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Alisson had grown up watching Taffarel play. If he hadn't had goalkeeping in his DNA, he would've surely become a keeper just from watching Taffarel alone.
He watched on as the Dutch forward stepped up to the spot. He didn't know many of the Dutch players by name, but he liked their orange kits. Perhaps he would meet one of the orange kit wearers someday...
The scene would appear odd to outsiders, but to Brazilians it was completely normal. Him, Muriel, his parents and his uncle. All five eyes fixated on the screen in front of them.
Alisson watched as De Baer made contact with the ball. It flies towards the net, spinning like a ceaseless rocket towards the right. It's a beautiful ball.
Taffarel waits. Takes a breath. His brown eyes are the picture of calm, yet there's a nerve to them, too. Stretches towards the left and smashes the ball out of the range of the net. Only one word: magic.
Among the commotion--which included Jose Becker smashing his face into the cake in pure elation--nobody heard a five year old's tiny, breathless whisper.
"Eu quero fazer isso."
*
Calculate the angle of the shot. Get into stance. Don't jump around too much, or you get the angle wrong. Jump as soon as the striker takes the penalty. Watch his eyes, his hips, his arms, his everything. Watch the ball. Ignore the fans, embrace them.
Don't get nervous.
What a shame that Alisson happened to be a nervous wreck by birth. Unlike Taffarel's steely, resilient glare during that penalty shootout so long ago, penalty shootouts hyped up Alisson's anxiety to infinity. The pressure, the nerves, the chances, the expectations. It didn't help that he knew a lot about penalty shootouts—like the fact that the keeper had about a 30% chance of saving the average penalty.
"Ali! Vamos, garoto! Ninguém salva os pênaltis olhando para o horizonte, né?"
Alisson glanced behind him, blushing when he realized he'd already let four balls inside the net. When he'd been called up to the Brazil national team for the first time, he'd been thrilled upon learning that Taffarel was the goalkeeping coach. Now, as he collected the missed balls from the net, he wasn't too sure that a World Cup winner wanted to see this. "Desculpe por isso. Os pênaltis me deixam nervoso."
Taffarel tossed the sack of balls to the side, approaching Alisson until the two were face to face. "You're not the only one. I struggled with nerves all the time, even when I could've relaxed. It was always like something was coming for me. I felt like I had to be different than I truly was. More tough, stoic, macho."
Alisson couldn't believe it. Not when he'd seen proof of the opposite. "What about the World Cup semifinal? You were so calm then."
"You mean that penalty shootout?" Taffarel clutched the goalnet, doubling over in laughter. " Meu Deus , I thought I was going to die in that net, I was so nervous! I already had my retirement letter written for when I missed it. You thought I was calm?"
"Well..." Alisson was sure that if he blushed any more, he'd be the color of the Internacional kit. "You seemed so settled."
"That was just a minimal facade to my internal storm. How old were you when the shootout happened, anyways? Because you talk about me as if I'm a saint."
"I was five." Alisson smiled at the memory of his dad smashing his face into the cake like it had happened one year ago instead of nineteen years ago.
Taffarel pulled himself upright with a sigh. "That actually explains a lot. Now come on, Ali. It's four o'clock and I never missed my coffee break. Perhaps you should come, and we can talk about strategy."
"You mean that?"
Taffarel took Alisson's hand leading him towards the exit of the training ground. “I think we have a lot more in common than we thought.”
*
That one coffee break became another the next day, and another. Then dinner, then breakfast. Soon enough, it became rare to find Alisson and Taffarel apart from each other for a whole day during Brazil call ups. Later on, that extended towards club level as well.
In summer 2021, Taffarel joined Liverpool as a new goalkeeping coach. This reunited him with Alisson, who’d already been playing at the English club for three years.
“I really like it here,” Taffarel said after a tour around Kirkby. “No wonder you said this was the place to go, meu rapaz. Now I can work with o melhor goleiro da Seleção."
It had been more than five years since Taffarel had first called Alisson that. A lot had changed by then, including the two winning the Copa America together in 2019. Another glowing star in the Brazilian sky.
Alisson shrugged, leaning against the keepers’ wall. His fedora cast a slight shadow over his eyes, a sharp contrast with the bright midday sun. “I don’t think that still stands today. There’s Eder, and a whole bunch of others who are better than me in things. Like penalties.”
