Flamengo Flag, Macaraca Stadium
Today was a chance to tick of one of my "things to do in Rio". Football is the biggest sport in Brazil by far, the national team has won the world cup tournament a record five times and is the only team to succeed in qualifying for every World Cup competition ever held. I was really lucky to be in Rio as the Rio league was coming to an end and booked a tour through a hostel. I went along with a group of 20 or so tourists to the Maracana Stadium. The game was a semi final between Flamengo and Resende. Flamengo are huge here, and it showed as the majority of fans were supporting them. The stadium is the largest in South America and holds 95,000 at capacity, it was maybe a quarter full. drums were banging everywhere, people dancing, huge flags being passed around, the atmosphere can not be explained in words, so much passion it was incredible. Three red cards and 6 yellow card later the game finished and unexpectingly Flamengo got beat 3-1, the stadium was so quite on leaving which is a shame as it would have been good to see everyone celebrating outside. amazing experience thou, loveed it!
