Historically, football united Brazil’s 200 million-plus people, who took pride in their national team’s record five World Cup wins and wore its emblematic canary yellow and green shirt during games that emptied city streets.

Then came the recession, the street demonstrations, the endless graft scandals, the divisive impeachment of the leftist president Dilma Rousseff and, more recently, a debilitating national truckers’ strike during which protesters waving Brazilian flags called for a military coup.



Nowadays, Brazilians are no longer as proud of their country or their team – to the point that some fans will wear red when Brazil line up for the first game against Switzerland – while others are even going so far as to root for arch-rivals Argentina.

One street in a working-class neighbourhood in Teresina, in the north-eastern state of Piauí has even been painted in the light blue and white of Messi’s team – the equivalent of a Halifax road being decorated in Germany’s white, black, red and yellow.



The colours were the idea of Raimundo Pereira Júnior, 35, who talked his neighbours into contributing £5 each to daub 8 Street with Argentina’s colours. He said that he and his neighbours are supporting Argentina – a country he has never visited – to express their disgust over failing public services and corruption.



“The country is broken. It is an embarrassment. I am ashamed to live here in Brazil today,” he said.



Such revulsion is a sign of the rising discontent and disillusionment. Even in the dark days of the military dictatorship, which ruled from 1964-1985, leftwing guerrillas suffering torture in prison rooted for Brazil in the 1970 World Cup, according to Rousseff, a former member of the armed resistance, who told the story four years ago while trying to fire up enthusiasm for the previous tournament, which Brazil hosted.

After a slow start, Brazilians got behind their team that time around – but a humiliating 7-1 thrashing by Germany in the semi-final left deep scars on the national psyche. “Nobody swallowed the 7-1,” said Pereira Júnior.

And since then the country has staggered from one crisis to another.

In 2016, Rousseff was impeached after huge street demonstrations by middle-class Brazilians angry about rampant graft who wore canary yellow and green team shirts. Many see her removal as a coup by any other name and leftists have sworn off the national colours.



Luísa Cardoso models her red version of the Brazil shirt, complete with hammer and sickle. Photograph: Handout

“They have taken the green and yellow of Brazil and I will not wear it any more,” said Angela de Siqueira, 62, a retired university professor in Rio de Janeiro who used wear a team shirt to watch Brazil games – but this year doesn’t even have a copy of the match schedule.



In April Luísa Cardoso, 26, an architect and designer from Uberlândia in Minas Gerais state started selling a red version of the Brazil shirt emblazoned with the hammer and sickle – but the Brazilian Football Federation, the CBF, warned her off using its logo.



That turned out to be a blessing, because the CBF has faced more graft scandals than many troubled Brazilian institutions. Last December its former president José Maria Marin was convicted of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering and is awaiting sentencing in a US jail. In April his successor, Marco Polo Del Nero, was banned for life by Fifa for taking bribes, fined 1m Swiss francs and lost his job.



Consquently, said Cardoso, “many people said they prefer the new shirt without the CBF symbol.” Some of her townsfolk are even opting for the green shirt of fourth division Uberlândia Esporte Club. But Cardoso will still support her home country.



“I will cheer for Brazil and after they are out, I will cheer for Argentina,” she said.