By David, on April 19th, 2010 Last night, Sean and I went to the Maracanã to watch Flamengo play Botafogo in the Carioca cup final. This is a bit like the English FA cup, but only with teams from Rio. The Maracanã is a fabulous stadium. Built to host the World Cup in 1950, then upgraded for the Pan America games, it’s perhaps on par with Camp Neu, Barcelona’s famous ground for size, and Fratton Park, Portsmouth’s shabby ground for facilities.
We bought the tickets the day before through tiny holes in a concrete bullet proof shelter outside the ground. Tickets were BR$50 each for seats in the green or yellow areas – the best bits behind the goals – where vast swathes of fans sing in harmony, wave flags and light flares. This compares well to many of the tour agents in Rio who will put you in the white (neutral) seats and charge you BR$70. You can get these neutral seat tickets at the ground for BR$35. We travelled to the game via the Metro which was very easy and suprisingly uncrowded. The fans bizarrely segregate themselves at Estacão (where you have to change from trains) and then hurl abuse at each other from opposite ends of the platform. Fun to see.
We did the stadium tour before the game, which was BR$20, and really not worth it. There is this old guy who does awesome
keepy-uppies and the stadium is pretty impressive to see empty, but the changing rooms are like an English council owned swimming pool changing rooms which haven’t been upgraded since the 1960s. The seats are torn and baths covered in scratches. There isn’t a trophy cabinet, even though it is the home ground to both Botafogo and Flamengo. You can’t pay by card either which adds a very Brazilian dimension to a very western stadium.
Fortunately, the game between Flamengo and Botafogo, Rio’s 2 biggest teams alongside Fluminese and Vasco de Gama, was great fun and well worth the entry price. The stadium was fairly evenly split between Botafogo and Flamengo fans, all waving huge flags, and singing these long songs. The atmosphere in the ground was really friendly but the standard of football was pretty poor. The ref gave out about 15 yellow cards and sent two players off, plus the game was decided by 2 penalties – each clear dives. It ended 2-1 to Botafogo, and as we were sitting with the Flamengo fans, we left at the final whistle to avoid any trouble (although we’d loved to have seen the trophy ceremony).
It was a pretty safe experience, despite there being around 70k people there and almost no security in the ground. Outside the ground there were most of Rio’s police it would seem, which was reassuring. When we left, a large group of fans were all marching and chatting in unison, and barging people out of the way as they ran through the crowd, which was the only slightly alarming bit.
See my Maracanã stadium tour and game pictures below
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