Yesterday on a sports TV show, Bruno, our goalkeeper said that “The fans are certainly important, supporting up there, but sometimes hinders us a little” when he was asked about the pressure the players faced when they got into the field last Sunday and were welcomed b 90.000 fans expecting a victory and therefore the leading two rounds away from the end of the season.

If you read this you’ll probably get the wrong idea. What he meant is that the team must not get careless and try to not get too excited with the crowd.

I am one of these fans that before the match said Flamengo had great chances of becoming leaders, but we had be cautious, because on the recent seasons Flamengo show lack of decision power. Although I was very excited (and still am, as you can read on this link).

Bruno’s entire sentence was “I think that for a moment there was a little lack of concentration and luck. We had to be a little more patient. The work is being done very well by Andrade. We knew it would be difficult, Goiás has experienced players. And it was one of their best presentations this season”.

He also said that when the team gets to a crowded Maracanã, expecting a victory, there are some players that deal very well with the pressure and some others don’t handle it so greatly.

Although I’m not always a great fan of Bruno – because he tends to say stupid things and to fail on some matches – I have to admit he is doing a spectacular season and that this time he said the right words.

Fans must understand that the players are human beings and have emotions. Thankfully we didn’t lose the match and are only a point away from the leaders, but now it’s time to show that all we’ve done this year was a job done by a great team with decisive players.

I don’t wanna talk about the game. We played not so well and now São Paulo must lose another match so we can still have a chance.

As I said, I can still fell it.

I wasn’t even going to write, but the supporters made such an outstanding show, that I have to show you some pictures and two videos.

These are not colored seats. This is a mosaic. And if you are asking “What the fuck is written there?” I can tell you. It’s something like “The world’s most numerous fans group makes the difference”.

That tonight’s gonna be a good night. Well. Not on a Black Eyed Peas way of good night. I don’t expect a victory, but having in mind that we had a clean sheet for the last 6 matches, I expect another tonight, and even though we are going to face our inglorious brothers who never honored the red and the black, we will play in their stadium. We played against them 50 times, winning 31 matches and losing only 8. But I wouldn’t be so surprised if we win.

As I might’ve already said, the city of Rio de Janeiro has a little more than 6 million people, and the State of Rio de Janeiro has around 16 million. So, Flamengo’s supporters are most located out of Rio. Part of these supporters lives northeast and there they have traditional teams (although having no titles) such as Vitória, Sport, Bahia (the only one with a National League title) and their fans hate the fact that Flamengo has more supporters there than they have.

The picture bellow is from the last year’s match against Vitória. There is a completely full part of the stadium and other that is not so full of people. You have one chance to guess on which part of the stadium our fans are. There is a white banner (poster, flag, band, and don’t know how you call it) that says “VERGONHA DO NORDESTE”, something like “Northeastern Shame”.

That happens not only when we play against Vitória. Also happens when we go to Recife, play against Sport, and this season, when we went to Goiânia to match Goiás, their manager said that he hate those people that was born there and support teams from Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo.

Vitória’s fans already said that they will have a new banner o tonight’s match. Some say it will be more aggressive, some say it won’t attack our supporters so directely, but the thing is that Flamengo, as the biggest Brazilian team has to protect its fans and sometimes support them.

You can see it here.

And I’ll show you some videos. They were recorded last Sunday. The first three videos were from the moment the team got into the field. The last one is when Adriano scores.