On the other side, a club created by Italians who culturally and socially influenced the largest metropolis in Latin America and ultras created to defend themselves. I spent one year studying this rivalry, speaking to fans, journalists, to understand the city and its complex regions. I'm here to understand why the rivalry in one of the world's biggest cities is also known as one of the most bloody ones.
What I'm going to show you here isn't the rivalry on the pitch which has been portrayed on TV for decades. It's time for PELEJA to do what it does best once again: To talk about the game that happens outside the game. RIVALRIES CORINTHIANS X PALMEIRAS The biggest city in Latin America is also one of the most hostile and chaotic to those who feel social inequality first hand.
In order to begin to understand how São Paulo's main rivalry "Die, Skunk! " became the most violent in Brazil, first I needed to hear the people who live there, and the people who saw these transformations happen in the past few years. The Gaviões da Fiel welcomed PELEJA and I spoke to Biu, vice-president of the ultras and one of the most influential people in the Brazilian ultras scene.
- It's the logistics, you know? That side of the river and from the train line to there, it's plain to see. It's about access to culture, to leisure.
Going to Jabaquara, which is 20 minutes away from Ibirapuera Park, was impossible for my dad when I was a kid. He worked from Monday to Saturday, and on Sunday, he was too tired to get around the city. There are no buses, you have to wait for over an hour at the bus stop.
He'd arrive at the park tired, how would he play with me? He'd have no more energy. It's surreal.
It's impossible. "Racists, not here. " - Everyone comes to São Paulo to try to their hand at life.
Everyone comes here. So we have an immense diversity of people of different social levels, which has an impact in violence. Poverty has increased fivefold.
Try spending the night here. There are five times as many homeless people now. "Gaviões" - But the state never did anything to help.
Quite the opposite. It only exists for specific regions. My mother and I have both been through repossession, but I found out that the Hebraica Rebouças club is also a land invasion.
It's also in a protected area where it couldn't be built, but it was, and it is legal and used by the São Paulo elites. Why are they allowed and we are not? Shit, I tell people that my first crime was stealing a notebook and a coloured marker at the market.
I didn't pull it off because my mum saw me. I was eight years old, my dad was an alcoholic, and I didn't understand why the cops always oppressed us when they came to our hood. One time they tried arresting my dad, he resisted and I helped him.
After that, I came to understand that the police weren't there to protect me. - It's the human condition. So you mix socioeconomic issues, a person without a job, all fucked up.
He has his escape in football. If he belongs to a group, he feels he's a part of something. Violence reaches alarming levels when you realise that everything is ruined in a person's life.
If look at hooligans in the end of the 70s and 80s, post industrial revolution, everyone was fucked! In Manchester, the lads wanted to go to matches, get high and fight. But back then, it wasn't as brutal as Brazil is nowadays.
Even back then you wouldn't hit someone with an iron bar over the head. - Where there's people, there's football. São Paulo has a lot of people.
Because of the monstrous size of the city, one of the most used means of transportation is the train, or metro. On match days, depending on your route, you could be on the wrong day, at the wrong time, at the wrong place. Here, train lines either belong to one ultras group or another.
- It's how people from the peripheries get around the city. Nobody is going to get around the city in a car, there aren't taxis, nothing. The metro is the answer.
- São Paulo is complicated because there are fans of four clubs. We have to be mindful not to catch the train when our rivals are playing. If you're messing about with your club's shirt you may end up in trouble.
When coming back from work, the station itself let's you know: Corinthians-Itaquera, Palmeiras-Barra Funda on the other side. - This is the way. For us Corinthians fans who don't have the privilege of owning a car or motorcycle, or money to rent a bus, the solution is to go by metro, as we've done since 1969.
We leave home, join our friends, our brothers, go to Corinthians' match, sing for 90 minutes and everyone goes back home. If you want to try your luck and stand in our way, you're going to get beat. It's that simple.
- If you are in a smaller group, for instance, if you have 50 men, but the other side has 200, if you close down a hallway or a stairway, those 200 won't be able to win because they'll only be able to put 10 guys in front. And if we drop four, five of their guys they will have to run four times as much because they will have to rescue their friends. So the strategies are war strategies.
And it's not because we want violence, we want to go home but we know it might happen. - So you're always ready. - We're ready.
One fuck up and you lose many friends. - There's a thing when you become a member there is the new associates meeting. When you are wearing this uniform of an ultras group, it's your life that's at risk.
