Amid the landmark NFL game in the electric city of São Paulo, Brazil, three very different family men cross paths and find that when it comes to what matters most, cultural differences melt away in this insightful, transporting, multi-cultural drama from New York Times bestselling, NAACP Image Award-winning author Omar Tyree.
It’s a long way from South Philly, but there’s no way die-hard Eagles fan and amateur sports bettor Tony Costa is going to pass up seeing his team play the Green Bay Packers in South America’s first-ever NFL game. Forget concerns about wildfires and gang violence, Tony needs a break from his wife and three kids—and his struggling finances need a win.
When it comes to cheeseheads, Packers devotee Arthur Braddock more than qualifies as the manager of a Wisconsin cheese factory warehouse. The game provides a wonderful chance to travel with his family—including his 11-year-old daughter, who’s become passionate about American flag football.
In São Paulo, the game promises great business for Mario Gabriel Santos da Silva and his wife, who own a sports bar and restaurant. But he’s most excited to show his
10-year-old son, already a lightning-fast flag football player, what NFL football actually looks like from the stands.
As the main event approaches, the men bond over shared meals and anticipation. Game day is epic, a drama-filled battle to the very last second. But Tony is waging an internal battle as well. The only man who’s left his family behind, Tony can’t help envying the bond between the others. And as he reflects on their perspectives, he begins to understand what winning really means . . .
Uplifting and fast-paced, Touchdownin Brazil re-creates the excitement of travel while reminding us of the unifying power of sports and the importance of family ties . . .
Release date:
September 29, 2026
Publisher:
Kensington Books
Print pages:
288
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After getting my creative juices flowing again with my last Dafina/Kensington book, Control—a psychological thriller that touches on the world’s current struggles with mental health, published in June 2024—I’m back again with a new sports and travel novel.
This time around, I’m returning to my first love of sports and to football, a cradle-to-the-grave passion that I was introduced to as a four-year-old in the 1970s of West Philadelphia, when my adolescent uncles and older cousins barked “take it like a man” whenever I banged my head, knee, elbow, or shoulder on the cold concrete floor of my grandmother’s basement, at 755 North 38th Street, while attempting to smack the wall with my small right hand for a touchdown.
Playing football every day made me one of the roughest, toughest competitive kids you could ever imagine and a long stretch away from being a quiet bookworm reading a Judy Blume story at the local library. Nope. I didn’t read books at all as a kid—unless you forced me to. I ran the streets and played ball, like the rest of the brown Philadelphian boys in my neighborhood. We didn’t want to be readers or writers. We wanted to be professional athletes—all of us. Some of us were better at basketball, baseball, track and field, or boxing, but football was my handsdown favorite.
More than fifty years later, American football is still my favorite. I call it that on purpose, because international sports fans call soccer football, or futebol, in South America. That’s where this new story takes place, down in São Paulo, Brazil, on the south side of the equator. Granted, I’ve heard it said a thousand times now that “sports fans don’t read books.” Yet, there are dozens of sports books that have become New York Times bestsellers, including the football classic Friday Night Lights, which became a popular television series. Seabiscuit: An American Legend was a book that became a big hit movie. The Natural became another hit movie on the topic of baseball. Into Thin Air was a bestselling book that became a film on the tragedy of a mountain climbing adventure.
Of course, the majority of these books, including several bestselling football books like North Dallas Forty, Any Given Sunday, The Blind Side, and Remember the Titans, were all based on true stories. Touchdown in Brazil is a novel about the fans who support these athletes, their stories, their lives, and the games that we learn to cheer and moan over from sunup to sundown, seven days a week, and three hundred sixty-five days a year.
So, dive right in and enjoy it from Philadelphia, Green Bay, São Paulo, Chicago, New York, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, London or wherever you live or your travels might take you. Discover a new story that is out of your norm and allow yourself to travel to another place with a group of people who have learned how to fully enjoy their lives so that you can learn to enjoy yours—even from the pages of a book that takes you there.
