{"id":564348,"date":"2025-10-22T15:53:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T18:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=564348"},"modified":"2025-10-22T15:53:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T18:53:18","slug":"how-urban-changes-are-redefining-amateur-soccer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/how-urban-changes-are-redefining-amateur-soccer\/","title":{"rendered":"How urban changes are redefining amateur soccer"},"content":{"rendered":"

On weekends, the Campo de Marte (Mars Field), in the S\u00e3o Paulo neighborhood of Casa Verde, brings together hundreds of people among its six hard-dirt soccer fields. It is thought that at least 200 games are played there on Saturdays and Sundays, while supporters watch the games from folding chairs and children run around at play. Some teams arrive wearing uniform strips, others play shirtless, with many risking it barefoot. The scenes, which for over a century have been repeated all across Brazil, are becoming increasingly rare as cities grow and real-estate speculation advances. Thus, v\u00e1rzea<\/em> (literally floodplain) or informal soccer, born of the spontaneous occupation of land areas and community mobilization, is facing a scarcity of areas available for games, jostling for space with condominiums, parking lots, and commercial centers.<\/p>\n

The earliest records of soccer played in Brazil date from the end of the nineteenth century, in the days when migrants, immigrants, Afrodescendants, and manual workers would organize games on improvised fields on river floodplains, beside railroad lines or on vacant lots. In the case of S\u00e3o Paulo, one of the first ever games reported in newspapers took place in 1895, when Brazilian of British descent Charles William Miller (1874\u20131953) put on a game at V\u00e1rzea do Carmo in the neighborhood of Cambuci. \u201cThis space, which later became a stronghold of amateur S\u00e3o Paulo soccer, marked the early spread of the sport around the city,\u201d says geographer Alberto Luiz dos Santos, one of the curators of Vozes da v\u00e1rzea <\/em>(Voices of informal soccer), an exhibit currently showing at S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s Museum of Soccer to the end of April.<\/p>\n

According to Santos, who defended his doctoral thesis at the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (USP) in 2021 on informal soccer, members of the S\u00e3o Paulo elite founded clubs such as Sport Club Internacional, Clube Atl\u00e9tico Paulistano, and S\u00e3o Paulo Athletic Club, which from 1902 played in leagues at the Vel\u00f3dromo Paulista (S\u00e3o Paulo Velodrome), considered the first stadium in the city of S\u00e3o Paulo. \u201cWhen this happened, some of the soccer played in S\u00e3o Paulo underwent a process of becoming elite,\u201d says the researcher. During the same period, informal soccer flourished around the city\u2019s fields, occupying flood areas and vacant lots. \u201cThe city, with its rivers, offered spaces on the plains that, when dry, were transformed into soccer fields,\u201d recounts historian Diana Mendes Machado da Silva, currently on a postdoctoral internship at The New School, New York, a higher education institution focused on social sciences and philosophy.<\/p>\n

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Museum of Soccer Archive\u2009\/\u2009Santa Marina Collection\u2009\/\u2009All Rights Reserved | Museum of Soccer Archive\u2009\/\u2009Vila Varela Collection\u2009\/\u2009All Rights Reserved <\/span>Left, players from Santa Marina Atl\u00e9tico Clube, S\u00e3o Paulo, founded in 1913. Below, players on a field close to an industrial area, also in S\u00e3o Paulo (undated<\/em>)Museum of Soccer Archive\u2009\/\u2009Santa Marina Collection\u2009\/\u2009All Rights Reserved | Museum of Soccer Archive\u2009\/\u2009Vila Varela Collection\u2009\/\u2009All Rights Reserved <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

During this period, the absence of a structured professional system enabled small amateur teams to compete against elite clubs, with a relatively close relationship. Matches were organized by the Paulista Soccer League (LPF), founded in 1901. According to anthropologist Enrico Spaggiari, of USP\u2019s City Anthropology Study Group, the 1930s saw soccer professionalized in Brazil. \u201cIn those early days, informal soccer had a strong link with professional teams, functioning as a talent base,\u201d says the researcher, one of the arrangers of the book Futebol popular <\/em>(Popular soccer), published last year by Editora Ludop\u00e9dio with support from the Brazilian National Institute for Science and Technology (INCT) Brazilian Soccer Studies. \u201cIn the following decades, professional teams began to structure their youth academies, and this direct transition became increasingly difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

