SÃO PAULO, Brazil – In the narrow streets of Allianz Parque, hundreds of Palmeiras fans huddled, craning their necks to try to take a look at any television screen they encountered. The pandemic prevented them from reaching the final in Rio de Janeiro. But it also meant that they were not even allowed into the bars and restaurants, which are restricted to food delivery on weekends.
Instead, fans improvised. Some of them, residents of apartment buildings and houses around the stadium, home of their beloved Palmeiras soccer team, tilted their screens so they could be seen on the streets. Other fans flocked outside bars and cafes, cradled face to face, flags draped over their shoulders.
His thoughts were 300 kilometers away, in the suffocating heat of Rio, inside the famous Maracanã, where his team faced rival Santos in the final of the Copa Libertadores, for the highest award in South American football.
In a normal world, of course, many of them would be there, reaching tens of thousands, by plane, car and road, just to be there, to decorate the spiritual home of Brazilian football in green and white. After all, that was a historic moment: the first time since 2006 that the Libertadores final was played by two Brazilian teams, and the first time that it was played by two São Paulo teams.
The vast majority of them could not be there, of course, because this is not a normal world. Only 5,000 fans were allowed to attend the final in person – all of them specially selected by the respective clubs, instead of a ticket sale, and all of them, counterintuitively, packed in the few open sections of the Maracanã with 78,000 seats. than spreading out over your vast empty bowl.
But even if the circumstances had been changed, the old instincts did not. In the past 10 months, it has become clear that – no matter the risk or the restrictions – if football is played, at the moments that mean the most, fans will feel like being together.
And so the fans from Palmeiras came to Allianz Parque on Saturday, to a place that looks like a house, hours before the start of the game, to drink and sing and wave their flags. They waited a long time for this – their team has not been champion of South America since 1999 – and they would have to wait a little longer, during 90 minutes of a game defined more by caution than by quality, played by teams more aware of what can be lost than what can be gained.
Then, in a stir, it happened. A hand-to-hand fight on the sideline and Santos’ veteran coach Cuca was sent off. The 90 minutes passed, the clock ticking deeper and deeper in the clearing time. At eight minutes, Ron, the Palmeiras star, launched a deep and penetrating cross. Breno Lopes, timing his jump, headed his header over the goalkeeper Santos.
He ran towards the fans, who spread out across the seats to reach him and his teammates. Palmeiras had their victory. And in the narrow streets of Allianz Parque, those who could not be felt, at last, as if they were.