“Brazil is really emotional,” he says of his compatriots. “Like in England, it’s the same here and in Turkey [where Moritz also played]. “We could compare these three countries: people are so in love with their football club they would do almost anything.
“Botafogo and Crystal Palace share an investor [John Textor], so now in England I’m a Crystal Palace fan. That’s the way it happens in Brazil; if we share an owner, I’m now a Crystal Palace fan. I will follow Crystal Palace on Twitter, Instagram, and buy their shirt. You will see them go to Botafogo games with the Crystal Palace shirt.”
British football holds a unique place in the Brazilian imagination. Scots introduced the sport to the country in the 1800s, when immigrant workers on a railroad construction in São Paulo began to play.
Scotsman Thomas Donohoe organised Brazil’s first football match by marking out a pitch in Bangu (where Palace’s 1961 Brazilian opposition were founded) in April 1894.
Later, Brazil’s ‘father of football’ Charles William Miller was sent from Brazil to England to study. There he learned to play football, joining the Corinthians and St Mary’s (now Southampton), and when he returned to South America in 1894 he brought with him a set of Hampshire FA rules and two balls.
He taught members of São Paulo Athletic Club how to play, and thus football began to spread through the country. Famously, amateur English side Corinthians toured Brazil in 1910 and subsequently Corinthians Paulista formed.
The English club dissolved in 1939 and merged with Casuals, forming today’s most prominent non-league team: Corinthian-Casuals.
