On my first night in Rio I went to a highly publicised game at the Maracana stadium - currently the largest in the world. Although completely shattered as I can never sleep on planes I thought I couldn´t miss the chance to see two top teams battle it out in the league. And Brazilian football, well what more can you say...
I couldn´t concentrate on the football (and there was no one famous playing in the league of Ronaldinhno, Robinho etc. but what do I know) so I started watching the crowd and comparing it to a British one. Not that I´m a regular watcher in the UK but I have been to a handful of games.
There was still the same chanting and abuse of the referee (although I don´t understand Portuguese I assume the hand gestures were fairly obvious); definitely fewer women; the men seemed slightly? more aggressive - in fact the guy behind me got so annoyed when his team missed a shot he kicked the (empty) seat next to me off its hinges.
But the main difference was the dancing. Several whole sections of the crowd broke into spontaneous rhythmic jigging (not actually sure what that means). I don´t mean the jumping up and down and waving of arms - but proper dancing. Strange to see but delightful.
Flamengo beat Fluminense 4-1 by the way.
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