- You have have responsibility. - You do. You're carrying your name, the name of your hood, "The colour green is extremely forbidden to enter" the name of the ultras, so you have to be smart about the calendar as well, right?
If the pigs are playing today, I won't fool around with these clothes, they're going to beat me up. Am I going to come here and complain "oh, they beat me up"? Do you know what they'll say?
"You're fooling around. " Same goes for them. If we're going to a match and some other ultra of another club gets in our way.
That's his problem. That's it. Danger?
Danger is present all the time. - But back in the day, danger was present only for Palmeiras fans. Corinthians fans have long been a majority and there was a time when Palmeiras fans had to hide in the city.
They say that Mancha Verde is the most inaccessible group of ultras in the country. They agreed to speak to me and explain a few things once and for all. - In the 70s and 80s, there wasn't a lot of security around the stadiums and the strongest ruled.
Those who were stronger, those in greater numbers in the stadium or on the way there, they would prevail and that was the reality. - What would happen when you were in the minority? - You would either get beat or run away.
- For Palmeiras fans it was impossible to go to the stadium with a jersey and come back with it. Every time they bumped into rivals, they would have their jerseys taken away. They would get beat up.
In the 70s, TUP or Uniformed Palmeiras Fans already existed, which was the biggest ultra group. They were known for very beautiful celebrations, but TUP had a specific rule of not allowing their members to fight on the stands. So if a TUP member took part in a fight, they would receive a warning.
If they did it again, they could be expelled. - Mancha was founded by people coming from three different groups, Inferno, Império and Grêmio Alviverde, who got together to restore respect for Palmeiras fans. - So Mancha was created to protect itself.
- To protect Palmeiras fans and to impose respect. And in very little time, it did it. "Members of Gaviões exchange blows with members of Mancha Verde" "Confrontation between rivals leaves 2 hospitalized in São Paulo" - There was an accident with Corinthians and two players died.
It was decided that Corinthians could register two more players to fill in for the two other that were really important. They were the only ones to refuse that. They were play dirty, without ethics.
They're dirty. And if they're dirty, they're pigs. They're such pigs that they adopted this nickname and are proud of it.
- Why "skunks"? - Well. .
. The name speaks for itself. I don't need to explain it, do I?
Does anyone like skunks or raise them at home? Nobody. That's it.
- Perhaps these 22 years without titles have made Corinthians fans start to relate more to the club. - Are you going to Porto Alegre next week? - Let me make this problem clear, I can't miss two or three days at work because the street sector is my responsibility and then I will let my boss down.
- Gaviões was founded in 1969 to fight against two dictatorships. One present within Corinthians, and the one in control of the country. - On the other hand, among many Corinthians ultra groups, the biggest is, of course, Gaviões da Fiel.
They have more than 100,000 members, and "the ones in black", born to police the club often look at what happens in society. - The Gaviões ultras were the first ones to protest. - The Gaviões have always understood how the masses are linked to the history of the club.
- The fans go to matches on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Sundays. They are broke and can't go to more matches, but Matheus complied and lowered the price of the ticket. - There are half a dozen guys which were taken by the riot police, to the "Gaviões da Fiel Inn".
I'm calling it an inn, because they're sleeping there. - Actually, you should be a bit more respectful when you mention Gaviões. You're talking about 18,000 ultras.
When you manage to get half as many, you can speak to us. - They will always be a majority, always. Corinthians have the most fans, everyone knows this.
And so there were many fights because our groups have always been bigger. We showed them that we needed to have organisation. That's how this thing of everyone getting ready for a derby started.
If we only have 20 guys, it's a problem. - The fights between ultras followed a code of honour, which allowed you to do whatever you wanted but murder was off the table. They even said that they wanted to beat them up a lot, but let them live because they wanted to meet them again to beat them up in the future.
- It's not even fun. You beat a guy up and the next day he's dead. There's no way to make fun of that.
- Back then, it was only fighting. - Back then, it was. You'd break an arm, it was all about fistfights, people didn't use metal bars, it was mostly stones.
The bombs began with Independente in 1992. - There wasn't what people call judaria which is this cruelty we see nowadays, many against one, many against few, people killing each other. - I grew up in a building and I used to fight the guys from Barra Funda one street down.
- I served in the army as a guard and would fight the guys from the Army Police. This was normal. The ultras were like this, too.
