Fearless football fans

Today Myrie and I convinced our host, Josh (a friend we made while traveling in Colombia who is teaching at a fancy English private school in SP) that he wanted to go with us to a soccer game. And not any game, one of the big rivalries in Sao Paulo: SPFC vs Corinthians Paulista:
Fancy SPFC vs blue collar Corinthians. We were in the Corinthian stadium and cheering section. Lots of hooligans and drunk fans around... Enough that we were a little worried about safety so we took the bare minimum with us, so no photos.



(Bieber is tough enough to hang out with Corinthians)

We also did not have tickets, and it was sold out. So or the first time (for me at least, can't speak for Josh or Myrie) we bought tickets from a scalper. A bit nervous if they would work, and they did. Score one for us.



(scalped, and blurry in this photo, but real)

Once in the stadium, instead of trying to find our actual seats we tried to find a spot that had a higher percentage of families with small children than drunken hooligans. We were moderately successful. 2 families in front of us, one loud drunk guy behind us (who had a pretty limited vocabulary, small enough that if you were playing a drinking game using one portuguese swear word, you'd be in the ground by halftime).


(photo from tv recap)

The corinthians scored the first goal into the first half, and also the only goal of the game (joy counting us getting in). We left the game early for post game soccer hooligan fear and to better get a taxi. Score again for us--- taxi in 3 minutes and no hooligans. We felt pretty fortunate -- walking though the bleachers there were more than enough big, drunk, scary looking dudes. Also, it had POURED rain for almost the entire game.

Now, with 10 days to go, we have been to Brazil's legendary beaches, seen a crazy football game and it's fans... Just carnival left to complete the trifecta.