Maracana Stadium

             Maracana Stadium

Rio’s second most popular tourist attraction, the Maracana continued to attract football fans from all over the world

Fans of legends like Ronaldo, Pele, Romario, Carlos Alberto and Nilton Santos will surely love to pay a visit to the Mecca of Football; the Maracanã Stadium. Officially inaugurated during the 1950 World Cup, Once the largest stadium in the world, packing in crowds of up to 200,000 – among the highest attendances ever seen in the history of the game – the Maracana now has a reduced capacity of 73,531 for Brazil 2014. It remains, nevertheless, the country’s biggest football ground. If you are lucky enough, it is possible to catch one of your favourite players in action. Otherwise, pay a visit to the sports museum with treasuries in store. The stadium is hosting the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremonies.Visitors to the stadium could watch from the Torre de Vidro (Glass Tower), built especially for the 2014 World Cup occasion, and could even take a piece of the old stadium away with them as a souvenir.