My generation grew up with Karate Kid, Van Damme, it was fighting and kids loved it. It's one thing to fight, it's another to leave someone for dead. - Back in the day, when fist fighting, or unarmed combat was the only accepted way of fighting among ultras in São Paulo, even the media treated the ultras in a different light.
It was common to see leaders of Mancha, Gaviões and other groups participate in TV programs and game shows, and even talking to the audience. - Let's see Mancha Verde with the second question in today's show. .
. It's a goal for Mancha! - It's really curious for younger people who grew up seeing ultras and barras bravas so distant and marginalised in Brazilian TV culture.
- Are we going to claim that there are only good people in Mancha? No. Are Gaviões only good people?
No. There's no excuses. Everyone is guilty.
All ultras are guilty of the violence. We shouldn't pretend that we don't see this or believe we are different. Everyone is like this.
- They really managed to impose respect and are feared by other people. - Don't you get mad if they call you "pigs"? - Not at all, on the contrary!
We want them to call us pigs, because we are pigs. Let's go, pigs! - Cleo became this symbolic hero of Mancha Verde and started being persecuted by other ultras.
- We were founded on the 11th of January, 1983, for one reason alone: restore respect for Palmeiras fans. - It's his birthday today! Our Cleo!
♪ Happy birthday to you. . .
♪ - Cleo was one of the founders of Mancha Verde and became known because of the celebrations organised on the stands, and the skirmishes away from the stands. Cleo was murdered. The first death related to ultras in Brazil happened in São Paulo.
- . . .
in memory of Cleo Dantas da Silva, leader of Mancha Verde murdered last week. The other one, sponsored by the military police, asked for the end of violence in stadiums. - And Cleo's death still hasn't been explained, it doesn't have a conclusion of who the killer was, who orchestrated it.
- It doesn't. We actually have the case files. .
. - This right here? - Yes, that's it.
- We worked on it for about two years. We got many documents that had never been seen before. I didn't see anyone from the press gain access to all of it.
What we know is that despite the police and the public attorneys not being able to find a culprit, there was a suspect called Edimar Bernardes who was a member of Gaviões, he was very influent at Gaviões. But an interesting thing is that on the day Cleo died, Edimar was in prison. This means he has an alibi and police didn't think it was him.
But among the ultras there was always this feeling that Edimar had done it. Edimar was murdered in 1991, he was at the beach and he was shot multiple times. The day after Edimar's death, which is also a crime with no solution, Cleo's case was closed.
For the members in Mancha, Cleo's murder was solved beyond the instances of justice. - The police didn't find out, they suspected one person, then another. .
. Cleo wasn't involved with drugs, it wasn't a robbery, nothing like this. We know it happened because of the ultras.
If it was their doing, then it's been paid for. - After Cleo's death, Mancha becomes more aggressive in its relation to other ultras. We can see this in their declarations to the media.
Public opinion changes and ultras are now seen differently, not as the group of fans who orchestrate celebrations, but as people who carry out violent acts outside the stadiums. - I want to ask that guy from Mancha how he wants to get along well with the other fans if arriving at the stadium, the first thing they chant is "violence is what matters, the rest is in no hurry". - Look, Mancha has its own views, I'm not here to speak for its 8,000 members and say that we don't want any more violence.
From here on, whatever happens, happens. What can I do? - Crime in São Paulo was on the rise, and consequently, it influenced the ultras and their rivalries.
"We're going to kill Gaviões! ! !
" In fact, this rivalry was always tied to what happened in the city and the weapons used to fight started to change. "Keep crying, skunks! " "Three-times Libertadores champions!
" In the past few years, technology became a weapon. Ambushes became even more frequent. "Ultras ambushed fans and there are women and children caught up right as they wanted to end single crowds in derbies.
Great job everyone. " And they are planned through texting, fights are shared. "another fight recorded and posted to the groups!
" Official profiles call truces through posts on social media. "All of this happening right before a derby and carnival. You can already feel this The Warriors vibe in the city.
" Fear of retaliation from PCC gets ultras to seek an end to fighting in São Paulo. This involves so many things, so many people. .
. - This idea of revenge is infinite. We have to put a stop to this cycle and make it clear that enough people have died.
Let's just fight. Nobody wants that any more. - We all realized that the next one to die could be you.
Maybe you're going to die, or maybe you're going to kill someone and go to jail. Everyone has lost someone. Unfortunately, many today bring iron bars to the places not because they want to, but because they know that a rival will also bring one.
If you don't have one, how can you defend yourself? - Police clashed with fans who knocked down the barriers. A home-made bomb hit Rodrigo amidst Corinthians fans.
