The Sao Paulo Football Museum was conceived to be a sequence of ludic experiences, all of them relating sports and Brazilian life during 20th century. The pillars on which the project was thought – architecture, content and museography – were integrated in order to make the visitors notice three concepts that give the tour a direction: emotion, history, fun.

Right in the entrance area there is a big hall baptized as Great Area that hosts the public in a visiting room for Brazilian football containing amplified reproductions from distinct objects that have materialized Brazilian passion for sport: banners, flags, bottom games, posts, locksmith and numerous souvenirs.

“Now you will meet the heroes who built the History of brazilian football. I’m proud to be one of them. You will love it! Welcome to the Football Museum!” Pelé

Over one hundred years ago, (imagine that!) a lot of people criticized football, which was just beginning in Brazil. They said that there was no future in a sport practiced using your feet, despite the name of the game (foot-ball, ‘foot on the ball’). The feet, whose demonstration of talent can usually be seen in the match, in the end lead to a beautiful exhibition of Brazilian creativity and passion, from the smallest fields to stadiums the world over.

There are 25 of them, but there may as well be 50 or 100, as many have created the football-art that is practiced in Brazil. Gods or heroes, idols of many generations, they can also be seen as angels whose wings transport them through space to the cathedral where their inventiveness, the poetry and the magic of the game is worshiped. They are truly baroque angels!

Look straight ahead and you will see a large scenic structure (a fantastic, gigantic, blue ship). Get in and participate. You will see and hear dozens of professionals from the sport who have chosen “The goal of my life.” Will one of them be your favorite goal? In addition to interviews, you will also get to see the most important goals in the history of Brazilian football again.

Which goal do you want to hear? One narrated by Ary Barroso in the 1940s or by Osmar Santos four decades later? Enter and choose your favorite announcer by name or by the year when the goal took place, and take part in an homage to the radio, the system that helped to bring Brazil and the hearts of the fans together.

To celebrate means to uplift, to elevate, to make sublime. This is your area, the area of the fan-player who seeks to bring together and unite, through a collective experience, the feelings that make his or her love of the game run strong. A surprising environment, at the core of Pacaembu (SP) stadium, shows the pillars that support the bleachers, which were firmly planted in the ground when the stadium was built.

Here you will find the story, starting with Charles Miller, of how football came to Brazil at the end of the 19th century, leading up to the early times, when the sport became professional and black and mixed race athletes began to be accepted in the 1930s. The greatest player during this period was Arthur Friedenreich, the son of a Brazilian woman and a German father.

Ever since the 1922 Modern Art Week, Brazil has been creating its own heroes, authentic interpreters of the ethnic fusion of the country, expressed through art, literature and music. And the star footballer also became a national hero. In the 1930s, football became a cultural phenomenon. Alongside Villa-Lobos, Drummond and Portinari stand Leônidas da Silva and Domingos da Guia. This was the era of radio, of idols and the masses. The face of Brazil emerged through music and football. Football tells us about ourselves, lives within us, becomes part of our common history. All this is shown in a remarkable installation where moving trihedrons display 20 heroes, and the life of the period in a 10 minute film. The biographies of the artists are projected onto the front wall.

The greatest silence ever in the country was accompanied by the rhythmic sound of thousands of hearts beating. And so we suffered in 1950, when we built Maracanã in the certainty of a World Cup victory. And yet, defeat: the final score against Uruguay was 2 x 1. All we needed to win was a tie. But we did not win. But from that moment on Brazilian football would experience its greatest triumphs.

Brazil is the only country that has participated in every World Cup. It is also the only one to have won the Cup five times. The details of these achievements (as well as of the defeats suffered in between), and the backdrop of the political, social, economic and cultural moment in which each of them occurred, await you in this space. Here, Presidents, Miss Brazils, artists, trend-setters, anonymous fans and the geniuses of the field are the characters in this History.

They were never defeated when they played together. In a world where idol status is questionable, especially in football, the gods unanimously proclaimed both worthy. They were different in almost everything -the way they played, their personalities, their lifestyles – but they were equal as artists. And for the fact that they never gave up their pleasure of turning the dribble, the race, the artfulness, and the goal into toys for grown-ups.

Football is numbers. Numbers of goals. Rules. The biggest and the smallest. Here you will find a controversial trajectory between tactics, dates, stories, and superstitions. A labyrinth of curiosities. An almanac to see, feel, participate and discuss. Videos about the matches, street football (pelada), futsal soccer, women’s football, the referee’s mother… Soccer balls in their natural state: how they were and how they are… The foosball players demonstrating the different tactics created by the trainers… Enjoy!

This is the right place for you to see for the first time or again the gestures and movements that make football a visually stunning spectacle. Behind the emotion of a goal, the malice of a dribble, the boldness of a defense, of the struggle for a tackle, the choreography of football is as beautiful as it is unpredictable. Television images are commented on here by journalists like João Máximo, Marcelo Duarte and Celso Unzelte.

The room of Body Game is divided into four experiences: soccer with virtual ball, kick on goal, slow motion movies and a theatre with images of the late Canal 100. Besides, there is a binder containing information on 129 clubs who have participated at least once in the Brazilian championship (since 1971).

This room is an homage to Paulo Machado de Carvalho Stadium, of Pacaembu, and has been given Historical Patrimony status by the city and state. Here you will find “Ramos de Azevedo”/Severo&Villares Office architectural drafts and photographs taken by imminent photographers Jean Manzon, Thomas Farkas, Peter Scheier, and Hildegard Rosenthal in the decades of 1940s and 1950s, in addition to two historical film, gently given by Cinemateca Brasileira, about the history of the Stadium’s construction and its inauguration.