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Published: February 24th 2010
Today started off like any other day, we got up around a casual 10am, enjoyed the hostell breakfast and decided to kill time before our pickup arrived to take us to the football.. The annoying thing about the day is that Rio Carnival events organization, who we booked the tickets through have still not contacted us confirming they have our hostel details- even though we sent them 4 emails. This also means we do not know what time the transfer will turn up-if in fact they do turn up. At this stage in the day something just does not feel right.
To kill some time we decided to go to the beach for a couple of hours at Botafogo. There is a nice beach, but the sea is full of rubbish which is a shame becaused if the sea was clean it would be perfect.
The sky was blue and with there being only a little breeze it was a really hot day. So much so we could~´t stand the heat and decided to go back after an hour and a half.
We found a restaurant across the road from the hostel so we could sit and keep an eye out to see if our transfer will arrive. After our sandwiches we went back into the hostel. I found myself a seat on the balcony that overlooks the road so we were ready to spot if they arrive. I was on my own as Fi was getting ready but i had the internet to browse on and keep me entertained. I started the lookout at 2, my feeling was that it would turn up at 3 as this is what time the transfer at the hostel was leaving.
When half 3 came about and still no transfer i began to panic. But the next half an hour provided us with a strange set of activities. Firstly we got an email/fcebook from Cheryl, Fi´s mum who wanted us to get in contact with them urgently as they had had some guy on the phone looking to get hold of me and fi about the football. After getting in touch with Cheryl via msn we established that our transfer had us down for a different/random hotel and we missed it. The guy on the phone-Rick- was saying how he wanted to get a taxi to our actual hostel and take us t the game. As the actual tickets we had were on the transfer bus and already at the game we still had no tickets. However Rick who was a star and a really nice man let us have his two tickets. The taxi would be an hour which seemed like a massive problem as the game kicked off at 5 and it was 4. This was when Rick mentioned that the clocks had actually gone back the night before so it was in fact only 3pm. Wow, what a turning of events. I hd actually given up on going to the game but in just over an hours time we had Carlos the taxi driver picking us up with the tickets. Yess!!!!! get in!
Carlos dropped us off outside the ground. Our tickets were for the Arq Verde which was the end behind the goal designated to Botafogo fans. This was great as me and fi hda decided this is who we were supporting as we spent the last two days in Botafogo. It was also becaus ethey were the underdogs, so as a good neutral should we supported the underdogs.
The stadium itself was massive. It holds roughly 80,000 and is shaped in a bowl shape. It looked newer than i thought it would. When going to our seats we realised that we were sat right in amongst the realy die hard fans. After five minutes looking for our seats we actually gaev up looking as we realised that people just went wherever they felt like. I got the impression thatseats didnt really matter as we, just like everyone, were prob going to be standing on our seats the whole time. The atmosphere was incredible. I have never heard anything like it and this was even before the players had come out. The fans were so enthusiastic. It really was emense to watch. The game itself was a good one, the first half was scoreless but both teams had chances. The second half really came to life though, two goals, two red cards, one fight and typical south american football. They play it with so much passion. The crowds are crazy we hd massice giant flags, flares, fireworks and just singing throughout. It was the sort of atmosphere to get your adrenaline pumping.
In the end Botafogo were crowned the champions as they won 2-0. They lifted the trophy and came and celebrated with us. The whole ticket scenario ended up wrking massively in our favour as we had dream tickets. Right with the fans so we got the best atmosphere. After the game we waited around til the stadium had cleared and then went outside to meet carlos the taxi driver again. He took us back to the hostel where we went straight back to the shopping area as we were starving. Wr ate at come random place where i had a lovely prawn rissoto with mushroom and fi had some brocali linguini. We were still buzzing from the maracana experience as it was amazing and definately one of the best football experiences i have had so far.
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Cheryl
non-member comment
Don't talk to me about adrenalin!
Ant, I am SOOOOO pleased to read all of this. This had me on the ceiling. Even after we finished communicating that afternoon, I didn't really know for sure you'd got to the stadium on time till I heard it from Fi the next day. I was probably at least half as much full of adrenalin as you were! How wonderful to hear the full version of events. I couldn't be more happy for you. :D PS Jonathan also deserves an honourable mention in this escapade ... he had to ring Ric in Brazil at least three times within five minutes before we got the two of you talking directly to each other.