Football - Sao Paulo vs. Botafogo

We had really wanted to see a football game in Brasil and tried looking up game schedules before the trip with no success; again mainly due to this language issue. Just a note for anyone thinking about traveling to Brasil, try and learn some Portuguese before coming here because it will really help. When we arrived at our hotel, we asked the front desk clerk if they knew of any football games going on during our short stay in Sao Paulo. As it so happened there was a game on Sunday at 4pm we were told. We got really excited and were determined to get to this game. We were told the visiting team was not that good and because it was Easter Sunday we should be able to get tickets. Fernanda, one of the hotel front desk clerks, was even so kind as to offer to drive us to the stadium because it was right where she lived. We accepted that gracious offer and as it turns out we found during the drive that in 2005 she came to Vancouver for two months to study English. I just had to ask if she did the home-stay thing and she said yes. So my next question was to figure out whether she stayed at my parents, but it turns out her home-stay was in North Vancouver.

We planned our Sunday around this football game and boy were we glad we did. To say the Brasilians are passionate about football is an understatement. The game took place at Morumbi stadium, which opened October 2, 1960. This stadium is being used for 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. The stadium's maximum capacity it 80,000, but only 75,000 tickets are sold each game for safety reasons. At one point, the stadium held up to 140,000 people. The inaugural games was Sao Paulo vs. Sporting Lisbon of Portugal with Sao Paulo winning 1-0; how fitting is that?

Back to the game at hand....we arrived at the stadium around 3:45 and there were people everywhere. We got to the ticket booths rather quickly and bought ourselves two tickets for general seating on the Sao Paulo side for $30R each. We knew enough to make sure we were either wearing neutral colours or the colours of the home team. The atmosphere was phenomenal. We got in and found some seats. There were people singing what we believe was the team song and people banging drums. It was not that full at all, in fact the section we were in was probably the fullest in the entire stadium. Everyone was in good spirits and even as the sky opened up and the downpour began, people kept on cheering and singing. Some pulled out their plastic ponchos and others just stood and got soaked. We had our rain costs with us this time and the umbrella, but we were apprehensive with opening it for fear of the locals getting upset with their view being blocked. The downpour this afternoon came and went. The first half of the game wasn't overly eventful, Sao Paulo scored one goal towards the end of the first half. During half time we went to the concourse and grabbed a bite to eat. Ziad was all excited because they had Habib's box for $6R. It was Lebanese food in a box. It was delicious and it beat the $4R for a bag of popcorn. The second half of the game saw a little more scoring action with Sao Paulo scoring another four goals. The energy in the stadium was electrifying when Sao Paulo scored. There were sure a lot of coaches in the stands as well because every time the home team lost possession of the ball, they were all yelling. Again, didn't understand what they were saying, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't anything good. Some words sounded familiar. This was such an amazing experience...I would really have to compare it to how Canadians feel about hockey except to take that feeling and multiple it by 10. Oleeeyyyy, oley, oley, oley!! What an afternoon...

To finish off the day, we went for dinner a little later this evening. We walked up a few blocks from the hotel and found a restaurant called A Estalagem. A very friendly manager, but it may also have been the owner, greeted us. He was able to speak some limited English as well. Ziad finally got to try a caiparinha, Brasil's national cocktail. It's made with sugar, lime and cachaça (a sugarcane rum) and he really liked it. I had a local cerveja called Bohemia. Dinner was good and cost us just over $80R. They seem to add the gratuity onto the bill automatically here.