Sportsmen immigrants: the Germans in the southern Brazil

Abstract

In the late nineteenth century, the arrival of European immigrants in significant numbers in Brazil has greatly contributed for social and cultural innovations. Rio Grande do Sul (the southernmost state of Brazil) received the bigger effective of German immigrants in the country, and such wave was of great importance for the introduction of sports in social life. The aim of this article is to appraise and to identify the reasons for the important role played by the Germans. To do it we consider their sports tradition and their prominence in the society of Rio Grande do Sul at that moment. To verify the effects of German presence, we will focus on the successful process of adoption of a sports innovation, the football.