Before the start of the World Cup, Cléber Machado was in the news in the sports media for being absent from the list of Globo envoys in Qatar. With only two TV narrator vacancies open, and one still filled by Galvão Bueno, the station preferred to take on Luis Roberto, breaking a streak of Cléber’s trips to the World Cups that had been going on since 1994.

If anyone expected this storyline to be daunting or leave the global narrator “forgotten” in the cover, the 2022 World Cup first round showed the exact opposite. Thanks to a mixture of charisma, errors, blunders and good jokes, as well as doses of emotion in each match, Cléber Machado is already one of the biggest TV characters covering the event this year.

It is true that the “myth” surrounding the personality of Cléber Machado on social networks ends up romanticizing mistakes that would be unforgivable if they were committed by younger narrators, especially women. Player name changes, calling Juventus Turin “one of the giants of Brazilian football”, among other instances, would not be taken on the same side of humor.

It’s also true that Cléber himself created a “shell” by poking fun at his own mistakes while still in the air. The narrator has long used things like “aka” when misidentifying a player on the pitch. In the game between Belgium and Canada on Wednesday (23), the Global Announcer got excited with a deep launch from the Canadian team on a counterattack.

But the move didn’t go as planned, the throw wasn’t good, and no one reached the ball. This scene, even common in everyday football, gave rise to yet another epic Cléber Machado sequence:

During the goalless draw between Uruguay and South Korea on Thursday (24), Cléber Machado’s interactions with commentator Zé Roberto were a spectacle in their own right, entirely thanks to the narrator. The former player still hesitates a lot in the comments and gets a little lost in the lines, showing inexperience at the microphone. It is possible that Cléber tried to make him more comfortable on the air with a few jokes.

At one point in the first half, Zé Roberto tried to say he really wanted to see a goal in the game, despite having worked on many goalless draws in this Cup. The speech took some time to end and gave another moment of rise by Cleber Machado.

Zé Roberto: “Cléber, between us here at the table, I think I’m the…”
Cléber Machado: “The oldest?”
Zé Roberto: “… no, no, I’m looking for a goal in this game”

Cléber Machado turned 60 in March. Ze Roberto is 48 years old. By the way, the crowd did not work, and the match ended in another 0 to 0. At another time, the former player asked the narrator if he knew who played with him in football German. The answer came immediately: “Franz Beckenbauer”.

Throughout this first round, Cléber Machado distinguished himself by interact with player hologramsdrew attention to South Korean defense joke formed by “Kims”, imitate “Zebrinha do Fantástico”among other times.

You may or may not like the storytelling, but the fact is undeniable: Cléber Machado was far from “going unnoticed” or “disheartened” at the first remote World Cup in more than 30 years.