His mother, Ivone, arrived at the hospital in desperation. - Since then, the media coverage increased because of all the technology that is a part of our lives. Nowadays, if anything happens, we know about it in an instant.
- Nowadays, if a person sees a group fighting, this person won't stop the fight, won't call the police, they will record a video of it. I think that violence is being recorded more nowadays. It's being seen more.
- In 2019 there was an incident in São Paulo's metro where two Palmeiras fans were expelled from the train by Corinthians fans. Because of this, a girl used social media to start the idea of starting a movement or a collective where women could go to the stadium together. It went viral, it was kind of unexpected.
There was a lot of positive repercussion, obviously there's the bad side of it, we received a lot of hate but it was no big deal. We knew it was going to happen. - Technology and social media also fuel narrative fights.
The debate related to the roles of Corinthians and Palmeiras ultras in politics is heated. - I believe that Gaviões, due to their foundation, position themselves politically more. Not that Mancha don't position themselves, but recently we saw many demonstrations against the Bolsonaro government many of them orchestrated by ultras.
- Democracy! - What started this was the demonstration of the nurses in Brasilia where a bunch of people went there and assaulted the nurses. Nurses are the superheroes of health and we have to value them.
This bothered us and made Gaviões mobilize and we decided that if we didn't take to the streets, the radicals would take over the country and we will go back to 60 years ago to the dictatorship. We want to really state that we are in favour of democracy, not only Gaviões, other Corinthians ultras too. This goes to show that we're fucking awesome, all due respect.
The idea was to get a bunch of Palmeiras fans and beat those guys up. To beat those Nazis up. If you let them reproduce, they're like gremlins.
. . They will see two, three people with their flags.
. . We're not like Monark here, that asshole who says that Nazis can have an opinion, they can't have anything!
As long as we live and there are Nazis on the streets, we will beat them up and kill them if we can. We hate Nazis. We hate them.
Gaviões were there too. But we said "we have nothing against you guys". - Those who defend Nazis are out of their minds.
It's that simple. . .
. 53 years of history fighting against any sort of dictatorship, of fascism and that's it. If we see them on the streets, we will run them over!
- The ultras have a very active voice, if there is a request for them to go to the streets to demonstrate against things that go against our ideologies, obviously everyone will mobilize to go. This is a huge role that the ultras play. Many people believe that being an ultra is to go to the stadium to hold a flag and sing your club's anthem.
- Palmeiras ultras are frequently labelled as fascists. "it's 2021 and i still have to explain why mancha verde is fascist lol" "if mancha verde are sad I am happy, fascist ultra assholes" Their rivals especially call this out. "you should go to that palmeiras pub with the Mussolini painting, fascist pig" I'm here, in front of the president of Mancha Verde and it's my chance to ask this, is Mancha fascist?
Is there fascism rooted within Mancha? - Who said we're fascists? How are we fascists?
We have a samba school. How is that possible? Our president.
. . The biggest president in our history is from the Northeast.
- If we are fascists, a black guy such as myself couldn't have been Mancha's vice-president. As a black man, I wouldn't have an active voice in the institution. There are fascist fans in Corinthians, São Paulo, Palmeiras.
. . Fascists are everywhere but they are a hidden minority.
- There is no fascism here. They say this because we descend from Italians who were fascist during the war. .
. These are two separate things. - How many fascists are there in Palmeiras?
Let's say 10%. You will see 10% in Corinthians, São Paulo. .
. It's a social sample. You're talking about millions of people.
"Respect the girls" - Corinthians ultras, in their declarations and practices, have always positioned themselves as more progressive. "Corinthians fans demonstrate against the manager Cuca" It's part of their identity, their story. But when it comes to Mancha, it seems to me that they are more tolerant of more diverse opinions than Gaviões.
- It's impossible to talk about football without talking about politics. Often times the clubs themselves get involved in traditional politics. - Mancha doesn't have a political ideology.
We're not from the left, the right, centre, nothing like that. Our political ideology here is Palmeiras. 100% Palmeiras.
- All of which is in accordance to our progressive ideals is cool. We need to make our members aware. This is our revolution.
- Other provocations happened between both side in the past few years. "Club World Cup: 2000 - 2012" You shall never be. One which became very famous in the media happened in 2020 right before a derby.
Palmeiras fans broke into Corinthians stadium and graffitied the score of an old derby. Do you have any idea of who could have done this? - Criminals broke into the stadium to graffiti.
