Packers-Eagles Brazil game comes with a major catch for both teams

On Sept. 6, 2024, the Philadelphia Eagles and the Green Bay Packers will play on Friday night in Sao Paulo, Brazil. It’s going to be the first NFL game in Brazil and that’s pretty cool from a fundamental standpoint.

The international games are a great way to build the game unless you somehow manage to tick off every single local, and wouldn’t you know it, it looks like that might be where we’re headed. 

Packers-Eagles booked in Brazil stadium that doesn't allow green

This game is going to be played at the aptly named Corinthians Arena, the home of the Corinthians, one of the top-tier soccer teams in Brazil. The Corinthians have a huge rivalry with a different team, the Palmeiras.

The problem, and it's a huge one, is that the Palmeiras’ team color is green. On top of that, there is an “informal ban” on wearing green in and around the stadium. Someone on Reddit took a picture of a sign that hangs at most entry points to the stadium. Google translates that to “Entry of green is expressly prohibited.” Uh oh.

This isn’t to say that the teams aren’t going to be able to wear their jerseys or anything like that. The Packers will probably wear their away-whites and the Eagles could wear their home alternate-blacks. The teams have some workarounds. It’s the fans who travel to the game who might be in trouble here. 

We’re talking about two fan bases that travel very well. We’re talking about a bunch of boisterous Midwesterners and raucous Philadelphians who are going to Brazil to see their teams play. They’re going to show up and show out. Those are the people that we should worry about here.

If you’ve ever traveled to a game before, you know that you don’t necessarily hop off the plane, go to the game, and then immediately hop back on a red-eye flight home. You’ll stay for a few days, and with a Friday game in Brazil, you can have a nice little week-long vacation with an international football game set to be the capstone of the whole thing. 

Also, if you travel for a game, you’re probably going to be decked out in your team’s merch the whole time. In this case, that’s an entire week of wearing green in an area that very much doesn't like green/

This isn’t a fear-mongering thing, saying that everyone who wears green is going to get bashed. Hopefully, the Corinthians fans have the wherewithal to realize Sal from South Philly and Jeff from Appleton aren’t trying to be outwardly disrespectful. But on the flip side of that, we shouldn’t forget everything that went into ‘Lochtegate’ from the 2016 Summer Olympics.

This might have been just a tad bit of oversight by the NFL schedule makers. Let’s see what other debacles they get themselves into when they release the full schedule next month.