One should never be too certain about what is going to happen, even in the near future. My blog last month was dedicated to the World Cup in football and when I wrote it, of course I could not know how it would end or even about all the events and incidents that were to take place. I have a lot of comments to make, but unfortunately I must ask you for a little patience, because there are quite a few things that needs to be said, and I would like to do it all in one piece. But in August, you can be sure that it will all come out into the open!
I promised to talk about the Football Museum in São Paulo. It was created inside the Pacaembú stadium, inaugurated in 2008. It is worth visiting, there are a lot of details about football, the players, the games, the trophies etc. Reference #1 below gives a good description and if you know Portuguese, then I urge you to also read the paper of Reference# 2, in which one of my Swedish language students, Bruna Rocha, together with her university colleagues, talk about the significance of this museum.
Reference #3 below gives the content of panels about the exhibition, and here are some photos I took while visiting the museum.
Photos taken on 171’2026 (2026-06-20) at the special exhibition Amarelinha (meaning “the little Yellow one”) showing 18 different jerseys worn by the Brazilian national squad over the years. The top photo shows the current version and the five stars symbolize the World Cup trophies won by Brazil. In the lower row are a jersey from the first trophy in 1958 (to the left) and the one worn by Pelé when he scored the first goal in the final against Italy in 1970 (to the right). Between them are some souvenirs brought from Sweden in 1958.
Every four years, there is the FIFA World Cup in football. This year it is bigger than ever before, 48 national squads competing at arenas in three different countries, Canada, Mexico, and USA. Of course living in Brazil, the only country that has won 5 different cups since the start in 1930, make things even more exciting. But since the last time it happened was in 2002, the Brazilian population has many doubts if yet another cup will be won. And the first game between Brazil and Morocco was the dullest game of all in the first round.
But Sweden, that only qualified after an in-play at the end of March, started out excellently, with a 5-1 victory of Tunisia. I am an associate of the Swedish-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (Swedcham) and had wanted to participate to watch the game via a big screen there on June 14, but an irritated throat stopped those plans. The Brazilian Youtube channel CazêTV showed some instants from a Swedish goal commemoration during the first game, and they were also present with lengthier insertions during the second game, see the next paragraph.
It was therefore good to know that Swedcham had arranged another supporter get-together during the second game, against the Netherlands, together with its Dutch counterpart. The game could be watched on a beautiful Winter Saturday, June 20, in the Museum of Football, located in the municipal stadium Pacaembú in São Paulo. The header photo shows the stadium. In its lower left side there is an orange colored portal and entering through it, there were two alternate places to enjoy the game. Together with my girlfriend Valéria and my daughter Karina, as well as my Swedish student Vitória and her friend Juliana, we opted to watch the first half of the game in an auditorium inside the stadium. As you can see from a photo below, there was a Swedish majority inside, but on the outside where food and drinks could be consumed, the vast majority wore orange jerseys, routing for the Netherlands. Unfortunately, the Dutch squad was far superior in making goals, 5-1. But there is still a lot left of the World Cup!
Three photos from the game between the Netherlands and Sweden on 171’2026 (2026-06-20), the leftmost shows CazêTV interviewing the leaders of the support teams, David from Sweden and Ivo from Holland. To the upper right is a view of the last minutes before the game would start, and the lower right photo was taken during the water break of the first half.
In reference #1 below is a complete video coverage by CazêTV of the matches played on 171’2026 (2026-06-20), where the game between the Netherlands and Sweden was the first one. If you fast forward to 01:17:25 and then 01:18:46, you can see the video transmitted by CazêTV of the futmesa game. In a near future post, I will talk more about the fantastic Museum of Football.
What did you learn in School today? 