Not Messi or Ronaldo: Chicago Bears star picks soccer player he most admired

Cairo Santos, from Limeira, Brazil, 34, the kicker for the Chicago Bears, held a virtual press conference with Spanish media. The Bears are one of three NFL teams that selected Spain as an international expansion market, alongside the Miami Dolphins and, more recently, the Kansas City Chiefs. Chicago is completing a hugely successful first season under head coach Ben Johnson, hired this year, and is fighting it out for top spot in the NFC. The Brazilian spoke with AS in a wide-ranging conversation.

What does it mean to you that the NFL has staged two games in Brazil, and what would it be like to play there with the Bears?

When I got to college and won the Lou Groza Award as the nation’s top kicker, I think my name started circulating in Brazil and more people began paying attention, realizing there was a Brazilian who could make it to the NFL. And then, when I finally reached the pros in 2014 with the Chiefs, that was the start for me of trying to be an ambassador for the league. It became my goal to help grow the sport back home and expand the NFL product. Brazilians kept following it more and more. The league noticed, and taking a game to Brazil was a dream come true for millions of Brazilian fans who already loved the competition and were falling in love with football. And it was a dream for me too – helping bring an NFL game to Brazil and experiencing that close to the fans. I’m very proud. I can’t wait for the day I’m no longer playing professionally so I can actually go to a game, because I obviously never can now since we’re preparing for our own. Hopefully there’ll be a game in Rio. I’m a Flamengo fan, they play at the Maracanã in Rio. If the NFL gave us the chance to play there with the Bears, it would be incredible for me.

Do you feel confident about your chances of reaching the Super Bowl?

It feels so far away even to think about it. Every week feels like a playoff game – we’re facing really tough defenses, great quarterbacks, and we’re truly focused on winning that game, catching our breath and moving on to the next. I think we’ve earned the chance to fight for a playoff spot. The goal is to get past the first challenge, which is the Green Bay Packers – the Bears’ most iconic rivals – and then go from there, see what the picture looks like. It still feels distant, but it’s true that we feel we’ve earned the opportunity to play for something bigger this year.

How much did you know about football when you were a kid in Brazil?

I remember the first football game I ever saw. I’m a big soccer fan, so I was channel-surfing looking for a match. It was a Sunday, so there was no soccer on at night. Then I hit ESPN and saw a grass field, but it looked different, with painted lines. I watched for a bit. I think it was a Super Bowl, maybe in 2006 or 2007. I watched for a while but then went back to looking for soccer. The next year I wanted to take my soccer to the next level, try to make a living from it, but Brazil is extremely competitive. Things weren’t going well for me, so my father, who values education, suggested: “I’ll pay for you to go to the United States for a year. Let’s find a school with a good soccer program.” So I came to St. Augustine, Florida, just to play soccer and learn the language and culture.

Football is the number one sport in the United States; the passion is enormous. So just to hang out with my friends, I started going to high school games, to Florida Gators games and Jacksonville Jaguars games, to be part of that culture. My friends would say, “You’ve got such a strong kick, you could be a kicker in this sport.” And I said I couldn’t get hurt because soccer was my dream. And they said kickers just go in, kick and come out, and almost never get touched. And I was like, “Really? Then okay.” So we went outside. It was a Sunday; we were watching an NFL game. We went outside, they held the ball for me, I kicked it – and it flew three houses down the street. My friends counted off the steps and said: “Dude, you kicked that ball 60 yards. That’s insane!”

So on Monday we went to the school field and talked to the coach after class, before practice. And he said, “Okay, let’s see what you’ve got.” I hit a 50-yard field goal on my first day ever kicking a football. And the coach said: “First, you’re playing Friday. Second, you’ve got the talent to earn a scholarship and get your education paid for. And who knows, maybe go pro – you’re good.” Even though I’d gone to the United States thinking I’d be a professional soccer player, I realized that being a professional in another sport and making a living that way would also be a dream. So I came back for my sophomore year, and then my parents let me return for junior and senior years, which led to a scholarship at Tulane University and then to the NFL.