As soccer became more professionalized from the 1930s, amateur teams spread out around S\u00e3o Paulo; the movement gained strength among factory workers and those living in workers\u2019 communities, some of them European immigrants, who began organizing their teams. Additionally, Black populations in the neighborhoods of Barra Funda, Bixiga, Peruche, Glic\u00e9rio, and V\u00e1rzea do Carmo formed associations, in a similar way to the railroad communities. \u201cV\u00e1rzea<\/em> soccer emerged as a practice that went beyond sport: it was a way of appropriating the city, by which people cleared lots, marked out playing areas, and organized competitions,\u201d says Santos.<\/p>\n

Silva agrees\u2014the historian believes that informal clubs are not just sporting arenas, but also areas for gathering and social and political articulation among communities that inhabited and worked in river floodplain areas. During her master\u2019s defended at USP in 2013, the researcher studied the history of the Anhanguera Athletics Association, founded by Italian-Brazilians in 1928, and still very much in existence today. The outcomes of her study were published in a book, released in 2017 by the Alameda publishing house. \u201cPoor immigrants, former slaves, and later folk from the Northeast were being excluded from housing and employment opportunities in the city, so they drew upon associative practices to provide mutual help with these issues, forming clubs for leisure, such as Anhanguera Athletics Association, and for the popular, amateur soccer that spread around the city,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n

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Rog\u00e9rio Souza Silva<\/span>A game on the Xurupita Futebol Clube field, in Jardim Vivan, west zone of S\u00e3o PauloRog\u00e9rio Souza Silva<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

In the southern Brazilian state capital of Porto Alegre, teams organized by Black players played an essential role in the consolidation of amateur soccer, says Mauro Myskiw of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). \u201cThe Black population structured its own leagues, creating a singular sporting movement. They offered spaces for inclusion and socialization, while the traditional clubs imposed racial restrictions when selecting their personnel,\u201d says the researcher, who also coordinates the line of research into community and informal soccer conducted by INCT. Created in 2022, the initiative is funded by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).<\/p>\n

According to Myskiw, the first records of v\u00e1rzea<\/em> soccer in the Rio Grande do Sul state capital date from the beginning of the twentieth century. During this time, the sport was mainly played by ethnic clubs founded by Italian, German, and Portuguese immigrants.<\/p>\n

From the 1930s and 1940s, leagues formed by Black people spread around the city, says the researcher. Black players later came to be accepted by professional teams that had previously excluded them because of the color of their skin. \u201cWith the possibility of playing in increasingly structured teams, these players were gradually incorporated into the wider sporting scenario,\u201d says the researcher, alluding to one of the research findings.<\/p>\n

Just as in the S\u00e3o Paulo State capital, popular soccer in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais State, between the 1930s and \u201840s was strongly linked to the factories and steelmaking. \u201cClubs linked to these enterprises had greater financial capacity to take on players,\u201d says historian Raphael Raj\u00e3o Ribeiro, author of a doctoral thesis on popular soccer culture in the Minas Gerais capital, defended at the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in S\u00e3o Paulo in 2021. \u201cThey were officially employed as manual workers, but at that time they were dedicated to their soccer,\u201d adds Ribeiro, a professor at the Federal Institute of Cear\u00e1 (IFCE), and one of the arrangers of the book Futebol popular <\/em>(Popular soccer).<\/p>\n

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Ta Santana\u2009\/\u2009Copa Centen\u00e1rio\u2009\/\u2009PRH<\/span>One of the winning teams at the 2024 Centen\u00e1rio Cup held in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais State, since 1997Ta Santana\u2009\/\u2009Copa Centen\u00e1rio\u2009\/\u2009PRH<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

In Rio de Janeiro, the early geographical structure of amateur soccer was linked to the railroad network connecting downtown to the suburbs; indeed, the informal game is also known as suburban soccer in the city. In his doctoral work, defended at Fluminense Federal University (UFF) in 2023, historian Glauco Jos\u00e9 Costa Souza analyzed suburban soccer in neighborhoods such as Engenho de Dentro, Madureira, and Olaria between 1906 and 1930.<\/p>\n

