Museu do Futebol-São Paulo

Hello World!

Last week I went to the Museu do Futebol with some of my friends from school after class (Luiz was working, unfortunately) and it was really cool so I thought I would share a bit about it here.

xo Jessica

The Museu do Futebol or Museum of Soccer/Football, is located under the stands of Pacaembu Stadium (the soccer/football stadium where Corinthians and Palmeiras currently play). We went last Thursday so admission was free, every other day of the week it is R$6/US$2.50 for general admission or R$3/US$1 for those with a student ID or over the age of 60. 

When you walk into the museum, you are greeted by the one and only Pelé (by video of course). Before I tell you about the museum, I first want to apologize for the quality of the pictures I am going to post up with this post. There is a rule in the museum of no picture taking although I'm not sure why (and I did take some pictures... oops!). Therefore, while walking through the museum I had to sneak pictures with my iPhone, which was not the easiest task, especially with the very low lighting that is all throughout in order for the projections to show up better. So basically, I wanted to apologize in advance.

Anyways, the first room you go in is dedicated entirely to the greats of Brazilian soccer/football. Hanging from the ceiling are tons of sheets of thin fabric with the images of these famous soccer players projected on to them along with a small biography. 

Room #1, Brazilian Soccer/Football Greats

After passing through this room, you come into an area filled with booths where you can stand under a speaker and watch various moments in Brazilian club and national team soccer/football history narrated by journalists, news anchors, former players, etc. 

Once you have had your fill of marveling at just how amazing Brazil is at soccer you exit this area and head up the stairs. If only all of the stairways in the world were this exciting. Projected on the walls (which are actually the bottoms of the stadium's bleachers) are videos of the fans for some of the most famous Brazilian club teams. The acoustics under the bleachers created a surround sound experience making you feel like you were watching these crazy Brazilian soccer fans live and I loved it! I have only been to one or two matches during my time here and they were not nearly so exciting (since they were not very big games) but I really want to go to a game where the stands are this crazy. Fireworks going off, dances, music, chants, every single fan moving together as one in support of their team. I just do not think that there is anything quite like it. 

The stairway with the projections of the fans for each team

After you have watched every teams fans 3x, you can head through the doors to an area filled with tons of pictures that have been taken throughout the history of Brazil of the different famous people (not just footballers) and of famous locations. I am still not entirely sure as to how this fits into the soccer/football theme but that is okay, it was interesting nonetheless. 

A small look at the pictures that covered an entire room from floor to ceiling

The final informational room is reachable by passing through a short video of "the moment all of Brazil cried". What it is is important clips from the final game of the 1950 FIFA World Cup hosted in Brazil. The final match was between Uruguay and Brazil and all Brazil needed to win the World Cup was a tie or win, they just could not lose and the title would be theirs. When they scored the first goal the stadium erupted in cheers, everyone looking forward to their team holding up the trophy. Not too long after Uruguay came back and scored to tie it up. Not letting this one goal get them down (since they only needed a tie to win) the Brazilians were still sure that they would come out on top. With 11 minutes left in the match, Uruguay scored. 2-1. Brazil was down and they would not be able to come back from that in order to win the tournament.

If you would like to learn more about this match here is a video from FIFA's youtube channel about the stadium that this match was hosted in and the future stadium of the finals for the World Cup 2014. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_wwxwaUqQk

After watching the video, we headed through to a room full of all of the events from every year that there was a world cup along with replays of the tournament. Getting to see what was going on around the world during each tournament as well as the main points was really interesting since I wasn't born until the 90s and obviously missed many of these historic moments.

Since it was getting late we decided to head out so that we wouldn't get caught taking the metro during rush hour. Our final stop before the exit was an interactive soccer/football match that was projected on to the ground for people to stop and play with. It was a fun way to end our visit.

My recommendation: Go! Even if you aren't a soccer fan, it is a very cool museum that you could easily spend a whole afternoon in. Situated in an art deco style stadium it is a very cool experience and I think would be made even better by attending a match afterward.