When you marry someone, you marry into their family, their
country and their culture. When you
marry a Brazilian, this will usually include football. Not only do you have a cast-iron excuse for
supporting Brazil, but you will more than likely pick up a new league team as
well. For me, this team is Atlético
Paranaense, nicknamed Furacão (hurricane.)
Everyone knows about the Brazilian national football team –
they’re the most successful national side with 5 World Cups under their belts
and are known for their flair and skill.
Not so much in the 2014 World Cup, but I’ll gloss over that for
now. Surprisingly, though, not so many
people outside Brazil are aware of leagues in Brazil.
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| The 20 teams in the 2015 Brasileirão |
The main event is the Campeonato Brasileiro, Brazilian
Championship, which is divided into 4 leagues from Séria A to Séria D with a
system of relegations and promotions between the leagues. The top tier is Séria A, often known as
Brasileirão and usually runs from May to December. Earlier in the year, before the Brasileirão
begins, each state holds its own championship.
The state championships of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are usually
hotly contested as these states have a large number of top flight teams. In some other states, the competition is
sometimes derided as a waste of time as the league is usually dominated by one
or two top flight teams with the remainder typically playing in the lower
leagues of the Campeonato Brasileiro.
The Campeonato Paranaense is one of these leagues. The state of Paraná has two teams in the
Brasileirão; Atlético Paranaense and Coritiba (nicknamed Coxa); one team in
Séria B; Paraná (which together with Atlético and Coritiba forms the top three
clubs from the state capital Curitiba) and 9 other teams from around the state
that play in leagues lower than Séria B in the Campeonato Brasileiro.
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| State flag of Paraná |
Usually this leads to a one-sided competition contested by
the top 3 teams, indeed in 102 competitions, between them, the top 3 from
Curitiba have won 88 titles and came second 61 times. All of which makes Atlético’s recent form
come as a surprise, having won 2 and lost 5 of their 9 games this year (as of
17th March 2015), and languishing in 9th place out of 12
and, embarrassingly, in the relegation zone.
I’ve been following Atlético and watching them on tv for a
few years now and I hoped the team would be in a better form than this for my
first match at the Arena da Baixada.
Still, the opponents for the match were Maringá – a team from Séria D of
the Campeonato Brasileiro and also skimming the relegation zone – hopefully
Atlético would wake up and get a long awaited victory. Fingers crossed…
We met some friends in a bar directly opposite the
stadium. The allegiances of the bar
could never be called into doubt with Atlético’s signature black and red
colours everywhere and memorabilia on the walls. Fans drifted in and the bar gradually filled
with a variety of team shirts from official replicas covering the last several
years to classic team shirts to supporter’s t-shirts. No two shirts were the same! After a beer or few, we made our way to the
stadium.
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| Supporters in the bar before kick-off |
After the anthems, it’s time for kick off and the bateria
(the ever present drums) begin. The bateria
enhances the atmosphere of the game and gets everyone in the mood. To my left, behind Atlético’s goal, the
Fanáticos (the die-hard Atlético fans) were singing, jumping, and holding giant
skulls. The two main themes of the songs
are how much they love Atlético and insulting their rivals, Coxa. As the songs involve a certain amount of
swearing, I won’t transcribe them here.
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| The Fanáticos - die-hard Atlético supporters |
The optimism was premature though, as numerous defending
mistakes led to an equaliser for Maringá.
I’m sure their fans here happy although there were only between 10 and
20 of them, so the net result was stunned silence. Around this point, Atlético seemed to fall
apart, giving away possession and making school-boy mistakes. The boo-ing of the crowd at the half-time
whistle said it all.
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| Fanáticos with their backs turned |
The second half continued in much the same fashion as the
first ended. Players were falling out of
position leaving empty spaces for the Maringá players to move into. Maringá made the most of these chances and it
wasn’t long before they went 2-1 up against the home side. The Fanáticos showed their disappointment by
turning their backs (and the skulls) to the team while they continued to
sing. It didn’t take long before the
singing focussed on how badly the team were playing and how angry the fans
were: “s*** team” and “f*** off” to the team’s coach and president. While the frustration that the fans felt is
understandable, such chants took a clear toll on the morale of the players,
making more and more silly mistakes. The
game was turning into a farce and several fans left early in disgust.
In the last 10-15 min, Atlético appeared to receive a second
wind and took to the offensive once again, playing with skill and attacking
Maringá’s goal, but it was too little, too late. The damage had been done and they were unable
to beat the keeper in what little time remained.
After the whistle, the stadium echoed to the sound of
boo-ing and chants against the coach.
After such a bad run in games that should have been easy, it was clear
that something had to change. Indeed the
day after the game, it was announced that the coach, Claudinei Oliveira, was
leaving the club and a day after that, a new coach, Enderson Moreira, was
announced.
It’s never fun to watch your team lose,
especially in a game that they should easily win, but the atmosphere of the
stadium along with the experience of watching a game with friends (who accused
me of being Mick Jagger – dooming the game with my presence) made for an
enjoyable experience. I really hope the
new coach can inspire them to improve and steer away from relegation to the
second division of the Campeonato Paranaense, which would be the ultimate
embarrassment. And of course, in a
couple of months, the Brasileirão begins – fingers crossed….
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| Inside the Arena da Baixada, Atlético Paranaense's home stadium |
