Sports
See also: 2014 FIFA World Cup and Sports in BrazilAs in the rest of Brazil, football is the most popular sport among locals. Belo Horizonte has three professional football teams: América, Atlético Mineiro and Cruzeiro - Cruzeiro and Atlético Mineiro are among the most popular clubs in Brazil, with Cruzeiro being notable for its recent international appearances. The city also has one of the biggest football stadiums in the world, the Mineirão, opened in 1965. The older Independência Stadium hosted a legendary victory of the United States World Cup Team 1950 in a 1-0 triumph over England (see England v United States (1950)). Belo Horizonte is one of the host cities of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, for which Brazil is the host nation. Besides football, Belo Horizonte has one of the largest attendances at volleyball matches in the whole country. They are played either at Mineirinho, home of Brazil's national volleyball team, or at Minas Tênis Clube.
Read more about this topic: Belo Horizonte
Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“In the end, I think you really only get as far as you’re allowed to get.”
—Gayle Gardner, U.S. sports reporter. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 87 (June 17, 1991)
“Short of a wholesale reform of college athletics—a complete breakdown of the whole system that is now focused on money and power—the women’s programs are just as doomed as the men’s are to move further and further away from the academic mission of their colleges.... We have to decide if that’s the kind of success for women’s sports that we want.”
—Christine H. B. Grant, U.S. university athletic director. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A42 (May 12, 1993)
“Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled and all thy charms withdrawn;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant’s hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green;
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain;”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)