Football* in Sao Paulo

We couldn't pass up the opportunity to attend a major Brazilian football league match while in Sao Paulo last week, and I'm glad we didn't. It was a cool event to experience.

While the stadium was only ~75% full, the energy and intensity of the crowd gave it a play-off type of atmosphere. The match was Corinthians (home team) vs. Sao Paulo. We were told it was a very pretty important match, as Sao Paulo came in undefeated, but the Corinthians were near the top of the league's standings.

Clueless about the Brazilian pro football league, and at the time not knowing what city the Carinthians represented, we were confused from the start. Going into the game, we assumed, being in Sao Paulo, that Sao Paulo was the home team, and so I figured I would wear my red jacket to fit in with the home team crowd. But we quickly realized that except for one section of the stadium, it was all black and white for the Corinthians. Turns out, both teams are Sao Paulo-based, and it's a big rivalry game. 

We saw a number of things that we don't typically see at a major sporting event in the U.S.:

-Instead of the away team fans being scattered around the stadium, all of the Sao Paulo fans were together in one big section in one of the corners of the stadium. They were isolated from the rest of the crowd, with stadium security with dogs lined-up to the sides of this section. At the end of the match, when all of the Corinthian fans were filing out of the stadium, the Sao Paulo fans had to stay in their section and were not allowed to leave until later on.

-While the Sao Paulo fans were confined to their own section, their section was close enough for fans in the most rowdy section to throw things into the Sao Paulo section. From the other end of the stadium, I saw at one point a lit firecracker chucked from the Corinthian section into the Sao Paulo section. Everyone in the area where the firecracker landed quickly scurried away, like it was a live grenade, and then it went off. Didn't look like anyone was hurt, but it could have been ugly.

-No beer sold inside the stadium, although the fans clearly had their fair share before the game.

-Saw a couple guys get beat over the head with a club by security. We were in the tame section of the stadium, so who knows what else went down in the crazier sections.

-The sounds of the crowd is perhaps what stood out the most. Constant chanting, although we couldn't make out what they were saying. You can get a sense of it in the few videos linked-to below.

-The other things that really stood out were these enormous flags - large enough to cover an entire section - that the fans, in a very coordinated manner, would unroll on top of themselves during the game. 

These flags got me thinking how annoying it would be to have a huge flag rolled over your head in the middle of the match, and then not being able to see anything that was going on for the next minute or so. The next day I asked a Corinthian fan what the story is with these flags. He told me that there are security cameras throughout the stadium, and the fans like to take advantage of a few seconds off-camera to smoke things that can't be smoked in public. I was quite surprised to hear this. If you asked me to describe how the fans acted during the game, "stoned" would have been the last description that would have came to mind!
these flags

As for the game, it started tight but ended up being a complete blowout. Play of the game was a controversial red card against Sao Paulo late in the first period. It was 0-0 after the first half, but down a man, Sao Paulo was not even slightly competitive against the Corinthians in the second half. The first goal came maybe around the 55-60th minute, and from that point on it was complete domination. The game ended 5-0 Corinthians, who now sit atop the Brazilian football league standings. Big game indeed.

Here's a link to a few short videos that we took showing the big flags, first goal (caught randomly on camera), crowd reaction, and then some post-match signing and celebrating.

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*Since we're writing this from Brazil, it seems most appropriate in this post to refer to this sport as they do here in Brazil, and for that matter, essentially everywhere else in the world.