Brazil Brings the Beautiful Game to Chicago

By Todd McClamroch in News on Sep 8, 2007 11:43PM

Brazil's national soccer team arrived in Chicago on Friday for their Clash of Champions match-up with the United States National Team at Soldier Field on Sunday.

Brazil did not wait long to entertain fans. On Saturday they held their one and only training session prior to the match with the United States and they did it in front of a crowd of a few hundred die-hard fans at Toyota Park. Chicagoist has always enjoyed watching Brazil play and thoroughly enjoyed watching their training session, where it was immediately apparent that these guys have more fun on a soccer field than any other soccer team we have ever seen.

The players were joking with each other all practice long and constantly trying to one-up each other with cheeky footwork and deft passes that made the trip to Toyota Park worthwhile for the fans. While the players spent twenty five minutes warming up, Dunga a former player and current head coach was not found watching his players or talking to the other coaches but instead juggling a soccer ball with three other players just enjoying the beautiful game.

The fans enjoyed watching two-time FIFA World Player of the Year Ronaldinho work on free kicks during a mock scrimmage setting up several goals. The United States will need to be careful not to give up many free kick opportunities during Sunday's game.

According to U.S. Soccer over 35,000 tickets for the match have been sold and they expect a large walk-up crowd as the weather looks to be perfect for Sunday's game. If you don't have plans for tomorrow afternoon (We heard something about a football league kicking off tomorrow) then be sure to make it down to see what should be a very entertaining and hopefully not completely one-side game between the United States and Brazil.

We uploaded our photos from the event to Flickr and highlights from some video we shot on YouTube.