Sincerely yours,
Monday, September 2, 2024
“ALL RIGHT, WHAT’S THE LINE ON THE BIRDS AND PACKERS today?” Antonio Costa asked himself as he eyed his cell phone screen in his Fanatics Sportsbook app while walking into the kitchen. It was extra early and bright on Labor Day morning in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, located on the far east coast of the United States, where the sun rose above the Atlantic Ocean.
Tony, as he was called by friends and family, took a seat at the kitchen table wearing blue jean shorts and a wrinkled red Phillies T-shirt to join his father Moe, short for Maurice. Moe was a burly Italian man in his sixties wearing a white wifebeater undershirt and plain dark blue pajama pants. He rubbed his balding, gray-haired head and was noticeably shorter than his son—Tony towered over his father even while sitting at the kitchen table. There was a considerable distance between six foot three and five foot eight. Tony, in his mid-thirties, still had his hair, which was thick and black.
“All right, they got the Eagles minus three, and a forty-eight and a half for the final score,” Tony told himself.
Moe took a sip of his morning coffee and studied his son silently as Tony continued to talk to himself about the spread on the upcoming Eagles football game in São Paulo, Brazil.
“All right, they got, ah … Saquon Barkley at even money to score a touchdown,” Tony said and stopped. He stared at his cell phone. “Well, that’s obvious. It’s Saquon’s first game with the Eagles. Of course he’s gonna score. He might score a couple of times.”
Finally, Moe decided to speak to his son. “Have you heard the news about Brazil? They say they had a bunch of wildfires around the city and a recent spike of environmental disasters.”
Tony paused from looking at his phone and eyed his father sternly. “Those fires happened outside the city, and they’re over with now. That was a week ago,” he emphasized.
He went back to reading the Fanatics football bets on his cell phone. “All right, after Saquon, they got Jalen Hurts, A. J. Brown, and DeVonta Smith to score.”
His father spoke up again with concern. “You know the air is still gonna have fumes and shit in it from the fires. They say it may not be healthy for the players. So, it won’t be healthy for the fans, either.”
Tony eyed his father again. He said, “Dad, you don’t think they’re gonna take care of that before the players get there? There’s a bunch of NFL officials down there right now, getting everything ready. They’ve probably been there for weeks already. The NFL knows what’s going on. They wouldn’t send their players and fans there if it wasn’t safe.”
Moe took another sip of his coffee in silence, but he wasn’t done airing his concerns. “They say there’s a bunch of gang violence going on down there, too. And you’re not supposed to wear the color green. They say it’s a gang color.”
Tony was getting more agitated by the minute. He said, “Yeah, I heard all of that. But how does that make any sense? You got Green Bay playing Philadelphia, two teams that wear green for God’s sake. What are we gonna do, all wear white? The Eagles are wearing black and white for the game now anyway. Everybody knows that now. They just announced it last week.”
“Well, what about the fans?” Moe asked him. “Do they all know not to wear green?”
Tony snapped, “Jesus Christ, Dad, we live in Philadelphia! This isn’t the safest place in the world, either, you know. Have you heard the reports about Philly lately? We’re still one of the biggest crime cities in the country. And you’re sitting here talking about Brazil. Come on.”
“Yeah, but you know where not to go here. And you know what not to do,” Moe argued.
Tony asked him, “What, you don’t want me to go or something? I heard it’s a bunch of Italians down there in Brazil. Maybe I’ll go down there and meet up with some lost cousins or something. You don’t know.”
“I know it’s dangerous when you don’t know the people,” Moe responded calmly. “They don’t care that you’re Italian. You’re not one of them. You walk around there wearing green and you may not make it back to Philadelphia.”
Tony had heard enough. He stood up from his chair and said, “Well, I’m fuckin’ goin’, Dad! I’m going to Brazil. I’m not afraid of all that shit. They got police down there like any other city. They’re not gonna be pulling people off the street. What are you thinking about? It’s not the Third World down there. São Paulo is like New York and Chicago.”