How do you explain the sport to fans in your country who are so passionate about soccer? What space does football occupy in Brazil?

When I try to convince people back home to watch, I tell them that if they love soccer, once they learn the rules they’ll enjoy football too. Because there are similarities – different ways of playing, strategies like maintaining possession or attacking in a certain way. In football, those strategies are taken to another level. And if you watch a soccer match with a mindset of understanding positioning and why teams play the way they do, you start seeing football in a really fun way. And kickers are a huge part of games, often decisive.

There are also emotions like taking a penalty in the 90th minute in added time. Those are the most memorable moments in soccer, and we get a lot of that in the NFL. That electric, emotional element happens constantly in football and it’s an amazing experience for soccer fans too.

Many Brazilian players have succeeded at Barcelona, and as a soccer fan, what would it mean to make a field goal at the new Camp Nou? And what would it be like for the Chicago Bears to play in Barcelona?

As a kid, Ronaldinho was my idol. He was at his peak when I was a kid watching World Cups, and then when he went to Barcelona, for many Brazilians my age that was the pinnacle of Brazilian soccer – watching Ronaldinho at Barça. So Camp Nou is iconic to me. Stadiums like that are temples of soccer, and I always imagined… I remember as a kid thinking that old Camp Nou held like 90 or 100,000 people. I remember seeing it on TV; I’ve never been to Barcelona, but it looked like the stands went up forever, like a whole world of people around you.

As a kid I couldn’t even imagine 95,000 people. And then in the NFL we don’t have stadiums that big, but when we played at Wembley, the first time I went to London, there were over 90,000 people. And that was a dream for me, reaching the top. Soccer is the number one sport in the world, even bigger than the NFL, and Camp Nou is one of the most iconic stadiums, so it would be the ultimate achievement. I’d sleep very happily that night, saying I played where Ronaldinho and Messi played. So yes, I hope it happens.

The Chicago Bears have won a lot of close games. How do you train for those tight finishes?

I’d say training camp is when we focus the most on end-of-game and end-of-half situations. Every game has a critical end-of-half moment, on offense or defense, that can shape the rest of the game. In camp we practice that every day. During the season, I simulate kicks where I imagine those moments in my head. I’m on the sideline, and you learn to talk to yourself and enter a routine, because that helps you ignore what the kick means, ignore the noise.

We practice that routine to manage pressure so that a kick that could win or lose the game feels the same as any other. My teammates know they should let the kicker stay in his routine, no need to hype him up. We practice those mental things constantly, every day, and the situations as well. But training camp is where we cover absolutely everything, as if we’ve gone from Week 1 to Week 17, and hit all those moments – where I like to kick from, from which hash, with what wind, where we want to kick in the fourth quarter, things like that. It’s important to cover all of that and also practice relentlessly.

You’ve been with the Kansas City Chiefs under Andy Reid and briefly with the Rams under Sean McVay, two of the brightest offensive minds in the game. And now you’re with Ben Johnson. What similarities and differences do you see between Johnson and those two?

Yes, I was actually thinking about that the other day. For me as a kicker, it’s very fun to play for these coaches because you feel the offense moving and flowing. They’re always progressing, and I feel like in a couple of plays I can be in field-goal range, so I’m more involved in the game, unlike in an offense that stalls and doesn’t play as smoothly. We have an offense that moves down the field, and we’ve kicked a lot of field goals.

Obviously we want more touchdowns, but we reach spots where I can contribute more. So I feel it’s really fun to be involved, to have the chance to kick, and then try things on kickoffs to add another weapon to your game and help the team win. It’s a lot of fun. I remember kicking a lot of field goals with those teams. With coach Ben Johnson, it’s been an offense that’s thrilling to watch and also to be part of as a key piece, as the kicker.

A word in Spanish?

“Mucho gusto.”

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