RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian soccer fan and former metallurgist Jarbas Meneghini Carlini has been combining his love for the sport with his business, making replicas of the FIFA World Cup trophy in his workshop in western Rio de Janeiro.After watching Brazil’s then-captain Dunga triumphantly lift the trophy following the team’s fourth World Cup win in 1994, Carlini resolved to create his own.“They weren’t for sale. So I decided to make the trophies myself. And today, I’m a trophy craftsman,” he said, from his workshop in Campo Grande.The 58-year-old makes the replica World Cup trophies by hand from molds and finishes them off with paint. They range in size and price from about $1 to $100.Carlini sells them to fans and tourists at the nearby Maracanã soccer stadium. But he has also gifted the trophies to stars including Pelé, Jorginho and Ronaldinho and sent them across Brazil and around the world.
To explain the emotion so often evident on his clients’ faces when they pose for photos with his work, Carlini points to the trophy’s meaning.“Everyone wants to be a world champion, everyone wants to be the best,” Carlini said.
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