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Tuesday 6 February 2018

The greatest game you've never heard of: Grêmio, Náutico and the madcap warfare of the Batalha dos Aflitos

71 seconds. 71 seconds is all it will take.

At the start, it will feel like the world is ending. It will very nearly look like it too, what with the smoke and the riot police and the baying hordes. At the end... well, the world-ending thing will apply then too, actually. But a fuzzy sunshine-glow will have conquered that hollow, slow-burn dread that moments earlier had set up camp in the depths of your stomach.


You will worry, once the dust has settled, that people won't believe you when you tell them that the impossible happened. But they'll have to, because it did.

My piece about the Batalha dos Aflitos – the most ludicrous football match you've never heard of – is in the latest edition of the American football magazine Howler. You can buy a copy or subscribe here.

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