Nearly 200 years after Alexis de Tocqueville tried to explain America to Europeans, the Portuguese have landed in South Florida to try it again — this time armed with a superstar striker, skeptical journalists and a healthy respect for reptiles.
Portuguese journalist João Pimpim of the “A Bola” newspaper began his Palm Beach County odyssey last week ahead of the Seleção’s June 12 landing at Palm Beach International Airport.
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Since then, he has documented Cristiano Ronaldo and the team’s World Cup preparations − from their practices in Palm Beach Gardens to their stay at a five-star hotel in Palm Beach − as well as a Portuguese perspective on a land lush with lizards, humidity, “asphalt battleships” and key lime pie.
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“Florida is a picture postcard that deceives the untrained eye,” Pimpim wrote. “Behind the lined palm trees and the peaceful blue of the Atlantic, lies a heavy, dense atmosphere, where oxygen is barely plentiful and the thermometer crushes any European lung.”
‘Crocodile lake’ catches eye of Portugal soccer team
Palm Beach County’s smallest cold-blooded critters — one headline put it, “It’s all lizards in Palm Beach” — proved unavoidable. But it was their larger brethren that drove more headlines.
Pimpin reported that Portugal’s training facility, the Joseph R. Russo Athletic Complex in Palm Beach Gardens, was located next to a “crocodile lake,” noting that three animals were sunbathing in the hours before the team’s first appearance.
The dispatch quickly spread across social media where aggregation accounts, who could hardly let the truth get in the way of a good story, spun wild tales of a Portuguese national team shackled by fear of the Florida wildlife.
Of course, South Floridians know they were almost certainly alligators and hardly a threat in Palm Beach Gardens, much less at the Four Seasons Palm Beach, where the Portuguese team is staying.
Still, best to keep a precious Portuguese water dog away from the shoreline.
America: Land of extra large cars, kindness
Pimpin’s Palm Beach travels included a visit with the diaspora at the Portuguese-American Club in Loxahatchee Groves, one of many occasions the journalist was thrust into the heart of Florida’s Mad Max-like roadways.
“While in Europe we drive cars, here the locals pilot veritable asphalt battleships,” he wrote.
Even for an American who typically putters around in a sedan, the jacked-up monster trucks and military-style SUVs can feel a bit excessive. Coming from a land of Fiats and Peugeots, one can only imagine.
Thankfully, Pimpin also seems to have encountered an excess of kindness from local Americans, whether from everyday beach-goers helping chart a sight-seeing tour or county officials recommending a dinner at Lantana’s “Old Key Lime House.”
“While the national team seeks glory on the pitch, we’ve already been won over by the warmth of the people, and if football doesn’t feed our egos, America has already set the table for us.”
Find more tales from João Pimpim’s experiences in Palm Beach County at this link.
Eric J. Wallace is deputy sports editor for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at ejwallace@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: World Cup Portuguese reporter in South Florida sees gators, huge cars
Reporting by Eric J. Wallace, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Eric J. Wallace, Palm Beach Post | USA TODAY Network
