Cristo's Razor and Luís Afonso's Stroke: Where the World Cup Gets Its "Beard & Hair"

Some places explain a country better than any sociological treatise. From the central city café to the village recreational society headquarters, or the town barbershop, there are spots where the aroma of a perfectly pulled espresso or the scent of shaving cream and the snip of scissors blend with the day's chatter. Such was the case on Rua 31 de Janeiro in Aljustrel, home to Humberto Cristo's barbershop, a setting immortalized by Luís Afonso's sharp lines and biting humor in the comic strip "Barba & Cabelo" (Beard & Hair). The World Cup and the National Team would undoubtedly be the hot topic in that establishment these days, with predictions, some accurate, some not, and criticisms as sharp as Cristo's razor.

When Portugal takes to the field against Congo in the United States this Wednesday, many cafés and barbershops across this coastal nation will have already tried to guess the score, picked their starting eleven, and the next day will be filled with post-match analysis of goals scored or penalties missed. As Luís Afonso notes, even though cooks are now "rockstar chefs" and barbers have undergone a "major transformation" into owners of gourmet barbershops with meticulously trimmed beards, some things never change. In many of these iconic establishments, football continues to be a (more or less) serious matter.

"Barba e Cabelo" was born 36 years ago, the oldest daily comic strip in Portuguese press, first appearing in the pages of A BOLA on May 6, 1990. It has since survived ten World Cups, including this one, enduring the passage of time and now appearing on other platforms. But the primary theme always remains the football being played in North America these days.

Its creator didn't need to invent a fictional setting to make the country laugh and think. He simply closed his eyes and returned to his childhood in Aljustrel, to the barbershop of master Humberto Cristo, a man who, between snips of the scissors and with a sincere smile, would settle his customers' club-related arguments with a precise and disarming remark.

"When they challenged me to create the strip, I remembered the barber from my hometown," our colleague Luís tells us. "It was where I went to get my hair cut, and it was where I heard about football. It was entirely inspired by him. Cristo always gave me a hard time," and not with scissors or a comb, but with the "grandeur of Benfica, the third tier, all that with the guys sitting there." And for Luís, who supports Sporting because of cycling and... engines: "I didn't understand anything about football; I thought Pelé was Portuguese and Ajax was a detergent brand... I only liked cars and anything motorized. My father is a big cycling fan, and his great idol was Joaquim Agostinho. Wherever he went, we'd go to watch the cyclists pass, and hearing so much about Joaquim Agostinho stuck with me. Then there was a world champion motorcyclist named Giacomo Agostini... Joaquim Agostinho, Giacomo Agostini... it became Sporting."

Cristo's barbershop was a second home for many locals. Three or four would come in for a haircut, and several more would stay to discuss tactics. They'd debate Master Cristo's Benfica, the Sporting that young Luís Afonso stubbornly defended against the barber's provocations, and, above all, Mineiro, the eternal underdog, as many affectionately called Aljustrelense. Master Cristo would listen, let them talk, and then deliver his precise cut with refined irony.

As the National Team graces the North American pitches, "Barba & Cabelo" continues to mirror Portugal. A Portugal that, as Luís Afonso notes, sometimes experiences a "folkloric patriotism" of "hand on chest singing the anthem." He points out with a biting finger, "Ironically, people become patriots in the worst sense of patriotism. As for paying taxes, fulfilling social obligations, that's another story..."

For the cartoonist, the true hero of the National Team isn't the untouchable star, but rather the Éder of Euro 2016 and "all those guys who, let's say, weren't among the rarest stickers in the album, like Rafa and Eduardo, who appear in the photo running behind him, not a single star." He explains, "That photo is beautiful. If I could frame one at home, it would be that one, of the little guys, of the voiceless Portuguese. Cristo's barbershop was also like that."

The World Cup across the ocean promises the usual on-field excitement, but before the ball rolls against Congo, the best context for the tournament remains this barbershop that has become a national heritage site. There, a starting eleven would undoubtedly be drawn up, one that probably wouldn't align with Roberto Martínez's. Luís Afonso's doesn't, not least because, besides Éder, our Luís now has another hero who is also Portuguese and is even a... world champion.

"There was something very funny about Cristo's barbershop: Mineiro was the central topic of conversation. I often went for a haircut on Saturday mornings, and the game was on Sunday. We'd discuss injuries, the points that were always needed, and even players would come by, many of whom were miners and played for Mineiro. We'd take the opportunity to ask about the team's morale. And Mineiro even appeared in the strip; the only time I shed my cloak of impartiality was when Mineiro became national champions of the Third Division," Luís Afonso recalls before finally revealing his new hero.

