SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazilian soccer club Corinthians, which is making its stadium available for the first NFL game in South America, likes everything green so much that its managers tried painting the field black about a decade ago.
Players can be fined if caught wearing clothing or shoes of this colour, and sponsors will have to adapt if they want to be associated with a club that has more than 35 million fans.
All this is done to prevent Corinthians fans from making any reference to local rivals Palmeiras, with whom they have been at loggerheads for over a century.
On Friday, however, the NeoQuimica Arena will be bathed in green when the Green Bay Packers and the Philadelphia Eagles play the second game of the NFL season in Sao Paulo.
The Eagles are the designated host team and, to attract some Brazilian fans, they will wear black helmets, white jerseys and black shorts – the colors of Corinthians.
A Corinthians representative told The Associated Press on Sunday that the move came in response to a request from the president, who claimed green was only allowed for visiting teams. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The Packers will play in their traditional white, yellow and green jerseys – similar to the colors of the Brazilian national flag.
Earlier Thursday, the Packers made a faux pas by giving Corinthians goalkeeper Hugo Souza a green Packers jersey with the Brazilian club’s name on the back, angering many of their fans on social media.
Many Palmeiras supporters, who are among the 42,000 spectators expected to attend the game, have declared on their social media channels that they will definitely wear green, many of them cheering for the Packers after the Eagles decided to forgo their usual colors.
“Corinthians and Palmeiras are branches of the same tree. The rivalry between them has existed since 1917, before they played each other for the first time and Palmeiras was still called Palestra Italia,” said Celso Unzelte, who has written or co-written 24 books on football. “Corinthians was founded in 1910 and Palestra Italia came four years later after bringing together players of Italian origin from several other clubs in Sao Paulo. One of them was a great Corinthians player, Bianco Gambini. He became a great player for Palestra Italia too and really soured the relationship.”
Since Gambini moved to Palmeiras, the rivalry between the two Sao Paulo football giants only grew, as they often played for trophies. The animosity between them reached a new peak in 1969, when a car crash killed two Corinthians players: 22-year-old defender Lidu and 24-year-old striker Eduardo.
The Sao Paulo State Championship was underway and Corinthians wanted to bring in two new players to replace the injured ones. All the other clubs agreed, except one.
“I don’t say the name of that club and I haven’t worn green since then,” said 75-year-old Renato Messina, a journalist and former Corinthians academy player. “It was hard for my father because he supported that other club. Whenever he wore their shirt, I didn’t go near him. I’ve never forgotten how they refused to be good sportsmen in that case. I don’t care about football in the slightest, but I’ll watch it just to cheer for whoever wears green.”
Green has been a banned colour wherever Corinthians played since the 1970s, when it was common to hear chants of “take it off” when an unwary fan appeared in the stands wearing this colour. The tradition is so deeply rooted in the club’s culture that only visiting players and fans wear green at matches at the NeoQuimica Arena.
The rejection of green has become even more evident at Corinthians in recent years, as the club struggled financially and Palmeiras won major titles. A decade ago, the two were in opposing roles, but even then the zero-green policy still applied.
In December 2012, just days after Palmeiras were relegated to the second division, then-South American champions Corinthians were scheduled to face English club Chelsea in the final of the Club World Cup in Japan. The Brazilian team rejected the green warm-up vests offered to them by the tournament organizers. Corinthians ended up using the red ones that Chelsea had originally received. The Brazilians won 1-0.
Claudia Luane was one of those fans who traveled to Tokyo 12 years ago. She has regularly attended Corinthians games over the past two decades. She travels with the team when she can, avoids wearing green most of the time and cheers against Palmeiras “in every sport possible.” But she won’t be cheering against the Packers – the only community-owned team in the NFL.
“I like that a lot of ordinary people run a football team. The Packers seem to be a people’s team. We are too. That’s more important than the colors they wear,” said 43-year-old Luane, dressed all in black, ahead of Corinthians’ 2-1 win over Flamengo in a Brazilian league match on Sunday. “We are fighting against relegation this year and our rival is fighting for the title once again. But do you see that crowd? The stadium is full again. I’m sure the Packers have the same vibe.”
Even if they wear green.
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