By Beth Daley –
After Brazil was knocked out of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, many fans were quick to blame the team’s poor performance on the evangelical beliefs of some players. On social media, some complained that Brazil’s team was much better when its players were “behaving like Catholics” and that “evangelical Protestant sterilization has flattened their ball, ruined their samba and obliterated their swag.”
While such commentary can be described as semi-serious soccer banter, it speaks to the broader religious shifts taking place in Latin America. Protestants (often referred as evangélicos) in Latin America now comprise about 11 per cent of the population — a notable change in a region where a larger share of Christians traditionally self-identified as Roman Catholic.
The most significant expression of Protestantism is people affiliated with Pentecostal or Charismatic churches. These affiliations represent about 30 per cent of the Latin America’s population, with some 195 million adherents.
“Pentecostal” often refers to Christian movements that emphasize “speaking in tongues” as the initial sign of the “baptism in the Holy Spirit,” and direct, personal experiences with God. “Charismatic” (or “neo-pentecostal”) refers to expressions of this mode of faith within both newer religious movements and traditional mainline churches, including in Catholicism, Anglicanism and Orthodox Christianity.
Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity has a significant presence in the Global South. It’s experienced explosive growth with 676 million adherents in 2026 (one in four Christians globally) and is expected to reach 1.1. billion in 2075 (one in three Christians globally).
My teaching and scholarship focus on the study of global Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity and how it intersects with society, culture and politics. My 2026 book, Chrétiens en quête de puissance. Présence globale et politque des pentecôtismes, (Christians in Quest for Power. Global Presence and Politics of Pentecostalisms) provides readers with a history of Pentecostals, their global impact in terms of statistics, their experience of “spiritual gifts” and their political involvement in the United States and beyond.
In Brazil, professional soccer and Pentecostal churches work in similar ways. Both compete for the same crowd by using standard business strategies, such as mass media, branded merchandise, massive venues and charismatic influencers to capture the attention of their consumers.
Professional soccer players act as the perfect bridge between the two. When athletes openly talk about their deep Pentecostal faith, they become living proof of the “prosperity gospel.” They show regular people that faith and hard work brings divine favour and blessings in riches and athletic stardom.
In terms of embodied experience, a Sunday church service and a stadium soccer match function as experiential cultural products. Both offer consumers bodily expression, intense emotional catharsis and a profound sense of communal belonging.
Pentecostalism in Brazil often appeals to the poor and marginalized. Similar to Afro-Brazilian traditions, Pentecostalism is a religion of the spirit and places strong emphasis on bodily experiences. Because it competes so aggressively like a business in a service economy, marketing what it claims is a better spiritual product causes deep friction with these traditions.
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