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Fluminense, founded by the upper classes, were Rio's first football club. In 1911 a group of Fluminense players left to join Flamengo, already an established rowing club, where they formed its first football
team. Botafogo started life as an idea that a fourteen-year-old had during his algebra class. He scribbled the suggestion down on a piece of paper. The teacher saw the note and enouraged his pupil to carry it through. Vasco da Gama, are the club of the Portuguese community.
Flamengo soon established itself as the best-supported club in Rio. Many reasons are given, none conclusive. Some say it was because the club trained on public land in its formative years, others say its mass appeal comes from the late 1930s and early 1940s when the club won titles with the most famous black stars of the era - Domingos da Guia, Leonidas and Zizinho.
In many situations to call someone a 'Flamenguista' is akin to calling them a slum-dweller. There are middle-class Flamengo fans, sure, yet the percentage increases the lower you go down the social ladder. If Flamengo are losing, opposing fans chant: 'ela, ela, ela - silencio na favela' - silence in the favela.
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If Flamengo are the team of the masses, then conversely, Fluminense are the team of the aristocracy. I have met Fluminense fans living in poverty who believe they are more socially refined than their Flamenguista neighbours - merely because of their choice of football club. Botafogo gained, in the 1950s and 1960s, a reputation as the team supported by intellectuals and the superstitious. Vasco although still the club of the Portuguese, have a large black following too - linked to their pioneering introduction of black players.
Only Vasco has a proper home stadium, at São Januário. The other three have such small grounds - holding only a few thousand each - that they tend to play all home games at the city-owned Maracanã.
Fluminese means 'from or of the state of Rio', Vasco da Gama was the name of the Portuguese navigator, and Botafogo, and Flamengo are neighbourhoods in Rio's South Zone.
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