30. 45 DO SEGUNDO TEMPO

This is us right now, at the 45 minutes of the second half, almost end of the match! But not yet.

Brazil is known to be the country of the soccer, since the sport came from England we incorporated, developed and improved it, and although we haven’t won the World Cup for a while now, we still are the only five-time champions. (Let’s see if we’ll have an update at this matter in a couple of months). So, it’s not rare for us to have expressions soccer-related, like “tirar o time de campo” (to give up), “amarelar” (to chicken out), “bola fora” (make something embarrassing), “mudar de time” (to change sides), and so many others.

Now back to our expression of today. Instead of counting the time as 90 minutes, we count it as two sets of 45 minutes, restarting the clock to the second half, as in 45’ + 45’. In that case, the last minute of a match (not considering stoppage time) wouldn’t be the minute 90, but the minute 45 of the second half. Then if something happens at the “45 do segundo tempo”, it happens at the last minute possible.

Let’s remember your school days, back to your worst Math test, the clock is ticking you’re stuck in an infinite calculation, everyone is handing out their tests, you’re running out of time, and right there, down the wire, you finish it and hand it over. At the “45 of the second half”.

That’s the spirit that a simple “at the last moment” wouldn’t be enough to encapsulate, and that’s the beauty of the idiomatic expressions, they’re more than meaning, they are feeling.

And although we’re almost at the end of our journey, I’m really happy that we got so far.

So, for the last time (for now):

Till tomorrow,

expressionada.