“What’s going on in here? What’s with all the language?” Elena Costa walked into the kitchen and asked her tall and irritated son. She was a small woman with a strong glare, who had raised three Italian boys. She was still dressed in peach floral pajamas—her favorite color.
Tony turned to face his mother and looked down. He was the official giant of the family. No one else even reached six foot in the family. He opened his right hand toward his father at the table with his cell phone in his left. “He’s in here acting like a grandmother, talking all this negative stuff about Brazil,” he stated. “He knows I’m going down there for the game. It’s the season opener against the Packers in São Paulo. Why would I wanna miss that? I’ll be telling stories about this game for ten years!”
“Yeah, if you live for ten years,” Moe snapped at him.
“Why would you say something like that to Antonio?” Elena asked her husband of forty-two years. “You’re always saying stuff like that to him. That’s just wrong.”
“He doesn’t care what he says,” Tony cut in.
“Because it’s true,” Moe spoke louder. “He spends all of his money betting on these games. And then he has nothing left to help anyone.”
Tony looked appalled. His father’s comment blindsided him. He said, “I help out whenever I can.”
“Yeah, he helps out. That’s why he’s here now, to help you cook,” Elena spoke up for her son.
“Yeah, because he doesn’t want to buy anything,” Moe responded tartly. “So he gets over here all early to help us set up instead of having to bring anything.”
Tony paused and felt busted again. The truth was the truth. His mother didn’t know what to say, either.
“Well, what difference does it make? I’m still here to help out,” Tony blurted defensively.
“Yeah, different people have different positions in life,” his mother rationalized.
Moe looked at his wife and said, “Elena, you’re always taking his side. That’s why he’s spoiled now.”
Tony said, “Oh yeah? Well, I’m gonna be spoiled down in Brazil this week, too. Because when Wednesday comes, I’m out of here. On a plane full of green jerseys!”
With that said, he walked out of the kitchen and headed toward the front door. But his father wasn’t done with him yet. He had to have the last word.
“You better hope you make it back home,” Moe said, raising his voice again.
“Maurice!” his wife yelled at him. “Stop it!”
Tony spun around at the front door and shook his head. His father refused to forgive him for so many years of fuckups. The defiant middle son yelled back toward the kitchen, “You know what, Pops? I’m gonna fuckin’ die in Brazil! I’m gonna die in Brazil with a beautiful brown model. Okay? So kiss your favorite son goodbye!”
Like father like son, Tony got the final word that morning and stepped outside to smoke a cigarette out front.
Inside the kitchen, Elena stared at her husband and sighed. “You feel better now?” she asked him. She then turned to open the refrigerator door behind her.
Moe took a deep breath and exhaled with no more coffee in his cup. He looked up at his wife from the table and explained himself. “I just want him to be more responsible. He owes it to his kids.”
Elena grabbed the container of orange juice and poured herself a glass before she responded to him. “The Eagles keep him going, Moe. You know that. Everyone has to have something. Nothing has come easy for Tony. He’s had a hard life.”
She drank her glass of juice in a moment of silence, while her husband thought of a response.
He made it hard on himself, Moe mused of his middle son. He’s hardheaded. He never wants to listen.
Out in front of the house, Tony puffed his cigarette and looked up and down the tight street to see who was up this early. He spotted someone to his right pulling out a grill to the sidewalk, to fry food on Labor Day. The man wore a bright Kelly-green Eagles football jersey from Nike.
Tony saw it and got excited in need of an affirmation. “GO, BIRDS!” he yelled. He held his cigarette up in the air like a salute.
The Irish American neighbor turned and grinned at him. He nodded and said, “Yeah, go Birds,” calmly. Then he walked back inside the house.
Tony nodded back to him, feeling reenergized. “Damn right,” he let out. He took another drag of his cigarette. “It’s gonna be a good game down there,” he mumbled through the smoke. He pulled his cell phone back out to look over the Fanatics bets again.
