A Batalha dos Aflitos

Hey lads, this is a bit of a random article but thought it may be interesting.

I'm on a year abroad in Brazil. Pretty amazing so far. Anyway I'm staying in Porto Alegre in the south of the Brazil, near Uruguay. There are two main teams here if you didn't already know....

Internacional and Gremio.

Internacional are the team with Damiao, Jo and recently sold Oscar to Chelsea.

Gremio have players such as Gilberto Silva, Elano and Marcelo Moreno (FM legend). They were also Ronaldinho's first club.

As the guys I'm living with support Gremio, I've decided to adopt them as my team.

The Gremio fans often reminisce about one stand out game, which featured our very own Anderson, namely 'A Batalha dos Aflitos' The battle of the afflicted.

It was one of the craziest games ever. It was a game between Gremio and Nautico, a playoff from the 2nd division to get back into the 1st division. Gremio, who are considered to be one of the big clubs in Brazil, were fighting to get the back in the big time, and simply had to win that game.

However incredibly, they had 4 men sent off, and conceded two penalties, one which hit the post and one which was saved unbelievably in the 106th minute! 1 minute later, our lad Ando went on a mazy run and scored the winner. Unbelievable Jeff.

He is seen as a bit of a legend here for that and rightly so. Although he has possibly not yet filled his potential at United, I still think people should give him a chance. Yes it may have only been one goal, but the romantic in me says he is capable of a lot, if he puts his mind to it and stays injury-free.

Anyway, here is link to this scarcely believable match, which involves soldiers at one point!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ismw4Hjvj_s


P.S If anyone is lucky enough to afford to go to Brazil in the next few years... DO IT! The football goes without saying, amazing. The country is growing economically (new job market). It has beautiful weather, beautiful girls :P, beautiful food and really friendly people. On top of all that, the next World Cup and Olympics are here in 2014 and 2016.