Parmeiras!

i guess its been a dream for a long time to see a brazialin football match, images of chaotic night matches in the Maracana stadium (in Rio, the homes team Flamengo's)...so when the opportunity arose to go and see the tpo two teams in a rival all sao paulo derby match, which happened to be taking place on the weekend that i was in sao paulo was too much to resist. the teams were sao paulo and parmeiras...my colleague Benny supports parmeiras so that was my newly adopted team...i was incredibly excited. i went with bennys family of brother and fathers in law. the only let down was that the stadium holds 50,000+ but due to security concerns (you think that sheffield united v sheffield wednesday hate eachother, think again, they restricted the capacity to 30,000 which was a real shame i think. still, i was at a brazillian top of the table local derby clash, and could not be happier. the fans there are crazy, really crazy, words i learned in the car to the game included: (i now forget the translation):

"offside"

"donkey"

"cissy"

"may your children be born ....(something)

in fact, to play for the opposition (sao paulo) you have to shave all facial hair before a game, hence the nickname cissy)

on the flip side, Parmeiras call themselves 'pigs', which is ironic as sheffield united call wednesday fans 'pigs'...but who is to argue? the match itself was fascinating. i remember taking tami to a game and having to exaplin what all the songs and chants meant..this was my turn to be perplexed. it was an amazing experience and i loved every second. my only rule with matches is that i never ever leave early, no matter how much my team is being battered...and that can be frequent with my teams...but in the spririt of safety, i was whisked away 5 minutes before the end of a 2-0 deficit...disappointed that my team had not scored, only to discover a day later that we had scored and it was 2-1, kids...never ever leave a game early! it was however encouraging to see that the parkes curse in always losing when me or my bro go to games carries across the globe. (on monday....a guy in my team in brazil gave me a Corinthians calendar as a gift...they lost that very night for the 2nd time all season...!)

amazing experience though

one memory that sticks...well, i get a little 'excitable' at matches, and i cannot just sit back and not get involved, so as my portuguese improved...i got just that little bit more 'vocal'...culminating in when sao paulo had a few dodgy offiside calls in their favour...so as usualy, i was shouting 'offside! offside!' at the referee...unfortunately i got my new vocabularly mixed up and was in fact shouting 'obrigado obrigado!!'

so in essence in front of a mad mad parmeiras corwd i was shouting..."thank you! thank you!!"...hmmm was a wonder i wasnt lynched