosity that is being refurbished for next year's Pan American Games.
The land of Ronaldinho and Robinho, where an infant's second step usually advances a soccer ball, isn't about to christen another Janinho.
When Landy's friends gather in a circle on the beach for a kick-around, each has at least one ball-handling trick, using a foot or their chest or even the nape of their neck.
They rarely pass the ball to Landy, who fetches it when it lands in the water.
They must have heard from Rod Stewart, the singer who once howled in laughter at Landy when Landy went to kick a ball in a Beverly Hills, Calif., park and missed, landing on his rear.
In his previous career, Landy manned elaborate sound systems on tour with Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, the Bee Gees and Eric Clapton.
But back to Brazil.
Landy was working out with a friend in a Rio sports club last fall when, again, he heard a collective roar. Everyone had moved into another room to watch the World Cup draw.
"They were picking the groups. They were showing the matches that each team would play, and everyone was taking notes," Landy said. "They didn't want to wait for the next day's paper.
"When they saw Croatia in their group, everyone laughed. They said, 'Oh, we're going to be in the final.' They really want to play England, and beat them, in the final.
"If I were a thief and I wanted to rob a bank," Landy said, "I would do it on a day that Brazil plays a game in the World Cup."
Rio calling
Just then, the phone rang in the kitchen of Landy's home in Henderson. Dr. Luis Octavio Val Olivera, 52, was calling from Rio de Janeiro to check on his friend.
All over the country, cars, apartments and offices were draped with stickers, banners and flags that proclaim, "On Our Way to the Sixth" in Portuguese.
Olivera cautiously pegged Argentina, the Czech Republic, Holland, Italy, France, Germany and England as potential tough foes.
"We have a saying," Olivera said. ''If we don't walk on high heels, we'll win."
Olivera played in the Flamengo system for 12 years. Twice, he played in the Maracana for that club's junior side before its top squad played matches.
He recited how Brazil won the World Cup in 1958, '62, '70, '98 and 2002. No, he was told, not '98. France won on its own turf. Brazil won in the U.S. in 1994.
Olivera laughed.
"I was testing you," he said.
In Brazil, soccer is like samba.
"It's like that," Olivera said. "It's in the blood. I would say it's genetics."
The British brought the game to Brazil in 1894, and the elite classes took to it. Soon enough, a flamboyant and graceful style emerged out of the poorest sections, the favelas, of Rio and Sao Paulo.
Brazilians say the game is as much about art as it is about sport. On Copacabana, at all hours of the day and night, children and men and women of all ages play some form of soccer.
"Brazilians ... (have) set an unattainable benchmark for the rest of the world," wrote Alex Bellos, in "Futebol: Soccer, the Brazilian Way."
Lula Da Silva, Brazil's president who is affectionately known as "Lula," is currently running for re-election. Religion and soccer are the two main platforms used by politicos in the country, where voting is compulsory.
Olivera said Lula is ahead in many polls, but Brazil not winning the World Cup in Germany could affect the vote.
"People would be very unhappy," Olivera said. "It would have an effect on the polls. I wouldn't like to be the president."
Locals might not know the names of all the states in Brazil, he said, but they know the names of all the country's soccer teams.
They might not be able to name the president, Lula, but they can recite the names of the national team players.
The favelas have inherited the World Cup.
"For many of the people, that's all they have," Landy said. "It's the only thing they have. To them, futebol is a religion, not a game. And I will always be a foreigner.
"I don't know if I can ever feel for soccer what a Brazilian feels for the game."
English striker Peter Crouch has become something of a celebrity for his recent robotlike dance celebrations after scoring goals. But he missed a penalty kick in Saturday's friendly 6-0 thrashing of Jamaica in Manchester.
"This was going so well," the British announcer said sullenly. "At least we're spared the celebration. (The errant PK) is a little mystifying, I must say. (But) it doesn't matter today."
Match of the week
USA vs. the Czech Republic, Tuesday
The Americans open the World Cup in Gelsenkirchen against a typically strong European squad that likes to move forward.
ESPN2 will show the game at 9 a.m. Keep one eye on U.S. striker Brian McBride in the air and the other on forward Eddie Johnson on the ground.
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