Domingo! Domingo! Domingo!

This past weekend’s events included bump-and-grinding with my 40 something instructor during a Samba lesson and singing “Twist and Shout” in unison with an entire bar, but all were trumped by going to my first Brazilian soccer game. There are two rival teams in Bahia (the place where I’m at), Vitoria and Bahia FC, which each have their respective die hard fans. What I did not realize is how intense these fans really were. I went with a big group from my school to watch Vitoria play Palmeras, one of the best and most hated teams in the Brazilian league (at least according to my host mom’s brother). The game also had some extra important relevance revolving around league positioning for reasons explained to me in rapid Portuguese that I pretended to understand. Whatever it was, the Vitoria fans were operating on a level the likes of which I had never seen.

As soon as I stepped off the bus, it was unreal. The stadium is dug into a big hill and only high, decaying prison-esque walls are visible from the outside. People were everywhere, singing, yelling, fighting, while mobbing into the stadium. Friends who arrived early had to go inside because Vitoria fans were throwing homemade bombs at the visiting Palmeras fans. Yes, bombs. Don’t worry though, there was riot police throughout the entire junction. The police are very intimidating; they wear military fatigues and have giant machine guns and batons, which, it seems, they don’t hesitate to use. Even if I was a native white person, I don’t think I would like them. To be honest, I’m surprised I made it inside.

Walking in the stadium is very daunting. You enter at the top of the hill through the prison wall and look down on a u-shaped sea of screaming red and black. The stadium has watch towers, high fences and a jungle barrier; its really how I imagined a prison here just with a soccer game going in the middle. Did I mention the intimidating, prison like atmosphere yet? Because it was all up in there.

After not being able to find good seats in the stands, my friend claims he was able to parlay his immense charm into wristbands to get to good seats we didn’t pay for. Frankly, I think the wrist band lady was just scared of the sunburned drunk man with broken speech and poor grammar yelling in her face, but either way the wrist bands he got us were for seats 4 rows up from center field. Or at least from the high fence and cop-laden barrier that separates the field from the stands. Vitoria scored the first goal and the stadium absolutely lost it. I have never seen anything like it. The entire left side of the stadium, probably over 15,000 people, ran across the bleachers and back in unison while jumping, screaming and setting off fireworks and smoke bombs. Five GIGANTIC flags that covered about ten rows sprung up out of nowhere and began to sway to the many Vitoria chants and songs that began to thunder through the stadium. Its very hard to capture in words, but it just seemed like pure chaos spread all over 25,000 people . The energy surging through the stadium was unbelievable. Then Palmeras scored two goals; their brave traveling fan section sent out a loud celebration and a riotous feeling seemed to creep over the crowd. At the half, police in full riot gear who were surrounded by another barrier of riot police with K9s escorted the refs off the field. That’s right, it was felt that not one but TWO barriers of police and attack dogs were necessary to get the refs safely off the field.

Luckily, for entertainment and safety reasons, Vitoria came back in the second half and scored 2 goals to win the game. People flooded out into the streets afterwards celebrating and harassing Palmeras fans. Traffic was gridlocked as people clogged the streets celebrating. It was a very incredible experience that has already made me decides to come back for the World Cup, which I imagine would, somehow, will be even more intense.