Headquarters of memorable games, Vila requires prevention – 02/25/2023 – Juca Kfouri

Vila Belmiro is the most famous of all the villages. And Vila Belmiro is the most famous of all the villages because it was in Vila Belmiro that King Pelé played.

In it, this Sunday (26), Santos and Corinthians will play for the 114th time, in an important game for the hosts, not so much for the visitors, and a high risk one.

It will also be the first classic between the alvinegros without King Pelé around.

He played 47 times against Corinthians, his biggest victim, and scored 49 goals, not only there, which is not even much compared to everything the King did in Vila.

Going to Vila in the 1960s was like going to the theater to see the best actor of all time making history, enchanting. Whoever it was that acted with Him.

Romanticisms aside, Vila Belmiro was never safe.

Suffice it to say that part of it collapsed in 1964, exactly on a Sunday afternoon between Santos and Corinthians, when the wooden stands collapsed in the sixth minute of the game and injured 181 people.

No less than 32,986 fans packed the stadium!

The current capacity foresees half and the 11 thousand tickets for this Sunday were sold out, with another four thousand available for the owners of captive chairs.

Even so, and therefore, the risk is high.

Just remember last July. when, for the Copa do Brasil, Corinthians eliminated Santos and there was an invasion of the lawn, with attacks on Cássio, in addition to bombs and flares thrown at the goalkeeper.

Inaugurated in 1916, the stadium that bears the name of Urbano Caldeira, the late defender, coach and vice-president of Santos, is indeed a melting pot considered incompatible for the era of safe stadiums like the other big ones in São Paulo.

In theory, the relationship between the size of the stadium and security should not exist, if there were competence and obedience to the legislation for hosting the games, with the necessary preventive measures.

Small stages across Europe are proof of that.

Care with the capacity of the stands was not accompanied by inspection in Brazil — and what could be peaceful nostalgia for the old days is always threatened by tragedy.

On the field, the situation in Santos borders on despair due to the imminence of being disqualified for the final phase of Paulistinha, and Corinthians is reduced to the challenge of playing well away from home, which is still eagerly awaited by Fiel, who will only see the match on TV .

Thankfully, it seems like a lie to say this, that it is a single-fan game, because given the invincible inability to control the violence of the minority of fans, classics with two fans, in the most famous village in the world, would be an invitation to barbarism.

Note the bizarreness, for example, of the note from Torcida Jovem do Santos, against violence, published recently: “The Board of Torcida Jovem do Santos informs all members that as of today any act of violence against any supporters is prohibited organized in the State of São Paulo. The associate that does not comply with the determination will be held responsible inside and outside the statute”.

In São Paulo you can’t. And out? And what is punishing “out of statute”?

The police suspect that the motivation for the initiative has nothing exemplary, but merely meets the demands of the PCC, whose business is jeopardized when fans attack each other.

The village doesn’t deserve it.

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