“Okay, do I take the Eagles by six or more?” he asked himself. He thought about it with confidence. “Yeah, the Eagles are gonna win by ten. I’ll take that,” he stated.
“Come on, Hurts. Show us what you got, baby!” he yelled to himself that morning. “Let’s go down there and show off for the Brazilians.”
AN HOUR BACK FROM PHILADELPHIA IN THE NORTH CENTRAL American city of Green Bay, Wisconsin, the Packers fans were getting ready for the game in São Paulo, Brazil, as well, with stories all over the local news channels and papers. Of all places, Green Bay, located at the foot of the Fox River that emptied into Lake Michigan to the east, had become the Holy Grail city of NFL football. With their long-established team colors of green and gold, and the iconic G on their bright gold helmets, the treasured Super Bowl trophy was named after their legendary Hall of Fame coach Vince Lombardi, whose Packers teams had won the first two Super Bowls in 1966 and 1967—along with nine football championship titles before then.
With a city population that was barely over a hundred thousand, and two hundred thousand more in the surrounding suburbs, Green Bay had the smallest local fan base of thirty NFL markets. Nevertheless, the well-respected Packers team and history—with games at the wintry “frozen tundra” at Lambeau Field—had become mythical. The team now held four Super Bowl trophies, tied for third in the NFL with the New York Giants and the Kansas City Chiefs. Green Bay was also the only team where regular citizens could buy stock as co-owners. And thousands of them did, guaranteeing that the celebrated Packers remained in the smallest professional sports city in the US.
Community ownership of the team included shares bought by Arthur Braddock, a lifelong Packers fan in his mid-forties, with a wife and two kids, who managed a cheese factory warehouse in Wisconsin—a small state that produced a whopping twenty-six percent of all American cheese.
By midmorning on that same Labor Day of September 2, 2024, Arthur and his family of four were all up and stirring with excitement for the holiday, followed by their season-opener football game against the Philadelphia Eagles in Brazil at the end of the week. Just like the Eagles fans were excited for the game in Philadelphia, Green Bay had retained some of the most dedicated football players in the country themselves, with exceptional play at the most important position, quarterback.
In a large family den that had been decorated like a shrine to the Packers, Arthur had classic framed posters, flags, jerseys, football bobblehead dolls, and different sizes of yellow foam cheeseheads all over the room. His poster collection included a long line of Green Bay Packers quarterbacks from Bart Starr and Zeke Bratkowski to Don Majkowski, Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers—and Jordan Love, the fifty-five-million-dollar-a-year new kid on the block and the first and only African American to lead the Packers team at the quarterback position.
Arthur stopped in his den to marvel at the newest framed quarterback poster of Jordan Love on the wall, wearing number 10 in his tall and lean, light brown frame. Love was a handsome, athletic, and mild-mannered twenty-five-year-old biracial American who could easily pass for a mixed-raced Brazilian soccer player—what Brazil and the rest of the world called futebol.
Love had already led a very young Packers team to a surprising playoff victory over the favored Dallas Cowboys before succumbing to the Super-Bowl-bound San Francisco 49ers. That happened in the previous season, his first year as a starter. With Dallas and San Francisco being two of the most storied NFL franchises—tied with five Super Bowl trophies each—they had been a couple of big games. Only the Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots, who had each won six Super Bowls trophies had more. So, the expectations for Jordan Love and the young Green Bay Packers team were sky high at the start of his second year.
Team expectations were also high in Philadelphia, where their own twenty-six-year-old, fifty-one-million-dollar-a-year quarterback, Jalen Hurts—another handsome African American—had already led the Eagles to a close 38–35 Super Bowl loss to the Patrick Mahomes–led Kansas City Chiefs in 2023. After building a strong 10–1 record to start the 2023–24 season that eventually deteriorated into a disappointing 11–7 final, with a 32–9 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the first round of the playoffs—the Eagles were ready to reboot with new energy, new coordinators, and a few new players, including running back Saquon Barkley, who had previously played for the New York Giants. With an older, more experienced, and very talented roster, the Eagles were expected to win in Brazil. They were also designated as the home team of São Paulo, while planning to wear the color black instead of their normal green.
