It's Brazil Day. It can be seen from the morning: many green and gold shirts around. I start the day with a trip to the FIFA Fan Festival, where I see some footage of Cameroon-Serbia, which the commentators will end up calling "probably the best MATCH so far". So I think back that one disadvantage of watching live events is that you can watch fewer races than you would on TV. Of course, however, that applies if you have nothing else to do at home: if I hadn't come here, I wouldn't have seen that match anyway because I would have been working. I then pass by Souq Waqif, where you can mostly see Ecuadorians singing and celebrating their team.
I start heading towards the stadium around 5.30: I think I have a good margin. Already at the entrance to the metro you can see the green-gold tide. I don't know how many of these are actually Brazilians, but definitely a minority. There's a crowd in the station, there's also a lot of police, like we have never been seen before. and the same will then be around the stadium (let's make it clear, nothing comparable to an Italian league match, even if not a risky one). They encourage us to enter the trains up to the capacity limit: I thought they would even push us, but then they don't (and in any case we are less crammed than in Rome at rush hour).
I leave the metro shortly after 8pm and the stadium doesn't seem that far away, so I think that finally, for once, I won't enter at the last minute. I was wrong. Stadium 974 (from the country's telephone code, therefore in Italy it would be Stadium 39) is temporary: it will be dismantled after the World Cup (they told the same of all stadiums, before the Cup was awarded to them) and it shows: it is full of pipes and containers in plain sight. Arriving at the check, at each gate they tell you to go to the next one, despite the fact that there are plenty of room; the long coils they had prepared are filled to no more than a quarter. Needless to say, they make us go in the opposite direction of my gate. When they finally let us in, the queue runs fast, I still think I have a good margin. But here the problems begin: they empty my rucksack, leaf through my books and tell me that I have to leave a few things in the deposit: some souvenirs that I had bought during the day (and it may make sense), but also the books and magazine La Settimana Enigmistica (Puzzle Week). La Settimana Enigmistica! At least I convince them to leave me the binoculars, pointing out that they are needed to watch the match (then I won't use them). And they also only opened one pocket, guess if they'd opened the other too.
I was desperate fearing that the deposit was on the opposite side, but they reassure me that I'll be quick and I won't have to queue again. Actually the deposit is closer than feared, there is no queue and they are very kind. The problem will be on the way back: first it takes me a while to convince them not to let me stand in line again (however short, almost everyone had already entered), then they open the backpack again, also the other pocket, and look at some things with suspicion (including binoculars). I'm starting to fear they'll make me go back to the warehouse and I think it's time I'll react badly and risk to be arrested.
Instead they let me through, but it's 6.45 pm and my gate is on the other side. I also make it worse going to the wrong one: I was convinced that mine was 4, instead it was 5. Then there are four flights of stairs to climb: I arrive exhausted. I'm still in the hallways when I hear the anthems playing and the Brazilian one being sung, and I still have to go to the bathroom. My seat is quite high, and I have to make my way through 16 seats that are almost all full, but I manage to get there just before kick-off. The regret remains of never having seen all the preliminaries of a match.
I'm about halfway into the second deck (out of two). It will continue to fill up even after the match has started, but some empty seats will remain, especially in the first ring, but also a bit in my sector (the seat on my left will also remain empty). Eventually they will announce about 43,000 spectators, which means that the stadium has more or less the same capacity as the first two I saw: it seemed bigger to me. You can see some red-crossed patches in the green-gold tide, especially in the first deck. Throughout the match, only Brazilian cheering will be heard: the Swiss will be seen singing and waving their flags, but they will always be overwhelmed
In the first half, Brazil attacks to my side. Many stand up when they approach the opponent's area, which rarely happens in the first half: they will take the first shot on goal in the 26th minute (against none of the opponents anyway) At halftime they will say that the Swiss goalkeeper will have made two "goal preventions", which I didn't understand if it's a different concept from "saves" and, if so, what the difference is. The stats they give in these World Cups are a bit strange. At halftime I don't think about moving: I'm still tired from the finish line. There's a singer performing: I see him on the screen, but I can't figure out where he is physically.
Play resumes, and Brazil takes a risk, with the ball remaining in his area for a while, without the Swiss being able to shoot. In the 10th minute Richarlison misses a catch from a few steps away. In the 22nd minute Rodrygo scores with a nice diagonal shot, but after two minutes of celebrations, on the pitch and in the stands, with the ball already in midfield, we realize that there is a VAR control. The goal was disallowed for offside, but the Swiss almost restarted from midfield: if I understand correctly, the offside was in a previous pass, not in the last. With about ten minutes to go, you see people starting to leave: it really seems incomprehensible to me, in such an important match and still balanced. In fact, the goals arrive shortly after, with Casimiro who takes advantage of a small space and slips into the corner. The Swiss are unable to react: the last minutes are a monologue, on the pitch as in the stands.
At the exit I have to go against the tide to get to the deposit, also fearing not to find it, having come out from a different point than the entrance. In the end I find it quite easily and immediately recover my stuff, but then I have to go back around in the opposite direction to get to the metro. There is a 20-minute queue to enter the metro: you pass the time with two folk shows, one with Arab swordsmen and one with Kenyan dances.
We have come to the end. When and where will be next time? At the next World Cup, to see five games I would have to stop for a couple of weeks or make long journeys. In any case, for the first time I leave a stadium sure that I will never go back, since in a few months it will no longer be there (ok, those who visited the Eiffel Tower in 1889 also said it...).
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