More than physical exercise! The people in Brazil attach great importance to their good looks and accordingly do a lot of sports. Aventura do Brasil has compiled the most popular Brazilian sports for you. Surely you can witness the artistic feats of Brazilian amateur soccer players or admire capoeira dancers in action during your Brazil vacation on the beach.
Take a gander at their affiliations.
But sports in Brazil are not just about perfecting the body. Rather, sporting activity is essential for physical and mental health and fitness. In addition, sports in Brazil have the function of strengthening the sense of community and mutual respect. By training together in a team or club, each individual athlete contributes to the functioning of the community. And Braziliens are very friendly and love to spend time together.
THE MOST POPULAR SPORT: SOCCER
The champion of all sports in Brazil is soccer. More than 30 million Brazilians are practicing soccer players. This transfers seamlessly to professional soccer. It is not without reason that the Brazilian national team is the international record holder with five world championship titles to its name. The majority of the world’s best and most expensive soccer players come from Brazil, the world export champion in the field of professional soccer. With Pelé, the most famous and best player of all time also comes from Brazil, whose career began in Santos/São Paulo. There’s just one thing that can’t be taken seriously: the sport with the round leather was not invented in Brazil, but in England.
But also Table tennis is big. A large number of Brazilians enthusiastically pick up a table tennis bat to keep fit. About 12 million people in Brazil, mostly of Asian descent, meet regularly for an entertaining game of table tennis at a club or at home.
WHAT ABOUT SWIMMING?
A tropical country like Brazil with countless beaches and bathing waters is predestined for swimmers. About 11 million water-loving Brazilians train their physical fitness and endurance by swimming. Swimming is a prerequisite for other sports such as surfing, diving, sailing and canoeing, as well as for certain professions, including firefighter, fisherman, sea rescuer and naval personnel.
Indoor soccer
Futsal, soccer’s little brother, has almost as many followers in Brazil as swimming. Brazilians have been playing soccer indoors and on small fields since 1940. Although invented in Uruguay, Brazil is now the country with the most futsal players. The sport is otherwise only played in neighboring countries. It is not popular overseas.
CULTURAL HERITAGE AND CULT SPORT
A homegrown Brazilian sport is capoeira. This is a mixture of martial arts and acrobatic dance that was devised by slaves on the plantations of Bahia in the 19th century. In order to circumvent the ban on fighting at the time and still stay fit, the inventors camouflaged their martial art and expanded it to include music and dance movement patterns. In 2014, Capoeira was named a “World Heritage Site of Humanity” by UNESCO. In addition to approximately 6 million Brazilians, Capoeira now has a worldwide and passionate following.
