Good teams are thickest on the ground in Rio and São Paulo. In Rio,
Flamengo and
Fluminense have historically had the most intense rivalry in Brazilian club football, though the latter are currently in steep decline and their place has been taken by
Vasco ; together with
Botafogo they dominate
carioca football. In São Paulo there is similar rivalry between
São Paulo and
Coríntians , whose pre-eminence is challenged by
Guaraní ,
Palmeiras ,
Portuguesa and
Santos , the last of these now a shadow of the team that Pelé led to glory in the 1960s. The only clubs elsewhere that come up to the standards of the best of Rio and São Paulo are
Internacional and
Grêmio in Porto Alegre,
Atlético Mineiro in Belo Horizonte,
Vitória and
Bahia in Bahia, and
Sport in Recife.
Brazilian football shirts , true to national character, are stylish and much more colourful than their European equivalents. They make great souvenirs. Costs range from around $30 for an official repro shirt bought at a sports shop, to around $10 for unauthorized cotton copies available in any clothes shop. The most common ones you will see are the red and black hoops of Flamengo, the green and maroon stripes of Fluminense, the white and black diagonal stripe of Vasco, the white with red and black hoop of São Paulo, and the blue, white and black stripes of Grêmio. The instantly recognizable national shirt, canary yellow and nicknamed canarinho, is also ubiquitous.