Without Carlitos...

I went to a classic soccer match in Sao Paulo. Corinthias against Sao Paulo. It is crazy going and leaving from there. I bought 4 tickets since some people on the hostel were also interested. I bought entry for the 'geral' section. You have a ticket but forget about your assigned number. You go early and pick the seat you want. Yep, try to tell somebody he is on your seat. So as they say: "When in Rome, do as the Romans" we picked the first seats we saw available. Good thing we went a little early so we had time to get some beers on the street and walk with them until the gate. After the body search for arms we walked to 'our' section. We decided to be in the middle of the noise fans. So, we were singing and rooting for Corinthians, which in this Stadium, the Mourumbi, are visitors. We watched the whole game standing, we sat during the half time. A couple of times I thought we were having an earthquake, but we shortly realized it was the stadium shaking, literally, because the fans were jumping while rooting for their team. Sao Paulo was the home team and were seating on the other side of the field. We were behind the goal and little by little we started to adopt the side we picked. It is just impossible not to. One thing that was new to me, was the allocation of people on the stadium. The one for Sao Paulo were on one side, the ones for Corinthias on the other. God only knows what would happen if a 'cool' supporter, with a brand new shirt, decides to sit on the wrong side. Well, I kind of know now after watching some fans of the the two teams almost fighting on the middle of the street after the game was over. Good thing the police has a lot of experiences for those cases. They do it every week. Unfortunately we watched `our` team, Corinthians, loosing. Carlitos Teves, Corinthians best player, who is, ironically, Argentinian and was picked the best player of the Brazilian league, was injured....too bad.