Football: Palmeiras fans run amok

ANGRY PALMEIRAS supporters went on the rampage yesterday after the club's 1-0 loss to Manchester United in the Toyota Cup final in Tokyo.

Around 3,000 fans gathered at the headquarters of Mancha Verde (Green Stain), the team's huge fan club, to watch the game, and when it was over, many of them broke up into small groups and started hurling rocks. Others, armed with iron bars, smashed up a number of shop windows and a subway station.

In one part of the city, a group of fans clashed with taunting supporters of their team's archrivals, Corinthians.

With the club's fans having a reputation for violence, police were standing by and quickly moved in to quell the violence. It was not clear last night how many people had been injured or arrested.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Palmeirenses showed there were no hard feelings by singing, dancing and waving their club's flags on Avenida Paulista, one of the city's principal thoroughfares.

"Of course we're sad and frustrated," Francisco Pecolaro, a Palmeiras fan, said. "We're dancing, singing and cheering because we know we'll win next year.

"We may have lost, but we showed everyone that Palmeiras is the best team in the world. We played much better than Manchester. All they did was defend."