Brazil Sports and Recreation

FUTEBOL
Brazil’s unmatched World Cup record and its footballers’ playfully improvisational style have brought Brazilian soccer global renown, and today Brazil sends abroad more footballers than ambassadors. Brazil’s vastness has stymied the development of a national league, and Brazilian futebol remains heavily local. Brazil has the world’s most football clubs per capita, and this has kept fandom immediate and intense: each team usually travels with an entourage of anywhere from a few to a few hundred fans, whose presence and antics have become as much a part of the match as the game itself. Brazil has also spawned many futebol variants, including futsal (a faster, more intense soccer played on an indoor basketball court with a smaller, harder ball) and futebol da praia (futebol on the beach), both with their own leagues and championships. For a time in the 70s, Brazil’s elite even played autoball, soccer played with automobiles and a person-sized inflatable ball. Some Brazilians complain that the sport—particularly at the youth level—has grown more institu¬tional and regulated over the years, and that the increasing shortage of public space has made informal pickup games all but impossible to arrange, but no one questions the sincerity or intensity of Brazil’s love for futebol.

CAPOEIRA
Brazil’s slave population first developed this martial art, and the domestic and international popularity of capoeira has surged since Brazil’s government overturned its longstanding anti-capoeira stance in the early 1930s. Capoeira disguises its combat techniques as ritual dance and correspondingly looks little like either Western boxing or wrestling or Eastern fighting styles: it almost exclusively emphasizes foot techniques and lacks blocks, and so players rely on acrobatic dodges and even more acrobatic counter-strikes. Capoeiristas gather into rodas (circles) and provide musical accompaniment for the two combatants in the roda’s center, but sparring is non-contact, competition is more friendly than fierce, and onlookers are often welcome.

BEACH SPORTS
Brazil’s more than 7000km of coastline is studded with thou¬sands of beaches fit for surfing, windsurfing, and the more unusual kite surfing and sand surfing. Droves of northern-hemisphere surfers descend upon them December through March, filling hotspots like Búzios, Saquarema, Angra dos Reis, and Arraial do Cabo. Scuba diving is also popular with locals and travelers, and most seaside destinations will have several agencies offering both expeditions and certification. Beach volleyball is played on beaches all over the country, and increasingly common on beaches is futevolei, a sport similar to beach volleyball if volleyball were played entirely with the feet; despite its obvious difficulty, the sport’s popularity continues to grow.