2013 travel in brazil
Brazil
From all-night leagues to Amazonian beauties, the home of Pele, the Maracana and the beautiful game guarantees a football experience like nothing on earth
In Brazil, there is so much football to be seen. Since the sport permeates the culture like in no other country in the world, often the most rewarding experiences Рwhere you get to the soul of what football means here Рare the quirky, unexpected or bizarre. Like the uniquely Brazilian Pelaḍo Рor Big Kickabout Рthe famous amateur tournament in the Amazon rainforest city of Manaus, in which every competing team must also submit a beauty queen to parade on the opening day.
One of the most exciting spectacles to be seen in a football stadium, not a ball is to be seen, yet the terraces are packed as a military band belts out a marching song and onto the turf strut more than 500 Brazilian beauty queens wearing trainers, hot pants and customised football strips.
Dates only get fixed a few weeks before the annual competition and no tourists are expected. It’s a long way to go – four hours by plane from Rio de Janeiro – but it is an unforgettable experience, guaranteeing, at the least, several years of anecdotes about getting to the heart of the beautiful game.
THE MATCHLESS MARACANAOf course, you don’t need to go to the middle of the Amazon to soak up Brazilian passion for the world’s most popular sport. Even if you never leave Rio de Janeiro there are enough football-related sites to keep any aficionado happy. The most obvious primary destination is the concrete behemoth that is the Maracana Stadium.
To get the best view either go up to the Christ statue and look down, or take one of the helicopter tours, and see how it overwhelms the cityscape as Rio spreads out between the mountains. The Maracana was built when Brazil hosted the 1950 World Cup. It was the biggest stadium in the world with a 200,000 capacity and holds the record for the highest attendance of any game: the 1950 final attracted just 146 short of a capacity crowd.
The Maracana has to be visited because of its history – it has been the greatest stage for generations of top Brazilian players, not least Pele, who scored his 1000th goal here – yet there is something underwhelming about it. Plans for a half-decent museum have never materialised and the exhibition that is there is barely more than a few black-and-white photographs.
Unfortunately, the stadium is currently undergoing a major renovation and will only re-open in time for the Confederations Cup in Brazil in 2013 or more likely the World Cup the following year.
Seats are removed as the renovation begins
OTHER RIO VENUESMost big games are now held in the Estádio João Havelange (aka the Engenhão). Botafogo have a long-term deal with Rio’s city council and use it as their home stadium. But with the Maracana closed, Flamengo and Fluminense also stage matches there.
Attendances at games in Brazil are low for several reasons – TV coverage, disorganisation, cost, the time of matches at almost 10pm – yet the most important one is that because of the size of Brazil, bad transport infrastructure and the relative poverty of its inhabitants, there are almost no away fans. If you do choose to see any game, local derbies (clássicos – note the extra 's' compared to the Spanish clasico) are always the best.
Which is why the state championships – usually between January and April – are almost always the most rewarding tournaments. If mid-table Flamengo and Fluminense meet in the national league on a Wednesday night, the Maracana would be barely a quarter full. If the same teams meet in a knock-out phase of the state championship, it would will be sold out with colourful, joyous fans, playing music, singing, jumping – exactly the carnival scene you expect from Brazilians.
The most congenial stadium in Rio is Vasco da Gama’s home ground, Sao Januario. Even with no away fans, there is always a lovely atmosphere here.
Vasco are Rio’s Portuguese team and the stadium was built in 1927 full of blue Portuguese azulejo tiles and ornate ironwork. The capacity is just 35,000 and the main stand is usually full. There is a community feel and the Portuguese influence can also be seen by the fact that there is a chapel by the side of one of the goals – which means the stands cannot go completely around the pitch.
Enter Romario at the Sao Januario
On matchdays, the trophy room is open, crammed with cups and medals, and there’s a meat barbecue restaurant that has a homely, family feel. Unlike the Maracana – where you’re so far away from the action it’s almost like watching it on TV – in Sao Januario you’re right in front of the players.
