High passion on and off pitch takes romance out of Brazilian love affair. The Rivals: In the second part of a series on the most volatile matches in world football, our correspondent visits São Paolo. Rick Broadbent in Brazil
Nowhere on Planet Football is more synonymous with sun, style and samba than Brazil, but the sporting vista is also pockmarked with a deadly fanaticism. Fear and loathing in São Paulo are causing players to demand transfers and fans to stay at home as the beautiful game withers to a cadaver.
In an old warehouse guarded by the huge bust of a golden hawk, a director of the biggest fans' group in Brazil holds court. The Gavioes da Fiel are Corinthians’ hard core, the equivalent of Palmeiras’s Mancha Verde.
Fernando Capez, a former state attorney who has led a crusade against the endemic football violence in Brazil, said that they are responsible for a litany of crimes, including an infamous incident ten years ago when the team coach was ambushed on a mountain road and attacked with crowbars.
Now the big story is the death threats received by Marquinhos, a Corinthians defender. Sinister echoes of the fate of Andrés Escobar, the Colombia defender who was shot dead after his own goal led to his country’s elimination from the 1994 World Cup, resonated after anonymous callers rang Marquinhos and told him that they would kill him, his wife and his seven-month-old daughter after he conceded a penalty last month. "How can I play like this?" he said.
