Are you ready for some Futebol?

Since futebol is the national sport here, we decided we better get interested in it, as there is very little in the way of spectator sports otherwise. Vulcano (Bosch) is one of the sponsors of the local team (Beira-Mar), so Dan picked up some free tickets for the last couple of home games. It is a little strange that they play in a stadium that was built for 30,000+ spectators, and I would say they are lucky to get it even 10% full. They even colored the seats 4 or 5 different bright colors to help the place look a little more crowded when it is nearly empty. It was built for the European Cup in 2004, and is a bright and fun stadium, but I don't think it has really been utilized after hosting a couple of big games in 2004.

Still, we had a lot of fun watching the games. Some of Dan's colleagues don't go because Beira-Mar is in the second league, so therefore they are not very good. While it would be great to watch some of the first league teams play, and we are planning on making it to games in Porto now and again, I think at this point we can't really tell the difference. And a sunny Sunday afternoon of futebol in Portugal partially makes up for not being able to watch the football of the Redskins and Niners that we normally would be watching on a chilly Fall Vermont Sunday. Plus here we can go to the beach before or after.