A word of warning, though: The stadium is set for a refit as it will host rugby matches during the 2016 Olympics. So, before you plan a visit, check that the ground’s still open...
AWAY FROM THE STADIA If you’re not in Rio for a match day, don’t worry, you can’t avoid football. Football buskers stand on street corners performing keepy-uppies – Fabinho, one of the best known, is often down on Ipanema beach and has a routine that includes ball bearings and an egg.
The beaches are also great to watch futevolei – footvolley – which is beach volleyball where you use your feet, chest and head. Often big stars of the past – such as Edmundo, and sometimes even Romario – will appear and play futevolei with their mates. The game is a distilled version of Brazilian control skills and, because there is no way to smash the ball down, rallies can go on for a surprisingly long time – making it a bit like watching ballet.
At the other end of the celebrity scale is the Aterro de Flamengo, where the state-owned pitches are used almost 24 hours a day. Situated not far from the Sugar Loaf Mountain – just by the main road that leads from the city centre to Copacabana – they are worth visiting to get a feel for the importance of football to ordinary Brazilians.
It is here where, when the restaurants shut at night, teams of waiters, hotel porters and other evening workers play in local leagues. The games go all through the night, and in the morning are full of workers coming off their night shifts to play competitive games, drink a beer and have a churrasco barbecue. This would be the easiest place to join in and play with the locals.
SÃO PAULO AND SANTOSRio is Brazil’s cultural and tourist capital, São Paulo – as the city’s inhabitants will tell you – is the driving commercial and industrial force of the country. It may be a claustrophobic concrete megalopolis of more than 20 million people, but if shopping, eating out or clubbing is your thing, São Paulo is the place to go – and the football isn’t bad either.
The antique Pacaembu, with its art deco frontage, is a classic ground; the regular haunt of the Corinthians club, it now has a recently opened football museum, which is well worth a look. Don’t forget São Paulo FC's Morumbi – another of Brazil’s giant stadia, which has the atmosphere of the Maracana when it’s full.
The Morumbi: rather large
An hour’s drive from Sao Paulo towards the coast is Santos, the port city whose club is most famous for Pele. The ground, the Vila Belmiro, is in the middle of a residential area and during match days the surrounding streets liven up with street stalls. The Santos archive, open during the day, is the only proper homage to the Pele years in Brazil.
LEGENDS AND POVERTY
Brazil has a larger number of legendary footballers than any other country and some of them are surprisingly accessible. Socrates, for example, can usually be found in one of the Pinguim bars in his home town of Riberão Preto. Usually he goes to the one in the shopping centre, since there are fewer tourists, but he is always very friendly and will sign autographs and pose for pictures.
Brazil has a larger number of legendary footballers than any other country and some of them are surprisingly accessible. Socrates, for example, can usually be found in one of the Pinguim bars in his home town of Riberão Preto. Usually he goes to the one in the shopping centre, since there are fewer tourists, but he is always very friendly and will sign autographs and pose for pictures.
It's also interesting to discover the places where current footballers are from – Ronaldo is from Bento Ribeiro, a working-class neighbourhood in Rio, whereas Adriano is from the tough inner-city favela Vila Cruizeiro. Go accompanied by a Brazilian you trust during the day and it is usually safe to visit, and worthwhile to understand the hardship and poverty from which he came.
In the 1970s, when Brazil was under dictatorship, mega-stadiums were built up and down the country. They are shrines to football, but also to a certain state-sponsored arrogance: in truth, political statements in ugly concrete. In the north east, each state capital – Salvador, Maceio, Recife, Fortaleza, Sao Luiz and Belem – has a stadium with a capacity between 50,000 and 100,000.
MORE STADIA: 2014 BECKONSWith preparation for the 2014 World Cup underway, stadiums such as the Mineirão in Belo Horizonte are having a good makeover. The estádio Fonte Nova (New Fountain) in Salvador has been demolished and when built will be called the Nova Fonte Nova or, er, New New Fountain.
Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, BrasÃlia, Curitiba, Salvador, Recife, Natal, Fortaleza, Manaus and Cuiabá are the cities that have been chosen to host the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. So, check that the stadium is in use before you set off. The cities and the stadiums for the Confederations Cup in 2013 have yet to be announced.
Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, BrasÃlia, Curitiba, Salvador, Recife, Natal, Fortaleza, Manaus and Cuiabá are the cities that have been chosen to host the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. So, check that the stadium is in use before you set off. The cities and the stadiums for the Confederations Cup in 2013 have yet to be announced.
Because Brazil is the size of a continent, each region has distinctive characteristics, which are reflected in everything from the food you buy in the stadium to the behaviour of the fans. In Salvador, for instance, the Brazilian city where the African influence is most strongly felt, the drummers on the terraces play a much more uplifting, syncopated sound than the bands in, say, Porto Alegre, in the more European-influenced south.
The excitement and eccentricities of the fans can also be greater the farther away you move from the south east, the country’s centre of gravity. When Belem, on the mouth of the Amazon, had a team in the first division it had the league’s highest average crowd.
UP IN THE AMAZONAs well as the Peladão and its football beauty queens, the Amazon is a rich source of alternative football culture. Across the river from Belem is Macapa, famous for being the only city in Brazil bisected by the equator. And how did its residents decide to mark this fact? By building, perhaps, a Greenwich-style observatory? Absolutely not. They built Zerão – Big Zero – a stadium that has each half in a different hemisphere. Big Zero is full of local folklore and since it’s the only big stadium in the state, it is always used during the state championships in the first half of the year.
If you drive along the Macapa esplanade at high tide you can make out two crossbars poking out of the sea. When the tide is out, these mark the goals of local invention futelama, or footmud – football on the slippy brown riverbed. It’s great fun as you carry on playing until the sea is knee-height.
Wherever Brazilians are, they adapt football for their own conditions – the more you travel in Brazil the more you see this for yourself.
GOING TO THE MATCH
Watching a match in Brazil is usually very simple. League games rarely sell out and the cheapest tickets can be bought at the stadium for less than a tenner. At the time of writing, Brazil (and especially São Paulo) is pretty expensive. Tickets for the better seats are not that cheap and the quality not that good.
Watching a match in Brazil is usually very simple. League games rarely sell out and the cheapest tickets can be bought at the stadium for less than a tenner. At the time of writing, Brazil (and especially São Paulo) is pretty expensive. Tickets for the better seats are not that cheap and the quality not that good.
The busiest games are cup finals, Libertadores Cup games or state championship knock-out rounds. For these, you’ll need to ask locally to find out when and how the tickets will be sold since demand will outstrip supply. Getting to the estádio Engenhão isn’t as easy as the Maracana but teams often put on minibuses to get fans to the stadium – check with the locals. If you want to go to go with a tour guide in Rio, Luiz Fantozzi organises tickets to games at Be A Local tours.
The best local derbies are Flamengo vs Vasco or Fluminense in Rio, Corinthians vs Palmeiras in Sao Paulo, Atletico vs Cruzeiro in Belo Horizonte or Gremio vs Internacional in Porto Alegre. Though there is usually no violence in the stadiums, you do need to be careful in the streets around the stadiums for very competitive games.
There is a small amount of hooliganism – in Rio, it reflects favela gang-fighting rather than something football-inspired – and it’s best to make sure you don’t get lost.
When you’re in Brazil, you will hear contrasting advice about derby games. A lot of people will tell you they are too dangerous and should be avoided. True, there can be some serious trouble but in general most fixtures pass off fairly peaceably. However, if you’re not a ‘seasoned’ fan, it might be worth choosing another game. If you do decide to go, avoid wearing the colours of any of the teams on show: for example, don’t wear green, red or white if you go to see Palmeiras play São Paulo.
Weeknight games start at around 9.40pm to allow for the daily soap opera to finish and if you really want to fit in with the locals, take along transistor radios to listen to live commentary of the game. If you can understand it!