Arthur took a deep breath, exhaled it, and smiled, knowing that his family was headed to an incredible season-opening game. He could see it all in his mind with Green Bay wearing their green and gold against the Philadelphia Eagles’ black. However, for Labor Day, the dutiful father and husband was dressed in a bright orange cooking apron for his work at the family grill, looking strong and athletic like an active football player himself.
“You think he’s gonna win?” his wife, Kaitlyn, walked into the room and asked of their quarterback Jordan Love. She had thick blond hair and a bright white smile. Her husband and two kids had been waiting all summer long for the game, and so had she. It would be the highlight of their summer vacation.
Arthur considered her question and answered it slowly and carefully so as not to seem overconfident. “The NFL has put together a hell of a game. With Saquon Barkley on the team from the Giants, those Eagles are loaded now. They’ve also just added Jahan Dotson, a first-round pick receiver from Washington. And their team has something to prove this year, right off the bat. Those Eagles fans are gonna be pissed if they lose. They have a lot more riding on this game than we do.”
Kaitlyn continued to smile, and said, “That’s why we’re gonna win. They’re gonna play tight, while trying not to lose. And we’re gonna march right past them.”
Arthur grinned and was more thoughtful about it. “Yeah, we’ll see. I figure Jordan Love should have a pretty good game at quarterback. I just don’t know what everyone else is gonna do. You know, we’re gonna need a lot of help in this game. The Eagles are really loaded up on offense. I wouldn’t bet against them right now,” he concluded with a chuckle. “But I hope we win.”
With Arthur being a manager type, he wasn’t as blindly optimistic as many sports fans could be, especially when dealing with their home teams. However, his wife didn’t want to hear any of his caution. She was all in for the Packers’ victory.
“We’re gonna win,” she repeated with a soft pat on her husband’s right shoulder. “You watch.” Then she became more serious. “But what’s with all this talk about not wearing the color green? Doesn’t everyone realize we have two green teams coming to Brazil? Doesn’t Brazil have green and gold in their flag colors? They have the exact same colors as we do. So, what’s going on with that?”
Arthur continued to grin. There had been more sports media talk about what not to do or wear in Brazil than in any other NFL games abroad, which included London, Munich, and Mexico City, where American football games had already been played. The popularity outside of the US was steadily growing.
Arthur said, “Okay, I did some research on that. So what’s going on is a team called Corinthians, who play soccer at the stadium we’re headed to, have had a rivalry with a team called Palmeiras for nearly a hundred years. It’s like us and the Chicago Bears.
“Well, Corinthians, the stadium’s home team, wears black and white, and they despise the color green that Palmeiras wears,” he continued. “So the Eagles, as the designated home team, have decided to wear black and white like Corinthians, and we become the visiting team wearing our regular green, like Palmeiras.”
Kaitlyn listened to her husband carefully and considered the information for herself. “Well, they do realize that we have nothing to do with their rivalry, right?” she asked her husband. “I mean, we have two totally different teams here. We don’t even have a rivalry with Philadelphia. We only play them once or twice every three of four years.”
It sounded outlandish to Kaitlyn.
Arthur said, “I know. But different countries go crazy for their cultural loyalties. It’s like life or death in some of these places. But we don’t take it that seriously over here. We’re not gonna try and kill you for wearing a Chicago Bears jersey in Green Bay.”
While thinking about the color friction, Kaitlyn cracked a nervous grin. “Well, what colors are we gonna wear? And what about our kids?”
Arthur paused as he continued to think about it. “Well, we’ll take both our whites and our green jerseys and see what happens. We gotta read the game-time climate down there.”
His wife shook her head, and said, “This is ridiculous. This game is getting more interesting by the minute. You’re telling me the Eagles fans are all gonna wear black? That’s not their colors.”
