Amateur soccer in Belo Horizonte

This is a study on social relations that focuses on an amateur soccer club, Sarandy Futebol Clube, within the logic of the mechanisms that structure sociability in a small community on the outskirts of Belo Horizonte, the Sarandy neighborhood. Its purpose was to understand sociologically, from the emergence of the club, the changes in local daily life, considering the intersubjective relationships between its residents, the use and significance of the neighborhood space, and the relationships between the neighborhood and the city as a whole. The analysis of the information gathered from the testimonies taken and documents consulted, in addition to iconographic sources, pointed to the importance of popular leisure activities, especially amateur soccer, as part of the way of life of peripheral populations and as a significant sphere of sociability developed in the neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city of Belo Horizonte. The analysis also indicated the profound change in the meanings of these practices over the last few decades in the capital of Minas Gerais, as new actors emerge and the conditions of existence in the city change.