MANAUS, Brazil (AP) — Pedro Canuto wears his pads and practices passing the football a few hundred yards from where boats filled with tourists are navigating the Amazon River into the rainforest.

A quarterback for Manaus FA, arguably the best American football team in the region, the 20-year-old could be playing soccer, the sport for which Brazil is passionate. But he chooses to play a game most of his countrymen know little about.

About 200 people, including dozens of screaming fans, wait in the stands of the Ismael Benigno Stadium for Canuto and his teammates to take the field. Among them are members of the quarterback’s proudly Baré Indigenous family. His mother sometimes spends days walking into the Amazon rainforest to teach in small villages in one of the world’s most remote locations. Still, she comes to most home games to support her son.

“If she is brave enough to do all that, how could I not do what I desire and give 100% to the sport and the city I love?” Canuto told The Associated Press at the team’s headquarters one day before its home match against Galo FA, the defending champions. ”My dream is for Manaus one day to retire my No. 1 shirt. Several teams tried to sign me after the latest season, but I don’t see myself playing anywhere else in Brazil. I want to make it here.”

Canuto and Manaus FA’s devotion to football illustrate how much the sport has grown in the last two decades in Brazil. Though it’s not enough to fill the 10,000-seat stadium in the Amazon, interest in the game is now so widespread the NFL will be playing its first-ever game in South America when the Philadelphia Eagles face the Green Bay Packers on Friday night at the NeoQuimica Arena in Sao Paulo — 6,200 miles (10,000 kilometers) away.

Local research group Ibope Repucom said in 2022 that Brazil has about 38 million American football fans, the second-largest international community for the sport after Mexico’s. Marketing analysts say that figure has grown at least 10% since. NFL games are shown on ESPN Brasil, which has broadcast them since 1992, and open channel RedeTV. The Brazilian football league Canuto plays in is mostly on social media channels.

Brazil’s main league is the BFA, with 72 teams from the Amazon to the country’s deep south, bordering Uruguay. The league is in its sixth season, which will include more than 200 games in 20 states between June and December. Teams can sign up to three players born in North America, Europe and Japan and use two of them during games.

About a decade ago, Brazilian teams rarely played in full pads, and many of them focused on flag football. Teams like Manaus once had several players who used motorcycle helmets with improvised refrigerator evaporator coils in the front as protection for their heads. None of the athletes followed strict diets to keep in shape or followed concussion protocols whenever they got hit. Being paid to play was almost a dream.

But times are slowly changing.

Accountant Renner Silva has taken every possible role at Manaus FA over the years: player, coach, director, fan and coordinator.

“We need more gear, a proper place to train and more support to travel nationwide to play during the regular season. But one of our biggest difficulties to draw more players and fans to the sport here is the heat,” Silva said as players practiced on a recent evening at Manaus’ Olympic sports facilities — the temperature was at 31 degrees Celsius (almost 88 Fahrenheit). “The stadium we play has no covering and the match starts at 3 p.m. People start getting there at 4 p.m. to watch. And players are already worn out by the second half, when it gets a little cooler.”

Manaus FA shares its public training grounds with joggers and track and field athletes. Kickers need to use their imagination since there can’t be goal posts so javelin and discus throwers can practice, too. The field is only 80 yards long, the same size used in the Brazilian league, but without the 10 yards for each end zone. Silva said there are other fields in the city where the team could prepare better, but local authorities don’t yet believe in the sport’s potential.

Still, the team managed to draw the attention of American quarterback and linebacker Malik Brown, who had never set foot in South America until a few months ago and now says he believes Brazilian football can develop more after the NFL game. The Chicago-born player had a semi-pro career in the United States for two seasons and was set to go to the CFL. But then the pandemic hit and the team he would play for never got back in touch.

Brown continued his career in Germany at the same time as he developed a family business at home. And then, “a call from God” came from Brazil.

“I went through a lot of hard times with coaches, the transfer portal, and that whole thing with America. It was kind of messed up. This is where I needed to be,” Brown said. “I don’t need to always be the face. Sometimes it is about lifting others up, raise their potential. My special ability is being able to plug anywhere where there’s offense, defense, special teams. The coaching room, just in the locker room, no matter where it is, I’m going to step up and give everything I have.”

He has two roles on the Manaus team. He alternates at quarterback with Canuto and also plays linebacker.

“I want to help Pedro develop, make this team something we can all be proud of,” Brown said.

Brown and Canuto took turns with Manaus’ offense during their recent game against Galo FA, a tactic implemented by Mexican coach Rodrigo Ríos. Neither managed to take the team into the end zone and the visitors won 23-0.

Canuto left the field disappointed, despite the cheers from fans. He believes the NFL game in Sao Paulo will be a watershed moment for the sport in Brazil and that one day he will have even more supporters. He hopes to play for another two decades, possibly after a stint in Germany or Mexico, and then open a quarterback academy in the Amazon. He’s in a physical education program at a local university, so he can continue to aim for the future.

His love for football remains unshakeable despite the modest future he can envision for himself.

“I have deeply implanted in my mind that I am carrying the weight of football in the Amazon, I am from here. That has only motivated me to play more, to dedicate myself,” he said. “We’ve only just begun.”

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