Green Stain - Seriously? São Paulo

Okay, so at the risk of alienating my husband, I have to bring up the Mancha Verde, or the Mancha Alviverde, depending on how you feel about the law (see below). A direct translation is the Green Stain--an indirect translation would be one of the largest fan clubs in Brazil, and the biggest of Palmeiras. It boasts somewhere around 70,000 members. I should not be joking that a fan club is called a stain because there are some of these folks who would not be so happy with me, shall we say.

The Mancha are the folks who sit across the way from us in the yellow sector in Pacaembu stadium. They are tons of fun when they are happy. They hop up and down, dance, coordinate arms to the left and arms to the right, run down, run up, spin around their shirts, bring green and white balloons and flags and huge banners. From afar, I love them. I do not wish, however, to be seated in the middle of them.

The Mancha was originally founded in 1983 from a fusion of three other smaller fan clubs: the Imperio Verde (Green Empire), the Inferno Verde (the Green Hell) and the Gremio Alviverde (no clue). The name Mancha Verde actually comes from a Disney villain, the Mancha Negra (this is the Phantom Blot according to Wikipedia, who I do not recognize but was apparently an old-time archenemy of Mickey Mouse). The Mancha Negra used to rob banks and leave victims with black blots. Not really sure why this would be your mascot (yes, Corinthians does win the fan club mascot war with  the hawks).

Anyway, the Mancha Verde is judicially dead according to the same source, because of a major fight between the Palmeiras and São Paulo fan clubs in 1995. 110 injured and 1 São Paulino dead. At that point, the Mancha Verde was converted into a Samba School (I'm not really sure how you execute this transformation--dance lessons? They really are quite limber). In 1997 a new Mancha was created with new rules, headquarters and a separate directorate so that if the fan club did something bad, the samba school would not be affected.  So the new Mancha is called the Mancha Alvi-verde (alvo=white, verde=green). Or not. I see the signs in the stadium are still Mancha Verde.

Love them or hate them, they are a huge part of the fun at live games. Unless of course you are a Gavião da Fiel (a Corinthians fan club member--a Loyal Hawk). And then, all bets are off.