Green Toad Bus

The huge Maracana Stadium was built to open the World Cup of 1950, and was also just recently the site of the grand final for the 2015 World Cup. With the capacity to seat 103,000 spectators, the Maracana will also be used to open the 2016 Olympics.

In between these huge events the Rio stadium is the weekly home to local Rio football games, where the excitement continues in the form of chanting, drums and flares by passionate soccer fans, and of course exciting football played in the style of Brazilian professionals. Now you can witness this excitement by booking your tickets and tour to the Maracana on game day!

The great thing about football in Brazil is that there are games almost all year long, with just a short rest around late December, before restarting early January.  This means that you can participate in the tickets and tour for Maracana Stadium games almost every week for the rest of the year.  During the beginning of the year, from January to May/June, teams playing at the Maracana are contesting the Rio state championship and you can even attend a game during the Rio Carnival which takes place around February or March. Then for the rest of the year the focus turns to the national football league until the Brazilian club champion is crowned in December.

Games at the Maracana kick-off mainly on Wednesdays and Sundays, with some games on Saturday nights. The Wednesday matches usually have a start time of either 7:30 pm, 9:00 pm or late games at 10:00 pm, while games on Sunday start earlier at either 4:00 pm or 6:30 pm. We have a list of the dates available on the page you can access below where bookings are made for the Rio Football Tickets for Maracana Tour. But if the dates you are interested in are not shown, then contact us, as sometimes dates are not set until closer to the game, or maybe there are alternative events at other stadiums we can offer you.

Futebol is what Brazilians call football/soccer (pronounced foo-tchey-bow), and nothing conjures up such passion in the country's population as futebol.  The Maracana is considered the home of Brazilian soccer, and while you are in Rio you can see some of Brazil's biggest clubs play.  There are 4 major teams in the city of Rio de Janeiro whom use Maracana for their bigger home matches, and these draw passionate supporters. Below is a brief description of the Rio team's and if you ever have the chance, get along to see a local derby when two of those teams face-off at the Maracana, because the atmosphere is electric, if not a little tense:

Flamengo - probably the most famous Brazilian club, with a huge fan base both in and outside Rio de Janeiro. They are traditionally associated with the working class and their jersey colours are red and black.

Fluminense - Also one of the larger clubs in the country, they were traditionally associated with the upper class and their colours are green, red and white, which their nickname as the Tri-colours is contributed to.

Botafogo - The black and white jersey of Botafogo has a large loyal following within Rio de Janeiro city. A couple of decades back they were unbeatable.

Vasco da Gama - Also black and white, were the team for the immigrating Portuguese, with various successes throughout their history.