For those of you not too familiar with the Portuguese League, it’s currently close to an end with only two clubs in the fight for first place: Benfica and Braga. And while Benfica is a chronic candidate to win the title, Braga is this year’s happy surprise.
With the team playing good, enthralling football and being so high up in the table, it’s normal that fans will want to travel far to support the team on away matches. But in the last round there was an avalanche of fans traveling with the team. No less than 7,000 Braga fans – that’s about 50 busloads of men, women and children – made the journey from the North of Portugal to the center of that beautiful country.
But these numbers, unheard of in Portugal, will only make true sense if we consider one last figure. Naval, the host, have a stadium that sits 10.000 people. That means 70% of people in the stadium were supporting the away team.
And the team didn’t let them down, routing their opponents 0-4. But that pales in comparison to the beauty of having such dedicated supporters following the team around.
These are a couple of videos I found on YouTube, one showing some pictures of the moments leading up to the game and another showing the fans in action:
I have to keep reminding myself that they’re the away team!
Just because I really like it, here’s the inevitable Mexican Wave:
Sadly the guy missed the goal 
But in this video you can really tell just how many Braga fans were in the stadium – just look at how much red there is in the stands.
This Crimson Tide may not see its team end the season in 1st place, but they will certainly finish in a more than well deserved second. And look out Europe, they’ll be in the Champions League next season!
Thanks to 1921 for letting me know about this video!
Note: this is the first in a new category of articles that we at asromafc.info named “The Beautiful Game” where we will try to post news that honor the beautiful sport we all enjoy so much.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Come Bracarense, solo tu puoi ringraziare la cronaca meraviglioso!
Obrigado!
Hi there Roma fans!
Thanks for your attention to our massive away invasion last week!
Yesterday we won another match against Paços Ferreira, while Benfica lost 3-1 at Porto. So, one round to go..nothing is impossible, but they play home and we have to play away, lets see! Anyway this growing support is really unusual, and I hope its a new trend in our too much concentrated championship, as, even when we are in second place, all the 3 usual clubs (Porto, Benfica, Sporting) get all the attention. Just imagine, the club 25 points behind us, Sporting, gets, all the year, much more hadlines than ourselves. But thats not important , the best thing is being true to your club, following it wherever it goes, and, yesterday, with another big matches at the same hour (Porto-Benfica), we had more than 20000 supportes at the stadium, those that really dont care about any other club but Braga. Again thanks for the post, and, by the way, Braga is known as the “portuguese Rome”, as it was the ancient roman capital of the Iberian Peninsula centuries ago, “Bracara Augusta”!
Finally, good luck for the last games, it would be very nice see you guys win the scudetto this year!
braga…the best!!!=D
Somos mesmo ENORMES
escrevo em portugues porque não sei italiano
parabens
somos os maiores
Yes we can \O/ GO BRAGA
Great article, was a pleasure to read it.
our fans are the greatest, and it has been a wonderfull season for us. “Sadly” we’re second with only one game to finish the season, but it’s still possible, because benfica it’s only 3 points ahead of us, so we have to win our game and, i hope, benfica will lose his game.
btw, we are known as the portuguse rome, so we have something in common
good luck for the Seria A and i hope mourinho wins the champions league
Grazie e complimenti per il blog, Saluti dal Portogallo
I mean our city (Braga) is known as the Portuguese Rome
Thank you so much for your comments and kind words. I’m sorry the comments take a little long to be approved, but you must understand we get a lot of “hate” comments I’d rather not have in a blog that I like to keep clean from the bad things football sometimes brings out in people.
I was very glad to hear that Braga is known as the Portuguese Rome, I guess there is a special connection. Maybe we should suggest a friendly match in the pre-season?
Once again, thank you so much guys. And it’s ok to write in Portuguese!
Hello, thanks for the post.
Watch this video, is the same game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B0rMZLQ0tY&feature=player_embedded
good luck for Roma!
Most of Bracarenses support ASRoma… the people call us “the Roma of Portugal”…
Thanks 1921. I added the video to the original post.
Thank you for your kind words. It´s always great to hear good things from those who aren´t close but still recognize our talent.
Good luck for the rest of your championship and maybe we´ll see each other next year on the champions league
sincerely
José Costa, Braga
a friendly match would be nice
here’s another invasion made by us, this one in leiria (7000 warriors)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q57gGSwesYY&playnext_from=TL&videos=WPxveGLvCvM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxXl0Wie7iY&feature=related