Brazil’s Eagles fans and their online community are coming together to party: ‘This will be their Super Bowl’

There’s a phrase in Portuguese that captures the sensation that Renan Oliveira said he experienced when he found out that his beloved Eagles would open their season in São Paulo, Brazil: teto preto.

It translates to “black ceiling” in English. In that moment in his São Paulo apartment, Oliveira said he felt his blood pressure drop, causing a sense of light-headedness that had him teetering on the brink of darkness.

“He passed out, basically,” explained Alexandre Branco, Oliveira’s friend and a fellow Eagles fan.

Neither man expected that the NFL would select the Eagles to play in the first game in South America, which the league says is home to more than 38 million Brazilian fans. Oliveira said that teams like the New England Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs have some of the biggest fan bases in Brazil due to their sustained periods of winning, so he figured one of those teams would visit.

But the Eagles fan base is a robust one, too. Oliveira and Branco would know — Branco founded Eagles Brasil, an online community for Brazilian Eagles fans hosted across various social media platforms that originally started as a blog in 2007. Oliveira joined the group in the early 2010s and befriended Branco, supporting the operation with content creation and planning on the side of his full-time job as a marketing consultant.

Once the shock and teto preto subsided for Oliveira and Branco, the reality set in that they would have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to attend an Eagles game in their own country among equally passionate Brazilian fans.

“For so many people in Brazil, this will be their Super Bowl,” Branco said. “I mean, so many people that can’t go to a game [in the United States]. They have kids, they have families here, they have jobs, and they can’t go. So people [are] dreaming about it for their whole lives. There are a lot of die-hard fans here, not just me and Renan.”

Oliveira and Branco took disparate paths to Eagles fandom and, consequently, each other. Branco’s gateway to the Eagles was actually through Allen Iverson, the 76ers’ Hall of Fame guard. Because of the global popularity of Michael Jordan in the 1980s through the 2000s, Brazilian television networks aired NBA games. But it was the scrappy Sixers shooter who garnered the attention and affinity of Branco in 2000.

Two years later, Branco received an NFL video game with a Sega Dreamcast that he purchased. In search of a team to play in the game’s career mode, he settled on the one based in the Sixers’ hometown of Philadelphia, the Eagles. It wasn’t until his father subscribed to NFL Sunday Ticket in 2004 as part of a promotion in Brazil that he watched his first game, the Eagles’ NFC championship game against the Atlanta Falcons.

“The first NFL snap I watched live was Brian Dawkins just obliterating Alge Crumpler,” Branco said. “And then I said, ‘Well, that’s the team I’ll cheer for. That’s it.’”

Oliveira studied at an American high school in Brazil, which exposed him to a multitude of cultural phenomena, such as the other kind of football. He learned about the sport over the course of three years, and by his senior year in 2004, he chose to root for Donovan McNabb and the Super Bowl-bound Eagles.

The Eagles Brasil community gave Oliveira and Branco a digital home to cultivate their love for the team, even though they lived thousands of miles — and even more kilometers — away from Philadelphia. Members of the group were located across the country that occupies nearly half of South America, making big, in-person events difficult to organize.

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Instead, Oliveira and Branco helped create smaller, regional groups within the larger community, including one for fellow Paulistas that would meet up for watch parties. Internet friends became family as Oliveira, Branco, and the other Eagles Brasil members of São Paulo went through the seasons of life together alongside an ever-changing team.

“Our biggest goal, our main goal with Eagles Brasil, was making everybody that was new to the NFL games and new to the communities feel like they’re part of something,” Branco said. “The highs and the lows, everything, it makes our community tighter and stronger, and it makes you feel like part of something.”

When the NFL announced that the Eagles would play the Green Bay Packers at Corinthians Arena on Friday, Oliveira and Branco aspired to bring the entire community together in one place. Oliveira threw a Hail Mary — he messaged the Eagles on LinkedIn, introduced their group, and explained that if the organization needed any assistance in planning a fan event on the ground, his group would be willing to help.

He received a response from the team that expressed interest in setting up a meeting over Zoom. Oliveira and Branco were surprised to hear Julian Lurie, son of Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, among the Eagles front office members on the other end of that initial call.

“I had teto preto during the meeting,” Oliveira said. “Ale knows, I start like just stuttering all throughout the meeting.”

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In conjunction with the Eagles marketing team led by Jen Kavanagh, Oliveira and Branco planned a ticketed pregame “Birds in Brazil” party scheduled for Thursday at the Carioca Club in the Pinheiros district of São Paulo. Kavanagh, the Eagles’ senior vice president of marketing, said that they’re expecting roughly 400 guests at the event.

“They both have regular day jobs,” Kavanagh said of Oliveira and Branco. “This is a passion project for them. But when you’re starting to think about planning events like this in a territory that you’re unfamiliar with, the more you can connect locally with people and culture as a place to start, the better off you’ll be in the end. And we really found that to be true.”

When members of Eagles Brasil descend on São Paulo for the festivities leading up to the game, they won’t be traveling from other parts of the country alone. Oliveira said that they have friends from Colombia, Costa Rica, Argentina, and Chile coming to town for the occasion.

Once the party ends, the game begins. Branco said he’s looking forward to showing the NFL and its predominantly American followers that the country and its passionate fan base have the potential to serve as an ongoing host.

“What I would like to see, and I think people will see that, is that it is safe to have games here,” Branco said. “It is cool to have games here, because everybody will be respected, everybody will conduct themselves in a good manner, and it will be a show. I think the NFL will not only do another game next year, but they will have stronger partnership here in Brazil.”

Oliveira and Branco purchased tickets for the Eagles’ season opener in nearby rows. If the Eagles score a touchdown, Branco said he will run to celebrate with Oliveira, reveling in a shared dream roughly 20 years in the making.

“I cannot imagine how many tears I’ve been holding in, so I better be hydrated,” Oliveira said. “That is the most important thing.”