Goodfellows Travels: Sunday 27th August 2006: MARACANA FOOTBALL STADIUM: Rio De Janeiro, Brasil

One of our 'must dos' for Rio was to see a football match at the Maracana Stadium, the largest in the world with 118,000 seats. We were fortunate enough to be there for the weekend of a big rivals match between Flamengo (Rio & Brasil´s biggest team) and Sao Paulo. We decided to go to the match with the tour organised through the hostel as this was the safest way to go, plus we thought it´d be the most fun going in a big group of mostly English travellers and football fans.

We arrived at the stadium early in order to secure the best seats possible in the section our tickets were for; this was not an organised English stadium where there is allocated seating! The party atmosphere had begun even before the match started with the fans singing their songs, banging their drums and waving their huge flags so we got into the spirit too by drinking beer and eating hotdogs whilst waiting for the match to start, the best bit being that we didn´t have to move from our chairs to get refreshments - the vendors come to you!

The match was an exciting one full of great displays of Brasilian footballing flair and dramatics and ended in a 1-1 draw, much to the disappointment of the Flamengo fans. We had a great time cheering on Flamengo and enjoying the incredible carnival atmosphere of a Brasilian football match. This was definitely the liveliest and most fun football match we´ve ever been to!

Oliver & Celina in a Flamengo shirt