‘Blood all over the place’ – Inside Brazil vs Argentina chaos as ‘out of control’ police and ‘greedy’ authorities cause mayhem

South American football expert Tim Vickery has given an insider account of the carnage during Brazil vs Argentina, calling it 'a brutish and nasty' affair.

The World Cup qualifier should have been remembered for two of the planet's top footballing sides pitting their wits against each other, but instead trouble in the stands stole the headlines.

5

The trouble started during the anthems when fans from both nations started fighting behind one of the goals, leading to Argentina's players confronting the situation.

Led by captain Lionel Messi, they walked over to where the shocking scenes were unfolding to try and calm the situation, while Aston Villa goalkeeper Emi Martinez attempted to jump into the visiting section and defend his compatriots.

One man who was in attendance at the Maracana was South American football expert, Vickery, who suggested that those policing the situation were culpable for making things worse.

Speaking on The Sports Breakfast, Vickery said: "Brazil have never lost a World Cup qualifier at home, so history was made last night and that’s the last fortress to fall.

“I’d love to come back remembering a great game and a classic game, but I can’t - It was brutish, it was nasty.

“There were nearly 70,000 [at the Maracana] and I think that’s part of the problem because there’s no segregation.

“I’m in the Maracana all the time – segregating fans is the easiest thing in the world out there, you just put them in one of the corners, up in the top. It’s quite a good view and then below them you don’t sell the tickets so you have your segregation space.

“But that means that you have a lot of tickets there that you’re not selling.

5

5

“The Brazilian FA haven’t issued a statement on this yet but I think they got greedy. They thought it’s an international game, nothing’s going to happen so lets try and sell all of the tickets.

“They didn’t segregate the fans and it’s even worse than that because the Argentina fans are behind one of the goals and right next to them are the organised group of Brazilian fans with no segregation.

“Brazil has a national organisation of organised supporter groups and they were saying before the game, ‘Don’t do this, it can’t work’.

“This is away to my right when I’m in there, so what happened was that while the national anthems were playing I think we got some scuffles between the fans, not respecting the national anthems – I think that was it.

“What I know is that the police reacted to this – Brazil’s military police who have a track record of doing this – where there’s just a mad baton charge against the Argentina fans.

“I know it’s a difficult situation and that police aren’t responsible for the way that the tickets are sold, but what needed to happen was just a line of separation between the fans because when they went in the batons were flailing and there was blood all over the place.

“Some people have been seriously injured. I was speaking to a journalist next to me who was from Argentina and he went down and said that there were people going to hospital because it doesn’t look good.

“The Argentina fans were backing away because they were being baton charged and that means that the Brazil fans on the other side of them – who had nothing to do with this – they’re worried about being caught in a crush so there’s yellow seats flying all over the place and quite a few Brazil fans hopping over the crash barriers and onto the field.

5

5

“While this is happening the players line up for the national anthem and then the Argentina players line up for what would be the photo, but then ‘hang on a minute, what’s happening over there?’

“They realise that it’s their fans and some of them may well have had family members or mates in there and so they go over and Emiliano Martinez is going berserk because they’re watching their compatriots getting baton-charged by the police who were out of control.

“At that point Messi decides to take them off the pitch because ‘we can’t play like this’.”

After a delay, the match was eventually played with Nicolas Otamendi giving Argentina a 1-0 win, subjecting Brazil to their first-ever World Cup qualifying defeat at home.