SÃO PAULO — I haven’t slept. Not real sleep anyway. You can thank a crying baby in seat 21J for that.
But I’m in the lobby of my São Paulo hotel on Wednesday night, dreary-eyed, waiting on the unofficial ambassador of Eagles Brazil. And at 7:14 p.m., there’s Alexandre Branco, rounding the corner. With a backwards Eagles cap, he daps me up into a hug like we’re long-lost friends.
It has been a busy week for Branco, the creator of the Eagles Brazil social media accounts. He’s coming from a work meeting that ran a bit late and traffic in the fourth-largest city in the world is a never-ending nightmare. But he and his girlfriend, Flavia, are all smiles.
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It has been a busy week. But it has been a fun week too.
We’re heading to a local hangout, his buddy Caio’s spot called St. Paul’s, so we can sit down, grab a couple of beers and chat about a busy few days that will culminate when the Eagles play host to the Packers at the Corinthians Arena on Friday night. It will be the first-ever NFL game in South America.
It’s just over a 5-mile journey to St. Paul’s, which serves as a hangout for Eagles and NFL fans during the season, but we’re quickly greeted by what is becoming an accepted fate in São Paulo. Red brake lights. There’s just no avoiding traffic in a city of 21 million people.
“I have to be honest with you,” Branco says. “It won’t get any better.”
He’s right. The traffic doesn’t get better but the evening does and we’re not far from the bar anyway. We pull up to St. Paul's in the Vila Madalena neighborhood, Branco navigates a parking spot and we walk in.
St. Paul’s is a year into its second and bigger location and serves as a reminder of a community that has been built in São Paulo. There are plenty of Eagles fans making the trip to Brazil for the season opener — but there are also plenty who already live here.
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Branco found that out back in 2007 when he began Eagles Brazil as a blog. He had a good understanding of English and found a community that yearned for Eagles information. Before long, he found the same folks were commenting on a bunch of the posts. And then when the social media site Orkut came to be in his country, Eagles Brazil really took off with the help of Renan Oliveira, who has helped it grow immensely.
Why do the Eagles have such a strong fanbase in Brazil? Branco has a few thoughts. The movies “Invincible” and “Rocky” are extremely popular in Brazil and it probably doesn’t hurt that the Eagles have been a good team for most of the last two decades.
On Thursday night at the Carioca Club in São Paulo, Eagles Brazil, with help from the Eagles’ marketing team, are throwing a “Birds in Brazil” party for around 400 guests, former Eagle Connor Barwin and perhaps some other non-player members of the organization.
Before we can get into why in the world a kid from Brazil has become such a big Eagles fan, Caio brings out some menus. But we don’t have much of a choice. There’s plenty of great authentic Brazilian food but St. Paul’s has a cheesesteak called “Philly Philly” on the menu. We’ll take a round.
It’s a solid attempt at a cheesesteak thousands of miles from the Mecca. A hearty sesame-seed role with thinly sliced steak, caramelized onions and provolone cheese. I pass on the green bell peppers. And we, of course, had to wash it down with a couple of local Schornstein IPAs.
Where were we?
Oh yeah, the kid from Brazil who became an Eagles fan. For Branco, it actually started with basketball. He was a huge Allen Iverson fan and remembers the 2001 NBA Finals. To Branco, it felt like everyone was rooting for Shaq and Kobe and the Lakers, but he found an affinity for The Answer.
“I watched Sixers games and I saw Allen Iverson and I thought, ‘That’s the guy.’ The cornrows, all different,” Branco says. “And I said, that’s that guy.”
Branco was pleased to find out that Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni is an Iverson fan as well and has even shown clips of AI’s crossover to receivers to help with their routes.
“Really?” he says, “Wow! That’s cool!”
So when Branco got a Sega Dreamcast that came with an NFL game, it was only natural that he decided to be the Eagles. And when his father a few years later got DIRECTV to watch a Brazilian sports channel that was packaged with NFL Sunday Ticket, Branco really began to watch Eagles games.
He fell in love when he saw Brian Dawkins steal Alge Crumpler’s soul in the 2004 NFC Championship Game.
Amazingly enough, to this point in his life, Branco has been to exactly one Eagles game. He was at the NFC Championship Game win over the Vikings at the Linc back in early 2018. It’s a day he’ll never forget.
“I filmed a lot of stuff and I cried a lot,” Branco says. “It was dream coming true.”
On Friday night at the Corinthians Arena, Branco will be a spectator at his second-ever Eagles game. He expects them to win but he thinks it’ll be a hard-fought W.
As for the crowd? He’s pretty excited about that too. He thinks the atmosphere will help the Eagles win over some of the undecided voters in the stands.
This game is making some worlds collide for Branco. He is not only looking forward to showing off American football to his fellow Brazilians, but he’s also looking forward to showing off Brazil to his fellow Eagles fans.
He’s just a little uncomfortable being called an ambassador.
“He is an ambassador. He’s being modest,” Caio cuts in before looking at his buddy. “You’re bringing people together.”
In the last few weeks, some Eagles players have voiced their uneasiness about traveling to Brazil and there has been plenty of chatter about crime rate and wearing the color green (which has nothing to do with gang activity).
“With all that has been said about Brazil and São Paulo, I think the point they’re missing is they don’t know the people from here,” Branco says. “We’re basically super welcoming to tourists, to different cultures, to different sports. This is a cauldron. We have so many different cultures and backgrounds here, especially in São Paulo. We’re used to that. Having Americans here is not new for us. What I want most from this game is to go to the stadium, see what our culture is about and they will be very well treated. We’re very welcoming. They’ll feel a very different relationship here.”
As we begin to wrap up the night, just a few scraps of our cheesesteaks remain and just some foam in our glasses when the TV on the wall shows the Eagles arriving at São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport.
Alex and Caio begin naming every player, coach and staffer that walk into frame.
“There’s Brandon Graham!”
“That’s DeVonta Smith!”
“Oh … Connor Barwin! He'll be there tomorrow.”
“Big Dom!”
Me and the fellas make sure to point out Flavia’s favorite player. She became a big Jake Elliott fan when he drilled that incredible 59-yard kick against the Bills last season. But she hasn’t completely given in to the Eagles. She doesn’t just want to be a fan of her boyfriend’s favorite team.
But Branco thinks the next few days will put her over the top.
As I down my last gulp and head for the exit, it’s hard to argue.
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