. . - They broke in and painted the pitch with the "8x0".
Tell me where you were and how that was. - We were following it, the groups were talking about it. We had some idea of who could be behind it, because it wasn't the first time that one of the guys who took part in it did something here in Itaquera.
- I spoke to a buddy of mine who's a bit crazy as well, I asked him "Let's do it? ", he said "Let's do it. " "Let's go?
" "Let's go. " - The arena, as you can see, is a really good place for people who might want to fuck with it. - It's really easy to jump over there.
- It's too easy to access it. Seriously though, please get this fixed because it's too easy to jump over this fence. "8x0 - Eternal Punching Bag" - I used to pass by the stadium, observing its construction and I noticed the immense security failure of having a mere gate, because the stadium is quite open, it's dug into the hill.
- First of all, that guy's an asshole. He's a shit-eater. Simple as.
It happened at dawn, he knew nobody would be there. - He didn't face any challenges in order to accomplish this. - The consequences were what I expected, death threats to me and to my children, that they would be decapitated, death and rape threats to my wife, it's okay, it's part of the context.
I put myself at risk. - I knew it was him and even then, I didn't encourage the ultras to go after him. But it's funny he denied it when he was scared, but then afterwards he admitted to it and took pride in it.
- Did they share your private information? - They did everything you can think of. I lost my job back then.
If I went back in time, would I do it again? I would. It's as if I repeated that 8x0 scoreline.
Neto recorded a program the following day where he talked about it the entire time, shouting that we were vandals and so on. To us, it was an orgasm. - All of them are criminals, all of them are lowlifes!
They're all a bunch of. . .
You can't do that! The people behind this are criminals! - They used to be better when they played at Pacaembu.
Nowadays, they're fucked. They have nothing. They only have that tiny sector, but it's all fucked.
Their fans are the elite, they use to play better at Pacaembu. This shit arena fucked them up. They should talk to those guys, not me!
- They call themselves a club of the masses, but sell R$ 800,00 tickets for their VIP pool sector. It was different at Pacaembu. You can see they even changed their style of chanting.
- At least our North and South sectors haven't become elitist, but if you look at the more expensive areas, you won't find the masses there. You won't find people from the favelas, you won't find black people. - But the hoods are still present.
- No! I'm talking about our sector and the South one, which are the two most accessible sectors at Itaquera. There the masses are present.
- Football more and more is for the elites, ticket prices get more and more expensive, all this in order to provide comfort to people who didn't go to stadiums in the 1990s. Those who did, understood what it was about. You'd stand beside homeless people, garbage men, thieves, drug dealers, it didn't matter who was beside you.
. . Doctors, engineers.
Nowadays, sectors play this role. If you have enough money to pay for a VIP area, you won't share this space with the masses. - What I'm proud of about Mancha is the way it defends Palmeiras.
Even when it makes mistakes, it will try to do things right for Palmeiras. People kill and die for Palmeiras. - I couldn't have been born a fan of another club.
You can't just become a Corinthians fan. . .
We're born like this. It's in the essence. And when you discover this, you think "holy crap".
. . What a crazy thing, you know?
- You want to sing more than the other side, You don't want the other side to reign supreme. If they have a celebration, you want to have an even bigger one, and vice-versa. So, in reality, both sides help one outdo the other.
"'51' is only a liquor" - If you asked me if I spoke to Corinthians fans, I could say "yeah". That's ridiculous. I don't speak to them in my family.
It's a hatred similar to Palestinians and Jews, you know? - I am a history teacher because of Gaviões da Fiel. It was here that I learned to love, to say "I love you" to someone.
To say it not only to women, but to men, too. To say "brother, I love you, I will defend you" You can be whatever you want, I don't care. Are you a Corinthians fan?
Are you a member of Gaviões? Then I'll kill and die for you, brother. - The world has always been violent.
There was always conflict between peoples. Fans are just like that. It's the people here from Bom Retiro against the people from the other side.
- If you turn on the TV nowadays, you will see news about guys killing women out of jealousy, about some guy who had a fight in traffic and killed another person. Why must ultras be pure? Society in general is violent.
- A rivalry that helped to define the course of ultras' culture in the last decades in Brazil. It has its alliances, its revenge stories. As long as this city remains complex, its supporters will be too.
Corinthians and Palmeiras are a reflection of a hostile metropolis, always at war, always in transit, with people, with demonstrations, with shouting, with a lot of passion.
