MILAN – There are numbers, there are words and then there are pictures. Guitars and planes. A cooking course. Coconut sweet-selling pedlars. War. The desire to escape. The simple joy of running around after the ball. Backflips, smiles, religion, music and books. A medley of images conjured up by the meeting of two destinies. Like the flashback effect you might see at the cinema. That will happen tonight when the 2014 World Cup is inaugurated. Brazil v Croatia. It won't be a premiere though. Those scenes have been seen before, at the San Siro. Because the cast in Sao Paulo, like the line-up in Milan, includes Hernanes and Mateo Kovacic. Footballers, each with their own story to tell.
They'll look each other in the eyes at the end of the opening ceremony and before starting their first World Cup finals, they might just experience a flashback or two.
Memories like the time a young Hernanes learnt to kick with his left because "everyone else used the other foot and I wanted to learn to be different". Or when he would chase the pedlars selling beijinho, Brazilian coconut candy – his favourite sweet. That cooking course he did or the pilot's licence he was close to earning. Hernanes flying. As he does with those backflips to celebrate a goal.
Running through the mind of the Prophet (a nickname given him by Brazilian journalist Tiago Leifert after hearing one of his aphorisms during an interview) may be pages from the Bible or Futebol completa com logica. Or his love for music, singing Um verso de amor to his wife Erica or playing the guitar. His parents, his working-class dad and housewife mum, because he never forgets his origins and insists, "You mustn't give any importance to luxury. I'm not interested in those things."
Likewise for Kovacic. Perhaps Mateo will think back to his serious injury in 2009 and how hard he had to work to make it to Brazil. Or his life in Austria, an enforced destination for many who, like himself, was living in Croatia in the mid-'90s. An escape from the war and the desire for a normal life, but carrying with you the scars caused by the sound of bombshells. Scars that can be partially healed with love: "My parents are my greatest source of support, they always have been. They and the rest of the family are always behind me." So too is Isabel, his girlfriend. The Croatia No.20, like Hernanes, is also a huge music lover, although with his personality (and intonation) he prefers not to sing.
Those things and who knows what else might be racing through their heads in the build-up. But then all thoughts will turn to the pitch. Because the curtains will open on the greatest show on earth and the whole world will be watching. With their present in Brazil and future at Inter, they will shake hands and then play a game of football. As opponents. Hernanes and Kovacic: from Milan to Sao Paulo.
