SAO PAULO (AP) — The host of the NFL’s first game in Brazil, soccer club Corinthians, is not a fan of the green dominated color schemes of Friday night’s visitors, the Green Bay Packers and the Philadelphia Eagles. But many fans who arrived at NeoQuimica Arena didn’t seem to mind.

And among them were supporters of Corinthians, a club that has tried for decades to avoid reference to the colour of its local rivals Palmeiras.

The excitement was palpable in Sao Paulo for the second game of the 2024 NFL season and the league’s first visit to South America. Philadelphia and Green Bay both made the playoffs last season.

Packers fan and schoolteacher Cody Armstrong, 32, spent a large chunk of the money he earned over the summer on a trip from Oakland, California, with three friends, including two Eagles fans. They were all dressed in green as they waited for their orders at a fast-food restaurant next to the stadium.

“Is it true they don’t like green here?” Armstrong said. “Well… they’ll have to make do with us.”

The friends also looked on dressed in green Kansas City’s season-opening win over Baltimore on Thursday night in a bar in Sao Paulo, and they were excited to see so many locals excited about American football. Marketing experts estimate that there are 38 million fans of the sport in soccer-mad Brazil, and at least 42,000 were expected at the Corinthians stadium.

Bruno Silva, 37, bought an unofficial black Eagles jersey, which was selling for about 50 Brazilian reals ($10) at a subway station near the stadium. A Corinthians fan, he said he would support Philadelphia — designated the home team in Brazil — because it refused to wear green.

“This is our home,” said Silva, who started following the NFL five years ago. “We support whoever supports us.”

William Camargo, 39, also a Corinthians fan, showed up in a green Packers jersey, which many of the football club’s supporters would consider heresy.

“We like to say Corinthians is owned by its fans. Green Bay is the same,” Camargo said of the community-owned franchise.

He said he became a Packers fan because of their longtime quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, whose jersey was a popular choice among fans in the stadium on Friday night.

Other fans wore uniforms from other NFL teams, including New England, San Francisco, Buffalo and Baltimore.

Russell Okung, who played for four teams in 11 NFL seasons, was one of the off-field attractions Friday night, joining other Brazilian practitioners of capoeira, an African-Brazilian martial art disguised as dance, to perform for applauding fans at various spots outside the stadium.

“I love Brazil,” Okung told reporters before one of his capoeira performances. “I’m so happy the NFL came here.”

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