For a country of almost 200 million, Maracana Stadium is small. The Melbourne Cricket Ground may dwarf its capacity of 78,000, but the newly renovated soccer venue in Rio de Janeiro has already become a big icon of modern Brazil.
It started in early June 2013, when some 65,000 residents of Brazil’s largest city, Sao Paulo, demonstrated against a R0.20 (10c) rise in bus fares. By the end of the month, 800,000 protesters – more than 10 times the capacity of Maracana Stadium – had openly shown their dissatisfaction with President Dilma Rousseff’s government. Read More…