The researcher states that the creation of the Carioca (Rio) Championship in 1906 drove the formation of elite teams, while lower-income neighborhoods began to organize their own competitions, such as the Suburban Soccer League. \u201cSuburban clubs gained strength from having their own leagues, promoting a strong soccer culture in low-income areas of Rio,\u201d emphasizes Costa, who sourced his research from periodicals of the day such as Jornal do Brasil<\/em>, Gazeta de Not\u00edcias<\/em>, and Gazeta Suburbana<\/em>, in addition to official documents from clubs. He says that most suburban teams in the city fell by the wayside, and teams surviving to date are those who had players bought by bigger clubs, or who found alternative sources of funding from local traders or the proceeds of the jogo do bicho<\/em> (\u201cgame of the animal,\u201d a prohibited but nonetheless hugely popular Brazilian lottery game in which animal images on cards sold on the sidewalk represent sets of numbers).<\/p>\n

For Osmar Moreira de Souza Junior, physical education professor and coordinator of the Study and Research Group on Pedagogical and Social Aspects of Soccer at the Federal University of S\u00e3o Carlos (UFSCar), v\u00e1rzea<\/em> and amateur soccer should today be looked at differently. In his perspective, amateur soccer became a subgroup of the v\u00e1rzea<\/em> version. While the latter is still underpinned by informality and the spontaneous occupation of land areas, \u201camateur soccer, on the other hand, involves clubs that began as informal teams and devised an institutionalized model, with regular tournaments, small stadiums, and financial mechanisms to sustain the teams,\u201d explains Souza Junior, one of the coordinators of the book Do futebol moderno aos futeb\u00f3is transmodernos <\/em>(From modern soccer to transmodern soccers), which took the Jabuti Acad\u00eamico Award in the category Physical Education, Physiotherapy, Speech Therapy, and Occupational Therapy in 2024.<\/p>\n

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Correio Paulistano<\/em> Newspaper, May 19, 1940\u2009\/\u2009Reproduced from the Museum of Soccer Website<\/span>News on a game between women\u2019s teams at the inauguration of the Pacaembu Stadium in 1940Correio Paulistano<\/em> Newspaper, May 19, 1940\u2009\/\u2009Reproduced from the Museum of Soccer Website<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

This is what happens, for example, in S\u00e3o Jos\u00e9 do Norte and Pelotas, in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul State. Amateur soccer there is organized with a level of efficiency comparable to that of the professional leagues, says physical educator Lu\u00eds Carlos Rigo, of the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel). \u201cIn these cities the different amateur soccer leagues have official websites to publish the results of game days, statistics on red cards, and other detailed information on local leagues,\u201d says Rigo, one of the coordinators of the INCT Amateur and Community Soccer research line.<\/p>\n

In S\u00e3o Paulo, v\u00e1rzea<\/em> soccer is undergoing a transformation. In an article published last year Spaggiari, of USP, recalls that the banks of the Pinheiros and Tiet\u00ea rivers were home to dozens of informal soccer fields until the early decades of the twentieth century; many were lost when construction of the riverbank marginal roadways began in the 1950s. From the 1980s, the metropolis became increasingly densely populated, drastically reducing the availability of free spaces for the sport.<\/p>\n

In another study, conducted in 2023 for the S\u00e3o Paulo Municipal Government\u2019s Historical Heritage Department, Spaggiari mapped and documented the history of the city\u2019s independent fields and clubs. \u201cWith urbanization, the informal soccer fields occupy an increasingly weakened position. These days most of them are located in the low-income areas,\u201d he explains. Campo de Marte is an exception, situated as it is in a central area.<\/p>\n

Another change involves the professionalization of some v\u00e1rzea<\/em> teams. In the opinion of Souza Junior, of UFSCar, these teams have come to be classified as amateur, and he says that this process gained impetus from large-scale competitions, such as the Kaiser Cup, whose organization began in the 1990s in the S\u00e3o Paulo state capital. The tournaments provided visibility to certain teams, which began to receive corporate sponsorship. \u201cThe growing presence on social media, with live broadcasts of competitions and the production of digital content, enabled the monetization of games, and boosted economic circuits,\u201d adds Santos, curator of the Museum of Soccer exhibition. \u201cToday we can estimate that S\u00e3o Paulo has more than a thousand nonprofessional soccer teams, though this is an imprecise number as many are created every year while others cease their activities,\u201d continues the geographer, who analyzed the contemporaneous S\u00e3o Paulo informal soccer scene in a 2019 article.<\/p>\n

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Cassimano<\/span>A tournament of the Women\u2019s V\u00e1rzea Festival, held in 2021 at Campo de Marte in S\u00e3o PauloCassimano<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