"If you ask me right now who the player I admire most is... it's José Neto! For me, a team is made up of José Neto and ten others," he asserts, promoting the young Aljustrelense from Benfica, a European and World U-17 champion for Portugal who, during the celebrations, proudly wore the Aljustrelense scarf for all the world to see where he came from.

The conversation in Jardim Luís Afonso, a space in the Aljustrel Municipal Library, was good and already long, so good and so long that Francisca Branco had been waiting for a few minutes to close the door and go to lunch, perhaps already hungry but always with a smile and availability that we appreciated when it was time to change the scene. José Neto, a full-back trained at Mineiro and now a great hope for Benfica, was the hook for that change.

We ascended Avenidas 1.º de Maio, 25 de Abril, and Algares, rounded the Praça 17 de Dezembro roundabout, then took Estrada da Transtagana to the mining district of Vale D’Oca. There lies the old Campo das Minas, where Mineiro hasn't played for over 20 years, having moved to another end of the town, to the Municipal de Aljustrel. Today, in that space where Mineiro had its home since 1949, there's a sports leisure area with tennis, padel, futsal, and basketball courts. But if we close our eyes and listen closely, we can still hear the ball rolling on the dirt pitch where Luís Afonso first saw a football match.

The World Cup is being played across the Atlantic, but for our Luís, it has fixed and very different coordinates in space and time. It all began there, "on that red dirt pitch," in the dust kicked up from the ground on hot days and the mud on rainy days. But whether it poured rain or was a 40-degree afternoon, those Sundays forever marked the cartoonist and certainly influence his work.

"Was this where I saw my first game? The first 200 or 300," Luís Afonso recounts. "I came here every Sunday, and sometimes not just to watch the seniors, but also the youth teams, who played in the morning," he recalls, proudly mentioning that he would go to games with his father, to the stands, where he had a seat as a self-made member: "I wasn't one of those kids whose parents sign them up for a club; I'm not a member of Benfica or Sporting, nothing like that... I'm a member of Mineiro because I went to sign up one day, on my own initiative, and I still remember arriving here at Campo das Minas and proudly showing off that membership card."

He fondly remembers memorable matches in the Third Division, Series F, "with Olhanense they were always special," and the neighboring Desportivo de Beja, a target of Mineiro's antipathy. "As they say today, they always benefited from the so-called 'colinho' (a term for preferential treatment)," he jokes with a smile.

On big match days, the crowd would push Mineiro forward, some from the stands, others from the ground, and some even perched on the wooden sleepers, old railway ties recycled to form the field's wall. And it was in these games that Jones shone, the forward who arrived in Aljustrel in 1973/1974 and never left, perhaps the most Alentejan of all Cape Verdeans, who delighted Luís and, unlike CR7, "scored five goals from ten free kicks." He assures, "Cristiano Ronaldo's average is below one, so Jones was superior at the time."

Mineiro remains the reason he opens the newspaper every Monday: to check the results and standings, and who knows, maybe one day he'll create another strip about the club from his hometown. Before that, however, Luís Afonso wouldn't mind doing one about Portugal... as World Champions. "If it's against a strong team, it would have to be a final like that." After all, Luís Afonso has a soft spot for smaller teams. And if it were with an improbable hero like Éder in 2016, even better. May it happen now, and again in the future, perhaps with... José Neto scoring the winning goal.

Rita Vilhena, 27, grew up with "Barba e Cabelo" and, as a young girl, realized that the character with the biting humor was, in fact, her grandfather: master barber Humberto Cristo. "I clearly identified him. The hair, or lack thereof... he only has two little lines on the side, just like my grandfather," she recalls with a smile.

Before she grew up and the digital age accelerated the world, Rita's daily life was divided between the sports newspapers her father bought and daily visits to the barbershop, which became the most iconic setting in the national press. There, she witnessed the eternal football rivalries between her grandfather Cristo and his clientele—he a staunch Benfica supporter, unlike her other grandfather, a Sporting fan less interested in football but a regular presence—both united by Mineiro.

When Master Cristo passed away in 2018, Aljustrel paused for a funeral that moved the town: "I was young, but I don't remember ever seeing anything like it." Luís Afonso also recalls: "The day Cristo died, I made a strip and replaced the characters with photos of him cutting my hair from a report A BOLA had done here in Aljustrel. That dialogue is between me and him, talking about how we used to joke about football and how bitter things are now."

If the legendary barbershop were open today to debate the World Cup, the verdict would be guaranteed: "There would certainly be cutting and stitching about the coach and player selections. My grandfather would watch the games, yelling at the television, saying 'do this and that,' as if they could hear him."

Chatting with friends, Rita prepares for the transatlantic football nights and recalls the street's frenzy in 2016. If Portugal finds success again, the promise is made: "We will celebrate with a big party." And in the newspaper pages, Master Cristo will continue to make the perfect cut.