Commonly called Estádio do Maracanã ("Maracanã stadium"), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is one of the largest football stadiums in the world. It is named after the Maracanã neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro. It was opened in 1950 to host the FIFA World Cup. Since then, it has mainly been used for football matches between the biggest football clubs in Rio de Janeiro, including Flamengo, Botafogo, Fluminense. It has also hosted a number of concerts and other sporting events. Although the paid attendance at the deciding game of the 1950 FIFA World Cup was 199,500, the stadium currently seats 95,000 spectators.
It will host the World Cup Final in 2014, becoming the second stadium to host football's most important match twice after the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City.
We watched a Flamego vs Boa Vista. The fans of Boa Vista were about 10 which seemed to shrink as Flamengo took the game 2-0. The amazing thing about this game is the fans. For the entire game, half time, before and after they did not stop chanting, sings, dancing, waving giant flags and the drums. Even had some fireworks like lighting things. It was crazy and I have never seen fans like this. We loved it. Briel and I with our mate Dominique danced, chanted along with them. Standing the entire game while downing loads of beers. Can't wait to see it again!
We did the game with the hostel paying 60 reals as they said it might be dangerous. However it is not, you can catch a metro to the stadium and pay just 15-20 reals for the game itself. However like all sporting events the mad traffic of people waiting for transport after is nuts and for this alone I didn't mind paying the gringo price.
On July 19, 1992, an upper stand in the stadium collapsed, leading to the death of three supporters and 50 more being injured. Following the disaster, the stadium's capacity was greatly reduced as it was converted to an all-seater stadium in the late 1990s. Despite this, the ground was classified as real estate in 1998, meaning that it could not be demolished. It officially can seat 95,000 spectators.