The development of nonprofessional women\u2019s soccer teams has been attracting the attention of historian Aira Bonfim, who defended her master\u2019s thesis on the theme at FGV S\u00e3o Paulo in 2019. The researcher says that there are newspaper records showing girls playing against boys in the city\u2019s elite clubs since 1915. In those early days, women\u2019s soccer was also practiced by circus artists, who played as part of the spectacle. For example, in 1926 the Piolin Circus staged a show in their marquee in Paissandu Square (S\u00e3o Paulo), in which actresses wearing jerseys of the team Palestra It\u00e1lia\u2014today the famous Palmeiras\u2014played a game.<\/p>\n

Women\u2019s sport expanded into the low-income areas over time. \u201cThe 1930s saw considerable growth in female teams, particularly in Rio de Janeiro. In that decade there were at least fifteen women\u2019s teams in the city\u2019s suburban neighborhoods,\u201d says Bonfim. As women demonstrated their ball skills, invitations for them to open men\u2019s championships began to roll in. In 1940, for example, two of these Rio teams were invited to play at the inauguration of the Pacaembu Stadium in S\u00e3o Paulo. \u201cThe presence of female players shocked the public,\u201d says the historian, one of the founders of the Brazilian Soccer Reference Center (CRFB) at the Museum of Soccer.<\/p>\n

In 1941, the government of Get\u00falio Vargas (1882-1954) prohibited women\u2019s soccer in Brazil, a ban that remained in place until 1979. \u201cNevertheless, they continued playing during this period, organizing games on the pretext of beneficial events, training in closed spaces such as clubs and schools, and in low-income areas where they were distant from any kind of official scrutiny,\u201d she says. A recent milestone on the S\u00e3o Paulo stage was reached in 2019. That year, player Maria Amorim, a resident of the Parelheiros neighborhood in the city\u2019s south zone, founded an unprecedented women\u2019s league, which has since promoted championships with associations from all over the municipality. \u201cThere are currently 150 women\u2019s teams functioning in the city,\u201d celebrates Bonfim, who did this mapping as part of an extension course she offered at the Pontifical Catholic University of S\u00e3o Paulo (PUC-SP) in 2022.<\/p>\n

The story above was published with the title “Ball in limbo<\/strong>” in issue in issue 349 of march\/2025.<\/p>\n

Scientific articles<\/strong>
\nSPAGGIARI, E. \u201cProfissionaliza\u00e7\u00e3o\u201d da v\u00e1rzea?: Controv\u00e9rsias e din\u00e2micas do rodar no futebol popular paulistano<\/a>. INTERthesis \u2013 Revista Internacional Interdisciplinar<\/strong>. Vol. 211, no. 1. 2024.
\nSANTOS, A. L. Lugares do futebol no Jaragu\u00e1\/SP: L\u00f3gicas de organiza\u00e7\u00e3o, express\u00f5es simb\u00f3licas e tend\u00eancias do futebol de v\u00e1rzea contempor\u00e2neo<\/a>. FuLia. <\/strong>Vol. 2, no. 2. 2019.
\nRIBEIRO, R. R. Festivais esportivos varzeanos em Belo Horizonte: Mem\u00f3ria social da cultura futebol\u00edstica popular<\/a>. FuLia<\/strong>. Vol. 3, no. 3. 2018.<\/p>\n

Books
\n<\/strong>RIBEIRO, R. R. et al<\/em>. Futebol popular<\/strong>. S\u00e3o Paulo: Editora Ludop\u00e9dio, 2024.
\n<\/strong>SOUZA J\u00daNIOR, O. M. et al<\/em>. Do futebol moderno aos <\/strong>futeb\u00f3is transmodernos: A utopia da diversidade revolucion\u00e1ria<\/strong>. S\u00e3o Carlos-SP: EdUFSCar, 2023.
\n<\/strong>BONFIM, A. F. Futebol feminino no Brasil: Entre festas, circos e sub\u00farbios, uma hist\u00f3ria social (1915\u20131941).<\/strong> S\u00e3o Paulo: Edi\u00e7\u00e3o da autora, 2023.
\n<\/strong>SILVA, D. M. M. Futebol de v\u00e1rzea em S\u00e3o Paulo: A Associa\u00e7\u00e3o Atl\u00e9tica Anhanguera (1928\u20131940).<\/strong> S\u00e3o Paulo: Editora Alameda, 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recreational sport is changing in response to the growth of cities and lack of space to play","protected":false},"author":601,"featured_media":564349,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[261],"coauthors":[1600],"class_list":["post-564348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanities","tag-sociology","position_at_home-sumario"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/601"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":564386,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564348\/revisions\/564386"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564348"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=564348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}