Flamengo

Time for a sports blog.  I’m not really much of a sports fan, but I do follow the NFL and professional soccer.  With the Super Bowl done, now the NFL season is over (Pro Bowl? ZZZZ) so I can focus on soccer again, particularly the Rio State Championships (Campeonata Carioca) going on in Brazil.  So I’ll devote this entry to my favorite Brazilian soccer team, Flamengo.

 Flamengo is from the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which is within the state of Rio Janeiro; these are two separate entities, likewise there is the city of São Paulo and the state of São Paulo.  It originally formed in the neighborhood of the same name, which is northeast of Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon.  Later they moved to Gavea/Leblon (kind of straddling both neighborhoods) and have a large, modern complex there which faces onto the lagoon.  My friend Leila lived in Leblon from 2004-2007 and was close enough to hear the games – we even visited the complex when I went to visit her in 2005.  However, the field there only holds 8,000 and is pretty much a joke, which is not a big deal as the team plays most of its home games at Maracana Stadium, which holds 95,000 as currently set up, though the original capacity was closer to 200,000.  The team is not only the most popular in Rio de Janeiro itself, but also in Brazil, making them pretty much the Dallas Cowboys of Brazilian soccer – always popular no matter how badly they suck.  Their main rivals are the other three teams in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Fluminense, Botafogo, and Vasco da Gama.  In fact, the club began in 1895, though as a rowing club at that time.  They only started playing soccer in 1911, stealing players from Fluminense to start off.  The classic “Fla-Flu” (Flamengo vs. Fluminense) game is one of Brazil’s top rivalries, and I was lucky enough to see the game at Maracana in February 2004, won by Flamengo 4-3, on the same day as the Patriots-Panthers Super Bowl.  Romario was actually playing in this game – for Fluminense. 

 While the team has a wide fan base, its most notorious core are the favelados (slum dwellers) and traficantes (drug dealers), whereas Fluminense is more closely associated with the “playboys”, as the richer segment of Rio de Janeiro is disparagingly referred to by the favelados. 

 The team uniform is black & red horizontal stripes, thus the nickname “rubro-negro”, as well as “Mengão”.  Popular chants in Maracana are “MEN-GO!” (the reply to “NEN-SE!!” from the Fluminense crowd) and “uma vez Flamengo, Flamengo ate morrer!” (one time Flamengo, Flamengo until death!).  The current jersey is made by Nike, the away jersey is white, and the current sponsor is Petrobras, the state-owned oil company of Brazil.  I have a 2000 season red/black home jersey from Umbro – the first soccer jersey I ever bought, on my first trip to Rio de Janeiro in June 2000 - and a later 2004 season white away jersey from Nike; I also  got my brother and his son each a home jersey, and his older daughter a skirt. 

 Its most memorable player was Zico (Arthur Antunes Coimbra), who holds the club record for goals, 508, more than twice the next runner up.  He played with them from 1971-83, then again from 1985-89 after two seasons with Udinese in Italy – almost 18 years. More recently, Zico was the coach of the Japanese national team in the 2006 World Cup and now coaches CSKA Moscow. Romario played for the team briefly – off and on between 1995 and 1999, scoring 204 goals for the team. 

 Flamengo’s best era was 1978-1983.  As much as the national championship, now known as the Campeonato Brasileiro (aka “Brasileirão”), the Brazilian teams also compete strenuously in the state championships, which for Flamengo is the Campaneato Carioca, split up into two phases, the Taça Guanabara, and the Taça Rio.  After 1978 they won this three times in a row, and won the national championship in 1980, 1982, 1983, 1987, and 1992.  They also compete against the other Latin American teams in the Copa Libertadores, which is the Western Hemisphere’s equivalent of Europe’s Champions League – in fact, the winners of each play each other in a sort of soccer Super Bowl, the World Club Championship.  In 1981 Flamengo won not only the Copa Libertadores, but also beat Liverpool in this championship.

 An odd thing about Flamengo is that the “franchise”, if you could call it that, also plays other sports.  There are Flamengo teams for rowing (obviously), basketball (mens & womens – I have a Flamengo basketball tank top), swimming, volleyball (men & women’s), gymnastics and fencing. 

 Unfortunately I can’t watch any of the games.  I don’t have TV Globo, as my condo faces the wrong way to mount the correct DishNetwork satellite, and Brazilian games are rarely shown on Fox Sports World or GolTV; the latter seems to be showing Paulista (São Paulo state) games when I’m at work.