BRAZIL Chapter 10 Football Fever
Brazilian people love to sport and they are very actively involved in various games. Most favorite of them is … Soccer or Football. Football is a national passion like Pakistanis have for Cricket. The Brazilian National Soccer Team has won the World Cup five times: in 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, and 2002 - that's more than any other country in the world!. Whenever there is a football match, Brazilian fans are the most enthusiastic to watch and the game is being played everywhere
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by young and old, male and female. International matches in the major cities often draw huge crowd, especially when the match is in one of the world's largest Stadium Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro.
There are many soccer stadiums in Brazil, and some of them are very large. In fact, the Maracanã (say "Marakanam") Stadium, built for the 1950 Soccer World Cup, is the largest in the world: 200,000 people have fit inside of it to watch soccer matches as never before. 158 BRAZIL
The stadium once held a world record crowd of 199,854 fans for an international match with Uruguay. In 2007 FIFA president Sepp Blatter, announced that Brazil would host the 2014 World Cup. It has been agreed that the tournament will take place in the following twelve cities: Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Cuiabá, Curitiba, Fortaleza, Manaus, Natal, Porto Alegre, Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and São Paulo. There are also 5 other stadiums throughout Brazil that can accommodate 100,000 people.
Brazil is also famous for great football players. Even if you don't like soccer too much you might have heard of Pelé (say "Pay-Lay"), the greatest soccer player of all time. Edson Arantes do Nascimento was his real name. Pelé scored more than 1,200 goals in 18 years as a professional player. His playing career spanned
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twenty one years from 1956 to 1977. In 1999 he was voted Athlete of the Century by the International Olympic Committee.
Another legendary player, very dear to Brazilians, was Mané Garrincha. He was particularly famous for his playful and somewhat irreverent style.
After Pelé's generation, Brazil produced many incredible players such as Zico and Romário.
As Ronaldo and Ronaldinho were at the
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international spotlight. As these heros are retired the new idols are Kaka and Neymar.
Who is going to be tomorrow's idol? As you have probably realized by now, Brazilians are big fans of soccer!
However, they like many other sports too. There are more than 8000 sport organizations throughout the country.
Volleyball, tennis, basketball, sailing, judo, surfing and motor racing are very popular sports in Brazil as well
Volleyball Volleyball is a popular sport for both men and women in Brazil. The Women's National Team
161 BRAZIL won the Volleyball World Cup in 1991 and 2002, and in 2003 it won the World Cup and the World League.
The Men's National Team won the Volleyball World Cup three times (including 2003), and won the gold medal at the Olympic Games of 1992 and 2004.
Brazilians really like beach volleyball as well. Many of the best beach volleyball players in the world are from Brazil. That is certainly connected with the fact that the country has so many beaches and that people really like to exercise there. In every beach you can probably find at least one volleyball court.
Basketball Brazil is also regarded as a major force in basketball, having won the Men's World Championship twice, the Women's World Championship once, and turning out some impressive performances at many other competitions including the Olympic Games.
Some of Brazil's most famous basketball
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players became well known abroad. Oscar Schmidt was the first basketball player to compete in five Olympic Games, and in three of them he was the top scorer. Oscar's nickname is "Mão Santa" ("Holy Hand"). In fact, Oscar has scored more than 48,000 points throughout his professional career - more than anyone else in the world.
On the women's side, Paula and Hortência were Brazil's most famous players. They
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Tennis Tennis is also quite popular in Brazil. If you like tennis, you might have heard of Gustavo Kuerten.
Gustavo, or "Guga" as he is commonly known, has won the French Open three times (1997, 2000, and 2001) and reached the number one spot in tennis in the year 2000.
Another famous Brazilian name in tennis is Maria Ester Bueno, who won eight titles at Wimbledon - three singles (1959/60/64) and five doubles (1958/60/63/65/66) - and four times at the US Open.
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Motor Racing Brazil has a long standing tradition of victories and accomplishments when it comes to motor racing.
In Formula 1 alone, the highest category of motor racing, Brazilian drivers have won 8 titles out of 33 possible. Emerson Fittipaldi was Brazil's first F 1 C h a m p i o n (1972 and 1974). After him came the three-times world champion Nelson Piquet (1981, 1983 and 1987), and then Ayrton Senna, who also won it three times (1988, 1990 and 1991).
Ayrton Senna died in a race in 1994. Many people consider him to be the greatest driver of all times.
In Indy Car motor racing category Brazilian
165 BRAZIL drivers have won the famous Indy500 race five times. If you follow motor racing today, you still will find many Brazilian drivers. In Formula 1 there is Rubens Barrichello, Felipe Massa, Ricardo Zonta, and Atonio Pizzonia, and in Indy Car Racing you have Gil de Ferran, Helio Castroneves, Tony Kanaan, Felipe Giaffone, Bruno Junqueira and many others.
Brazil is also very strong in other sports. Martial Arts, for instance, are very popular in B r a z i l , a n d B r a z i l i a n athletes have conquered many medals playing judo. Brazilians also excelled in other styles, João Derly, Brazilian Judoca such as MMA.
Yatching is also popular in Brazil, and the country has many popular and gold medals athletes on this modality, such as Lars Grael and Robert Scheidt. Since we are talking about water sports, swimming is very popular in Brazil, and many Olympic medals swimmers are 166 BRAZIL
Brazilians. Gustavo Borges, Xuxa and César Cielo, which is now considered the best swimmer on the world are all Brazilians.
Polo, a very dear sport for Pakistanis, is also played in Brazil, especially on the South, since Brazilians are very fond of sports with horses. Many other sports are played in Brazil, since Brazilians are a very active people!
Robert Scheidt and Cesar Cielo
What are the various traditional games of Brazilian kids? Like most of the countries of the world, traditional games are also very popular amongst the young and old also by Traditional games are enjoyed by children throughout Brazil. They are both indoor and outdoor. Following are few of the traditional games that 167 BRAZIL are only played by Children in Brazil.
Queimada: This game is famous all over Brazil and has no age limit meaning that although this game is for kids but adult also love to play. The word is Portuguese and it means “ burned,” it is popular and similar to dogeball that's played on a open field. To play this game, you form two teams. Each team has a field and there is a place called the cemetery. One person from each team starts in the cemetery, so he's dead. The rest of the team starts in the field.
The person who is at the cemetery always starts the game by throwing a ball to the opposite side where his partners are. The "living people" from this team have to catch the ball and throw it against the other team. If someone from the opposite team touches the ball, he is burnt, so he is dead. The "dead ones" go to the cemetery, and the game finishes when every "living person" from one team dies. I played this game a lot when I was around eight years old. I would call all my friends, and we would spend all afternoon long playing!
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Hit the coin : Place a 12- to 18-inch bamboo stick (or use a dowel) into the ground (you could make a stand or use a Christmas tree stand indoors). Draw a circle about five inches in diameter around the pole. Place a coin or bottle cap on top of the stick. The players stands about four feet away from the stick and tries to knock the object off the stick by throwing a coin at it. The object is to knock the coin off the stick to the outside of the 5 inch circle.
Peteca Peteca is best described as badminton without the racquets. The players use their hands to hit the special shuttlecock over a net. Your game could use a traditional Peteca, but the player tries to land it in a target, such as a basket.
And next Rio de Janeiro has been chosen to host the 2016 Olympic Games — the first time ever that the games will take place in South America. In 2014 Brazil will also be hosting the biggest competition in football: the World Cup. 169