São Paulo: a football capital of the world

Brazil’s biggest city not only has a wealth of football stadia, but its history with the game goes all the way back to the nineteenth century. Football arrived in Brazil through São Paulo, and the city’s culture developed the sport hand in hand for well over a century. With the FIFA World Cup just around the corner, we take a closer look at the city’s football history and culture, and at the diverse range of stadia that make the city the go-to-place for football-related 

Brazil – a world champion 

So how did São Paulo introduce football to Brazil? Legend has it that the first football arrived in the 1890s in the hands of Brazilian Charles Miller, born in São Paulo to a Scottish father who had come to the city to work for the São Paulo Railway Company. After spending a few years in the UK, he brought back with him the ball that would kick-off the sport in what is now considered the “country of football”.

During the first decades of the 20th century, football practice was still the reserve of the upper-classes. This continued until várzeas (floodplains) outside of São Paulo’s wealthiest areas were used to make the sport accessible to all. The floodplains were on the city’s outskirts – fields that would become pitches when the river levels went down, allowing working-class paulistanos to take part in the sport. 

From the 1920s onwards, várzea pitches sprang up all around town, becoming a meeting point for immigrant and Afro-Brazilian communities, both to play sport and for social gatherings at the weekends. Every neighbourhood had two or three várzea pitches. Over the years, this amateur practice turned professional as teams and tournaments grew. Notable examples of clubs that started in this period include Corinthians, which now has the country’s second largest fan base, and was born as a várzea team on the banks of the Tamanduatei River and named after one of London’s amateur clubs. 

Charles Miller, who introduced football to Brazil, became enshrined in Brazilian football history when his name was given to the São Paulo square on which the Pacaembu Stadium was built in the 1940s. It hosted the 1950 FIFA World Cup and was considered, at the time, the most modern of Latin America’s stadia.

Today, Pacaembu Stadium is home to one of Brazil’s most visited museums — the Museu do Futebol (Football Museum), which delights visitors of all ages with its immersion in “the beautiful game”. 

Pacaembu Stadium photo by Prefeitura de São Paulo