told not to expect too much in terms of quality of football, so I was expecting a Man City type of performance!!! (hee he only kidding!!!) Again all tourists are advised to go with a tour group rather than attempt it on your own. We arrived a good hour before the game and the place was hotting up already, the crowds were arriving and you could certainly feel a buzz in the air. Once inside the stadium we headed towards the Botofoga end and are seats (well concrete benches with individual plastic seats) were right behind the goal. We settled onto our seats and were rewarded with a Brasilian pre-league game of football. It was incredible, there were a host of people selling a vast array of things ranging from beer to fireworks! (no programmes I’m afraid Harry). The noise of the crowd was deafening and the stadium wasn’t even half full, it must be a truly amazing spectacle seeing a Brasilian national game. The crowd were going bonkers, with singing, shouting, dancing, flag waving and general joyous

behaviour. The atmosphere was just incredible, unfortunately we didn’t take the camera as we didn’t want it to get nicked so no photos I’m afraid! But believe me it was an amazing experience, you would have thought that Botofoga were about 10 nil up, but this was an hour before the game was due to start! The enthusiasm didn’t waver one single bit, and the poor ref - wow these players and crowd made Wayne Rooney look like a saint by the way they treated the ref! It would take some bottle to referee a game in these parts, believe me! This crowd didn’t take any decision lightly! As we expected the quality of football wasn’t really up to much, remembering that any good Brasilian football player heads straight to Europe to get European wages!

At half time the vast majority of the fans from our end disappeared and changed ends for the second half. The stadium is that big that they are allowed