Soccer-loving Brazilians

sports cultures — By Bob Riel on October 22, 2008 at 7:48 am

Brazil is a country that is mad for soccer (or football, as most of the world calls the sport). Now, that passionate love for the game has been permanently documented in a new National Football Museum in Sao Paulo, Brazil. What’s unique about this museum is that it not only celebrates Brazil’s star players and team accomplishments, but it also pays tribute to the sport’s role in Brazilian culture, as described in this article in the International Herald Tribune.

The museum tells the story of both sport and country, where the national pastime has come to represent and inspire the multiracial, samba-loving soul of the people. In Brazil, stuffy European soccer was transformed into “the beautiful game” of magical passing and dribbling that has won the country world renown…

Another room pays homage to Brazil’s fans. They dance shirtless, beating drums to samba rhythms on huge video screens, with cacophonous surround sound that makes you feel as if you are among the crowd.

A sport for the masses is a theme throughout. In one room, a short movie recounts how soccer in Brazil morphed from a country club sport that was socially segregated during Miller’s time, into one that took on the evolving character of the racially mixed working class that was propelling Brazil’s industrialization.