Pitch'd is going international again and once again we are in South America. After having visited Argentina, we thought Brazil would be a perfect second country to go to. We witnessed a game in the Pacaembu Stadium, officially called Estadio Municipal Paulo Machado de Carvalho. Currently there is no team active in this stadium. The game we saw was Santos against Palmeiras, due to security reasons not played in the home ground of Santos for once.
The city of Sao Paulo is owner of the stadium, which is located in Pacaembu, part of the Sao Paulo area. It was built between 1938 and 1940 and it has hosted games of the big 4 teams in the state of Sao Paulo; Corinthians, Sao Paulo, Palmeiras and Santos, of which the latter is the only one not from Sao Paulo itself. As we could experience every team has their own stadium but regularly move to Pacaembu Stadium (we'll use this name as it's shorter than the official name) for safety reasons or in case one of the other stadiums is in use for other events like concerts. The first game ever in this stadium was Palestra Italia (the former name of Palmeiras) against Coritiba.
Five years after opening the record result was set by Sao Paulo by beating Jabaquara with 12 to 1. Although Palmeiras was the first team to play games there, you could say it was more the home ground of Corinthians since they played most of their home games there (from 1940 until 2014) until the grand opening of their own stadium in 2014, the Arena Corinthians. Between 2010 and 2014 however it was the official home stadium of Palmeiras when their original Estadio Palestra Italia was demolished and the Allianz Parque was being built.
In 1950 this stadium hosted 6 games during the World Cup in Brazil. Remarkable fact about that is that none of the "away teams" won a game. Twice the game ended in a draw and four times the "home team" won.
Since the 90s it has become a concert stadium itself as well, hosting artists like Paul McCartney, Rolling Stones, Iron Maiden, Avril Lavigne, Eric Clapton and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. What's most interesting is that in 2008 a museum has opened inside the stadium. It mainly handles the history of Brazilian football. As well all know - a very interesting history.
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