Video: CR Flamengo, Brasil!! Short video about Flamengo at the Maracana.

Im a big fan of the Black and Red football team in England, you may not know but it's the mighty AFC Bournemouth. They wear the same colours as a team from Rio de Janeiro Clube de Regatas do Flamengo also know as Mengão or Rubro Negro.
I had the pleasure whilst living in Rio to visit the Maracana on numerous occasions to watch Flamengo play teams like Santos, Atletico Minerio, Cruzeiro, Fluminense, Vasco de Gama and more.
The thing about this for me was that my home team was playing their first season in the Premier League and I was going to miss maybe the whole season. I'd waited 30 years to see them in the Premier League but now I was living in Brasil, desperate to watch a team in red and black play in front of me like back home in Bournemouth I went to the Maracana the home Stadium of Brasil,Fluminense and until 2017 Flamengo. The stadium can hold 80,000 but majority of the time playing the small teams in Serie A it wasn't full but still the atmosphere in the stadium is great, it was when the big teams and rivalries came to the Maracana that the stadium was electric. At every game I was in the North End or Norte as they would say, this is the part of the stadium where you have the torcidas (Ultras) who wave the huge flags and sing, at Bournemouth this is called the Steve Fletcher Stand but nothing like this.
Being the only gringo that I could see I would be surrounded by different torcidas every game depending on where I chose to stand, yes thats right you don’t have to sit down in your seats you can stand without being pestered by security, you can’t drink alcohol but thats a good thing.
I never once saw any trouble at the games even when Mengão were performing awful, the scariest thing I saw was military police with huge rifles and ARs.

Getting to the Maracana is easy as you can take the metro and now the metro route is bigger and goes as far as San Corado.

I recorded lots of footage on my motorola whilst at the games and have edited it in to a short video so you can see how its done in Brasil. Hope you enjoy.

One tip if you go to Rio and want to watch a match buy your ticket from the Flamengo ticket office in Gavea/Leblon next to Rodrigo de Fretas, its a wonderful experience to line up with real fans, you can choose where you want to sit and your not paying over the odds for a organised trip, only difference is now is Mengão have moved to a stadium near Galeão which is hard to get to and they now only have 20,000 capacity.

Im now back in the UK and will get to see my Bournemouth team compete for the 3rd year in the english top flight.