Maracana

rio has such a buzz, the people are constantly happy and seem to be giving us foreigners loads of encouragement, even tho are portugese is a little on the dodgy side.

on wednesday night, we went to the best footy game that ive seen in my life..well maybe not the standard of footy but the crowd atomsphere and support was electric. we went to the maracana (which was the biggest stadium in the world at one point) to watch flamengo play guarani. yes samuel, we have seen your team play at their home ground before you!

we drove in a mini bus up to the stadium where there was thousands of people all in the street, kinda like any premiership game really, all waiting to get inside the ground. once we got inside the ground we were able to stand anywhere within our section that we liked. people seemed to bunch together across half of the stadium, creating packed out stands in one half of the ground. soon after kick off flamengo scored their first goal and the crowd went crazy. all jumping and singing together. after that moment for the whole of the next 86 mins the crowd were never quiet. i have never seen anything like it at a footy game before. at one point 15,000 fans in one quarter all took off their shirts and spun them around their heads at the same time. it looked amazing, and i came away a flamengo supporter. the game finshed 5-1 to flamengo, which left our brazilans friends who went with us, with very sore throats! even after the game as we walked out onto the street, the fans were constantly chanting and singing as loud as they could.

no premiership game (well apart from liverpool beating spurs 6-3 when rushy scored his 300th goal) could compare to it. u will have to ask the other guys if they feel the same way, but i loved it. i cant imagine what it would be like if they had lost 5-1 tho??