Arthur was at a loss for words. He shrugged and said, “I don’t know. I mean, they’re not gonna all go out and buy black jerseys just for this game. I don’t even think they have that many black jerseys to buy.”
“Yeah, because their colors are green,” Kaitlyn stated. She shook her head again before turning to exit the room.
Arthur chuckled and walked out behind her. He needed to get started with cooking the food on the grill. He said, “Ironically, I think the Philadelphia fanbase fits the Corinthians club better than we do.”
“Why do you say that?” his wife asked on their way to the kitchen.
“Well, Corinthians is a passionate team, like the Eagles, who haven’t won as much as they would like to. They’re like the underdogs, where the Palmeiras team has won a lot, like we have,” Arthur explained.
He said, “However, get this. The Corinthians are more of a community-owned team, like we are, and the Palmeiras team is more corporate, like the Eagles.”
Kaitlyn looked at her husband and frowned. She said, “You consider the Eagles to be more corporate?” She couldn’t imagine it with how unruly the Philadelphia fan base could be. She couldn’t imagine the Philadelphians running anything in a corporate manner. They were too passionate.
She said, “Aren’t they the same fans who threw snowballs at Santa Claus?”
It was an infamous halftime incident during a home game at Franklin Field in 1968 against the Minnesota Vikings that the Philadelphia Eagles fan base could never seem to live down. Opposing fan bases continued to bring up the Santa Claus incident as a clear example of the Eagles fans’ overzealousness. They even had a stadium jail inserted inside the old Veterans Field from 1971 to 2003, where unruly fans would be arrested, held, and sentenced to fines and community service for their transgressions at the games.
Arthur laughed as they reached the kitchen. He said, “Yeah, but the Eagles are now one of the top-ten-valuated teams in the league. They’re at number nine, at seven billion dollars, right behind the Miami Dolphins. Jeffrey Lurie and Howie Roseman have run a tight ship over there.”
Then he smiled proudly. “We’re at number twelve behind the Bears and the Houston Texans at six-point-three billion.”
Kaitlyn nodded and smiled back. “That’s not bad. That means we’re still in the top half of the league, even without a corporation.”
Arthur nodded back, agreeing with her. “Yeah, we’ve done very well with Chairman Mark Murphy’s leadership. But our success is also attributed to having Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers at quarterback for years. You know, when you have a top-rated quarterback, everyone likes to watch you. And now we have Jordan Love.”
Right on cue, their eleven-year-old daughter ran into the kitchen from the backyard, wearing a green and gold, number 10, Jordan Love jersey.
“Come on, Dad, let’s play catch,” she yelled at Arthur. She was a blond-haired ball of energy, filled with plenty of adrenaline.
“I gotta get the food out first, honey,” he told her.
“Yeah, help us take out the food, Madelyn,” Kaitlyn added to their daughter. They had several trays of uncooked hot dogs, hamburgers, spareribs, chicken, and fish all out on the kitchen table that family and friends would be headed over to the house to enjoy later on for the holiday.
When their eight-year-old son, Raymond, ran into the house wearing the white number 9 jersey of Christian Watson, Kaitlyn got him to carry out a tray for them as well.
“Here, Ray, you take out the fish. It’s the lightest,” she told their brown-haired son, the same color as his father’s hair.
Once they carried out the food to cook on the grill, Madelyn grabbed her Wilson youth-sized football from the lawn. “All right, Dad, just catch it a few times,” she pressed her father.
Arthur frowned while placing fresh food on the grill. “Come on, honey, throw it to Ray-Ray. I have a lot of food to cook here.”
“But he can’t catch,” his raucous daughter complained of her younger brother.
“I can catch,” Raymond responded defensively.
“Yeah, the baby passes that are right in front of you,” his sister barked.
Madelyn was older and six inches taller than her brother. And she was twice as intense.
“All right, throw him one,” Arthur challenged her.
Madelyn studied her brother skeptically, and said, “Okay, back up.”
Raymond b. . .
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