Ah, filhinho. You are lovely, but too nice for your own good. Taffarel looped his arm around Alisson “I've seen many goalkeepers play for the national team in my time, and each one has his own talents. Nobody’s a better goalkeeper than the other, in absolute terms. It all depends on what we need for each game.”
Alisson edged closer to Taffarel, coincidentally ending up leaning on his own painting in the mural. “What we need is somebody to save penalties and do one-on-ones.”
“And other times we need flying saves and single-inch rescue missions. That’s your strong suit.” Taffarel crossed his arms, staring into space for an idea. “It’s like this: would it be appropriate to smash your face into a cake during a corporate meeting? It wouldn’t. But it’s perfectly fine during the 1998 World Cup semifinals in front of your five year old.”
He knew it was rather sensitive territory to cross. But the anecdote was simply too funny to not bring up.
In direct contrast to the broad grin he’d displayed when reminded of the memory five years ago, Alisson’s reaction was a soft, barely noticeable smile. “I’d pay to see that in live action again. At least your father was still alive when you were playing.”
“ Rapaz, you are the lucky one!” Taffarel exclaimed. He gestured towards the sky, blue and gentle in spite of the hot sun. Then he whispered something else, his voice slightly hoarse. “It’s much nicer to have your dad support you the whole way, then for your dad to not really believe in you.”
The younger keeper gazed up at the sky, just as Taffarel had seen him do before. It was a wonder that his eyes were still green, rather than sky blue from all that daydreaming. “Vic told me something similar: ‘better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all’. I just can’t see the relevance in that—no matter how much love happens, the memories could never compensate for his presence now.”
“And I don’t blame you. Dad’s passing hurt even though we didn’t always get along.” Taffarel clasped Alisson’s hand in his, drawing his charge’s attention back out of the clouds. “But you still have all those memories to help.”
Alisson took Taffarel’s other hand, squeezing it tightly. “Yeah, I guess.”
*
A Seleção está tão bagunçada.
It sounded unpatriotic, but Taffarel couldn’t help it. After Brazil's World Cup loss versus Croatia, the CBF had decided to shake things up a little. By that, they meant firing all their staff and not calling up crucial players.
Alisson, much to everyone’s surprise, hadn’t been too disappointed with his snubbing from the Selecao. He’d been rather thankful for the small vacation, which allowed him to spend extra downtime without taking days off. That included quality time with Bobby Firmino, who planned to leave at the end of the season.
But this had also resulted in Taffarel receiving the sack from the Selecao. The team he loved with all his heart, which he’d done so much with, had thrown him out like Qatar had been thrown out from the World Cup.
As if he’d heard Taffarel’s thoughts, Alisson suddenly appeared in the room, bundled up in a windbreaker and scarf. He held a pink and white pinstriped box in one hand, which he didn’t let go even within the vicinity of the kitchen counter.
“I heard the news,” Alisson revealed, standing next to the goalkeeping coach. “I still can’t believe they sacked you.”
“I can believe it,” Taffarel sighed, swirling his filled glass with a metal straw. “They sacked everybody there for some reason. Tito isn’t charismatic enough, the physios don’t work fast enough. And me? I’m too nervous.”
Alisson nearly dropped his box, eyes widening in surprise. “They told you that?”
“Well…no,” Taffarel admitted. “But the press always said that my nerves are the reason I didn’t reach great heights. In Italy, in Brazil, in—”
“ Bem, and we’ll stop there!” With unusual determination, Alisson grasped Taffarel by the shoulders, forcing them into eye contact. “Claudio Taffarel, you’re my idol. You inspired me to start goalkeeping in the first place. Okay, I might have had goalkeeping in my genes, and I usually ended up in goal when playing with Muriel’s friends because I was short, but you’re there among the reasons.”
Taffarel smirked at the short bit. “I’m four inches smaller than you and you’re calling yourself short?”
“Off topic, Taffa. You still managed to play, even with anxiety. And you’re helping us keepers be even better—without us, we’d have been even lower in the table. So please don’t say that.” Alisson set the mysterious box on the counter with an even more mysterious smirk. “Otherwise, you can’t open your present.”
Taffarel pried open the box and took a whiff of the sweet smell. Inside the box were a dozen, brightly-colored cupcakes, along with a small note written in careful, dark blue letters.
History repeats itself.