Da ascensão à queda: análise do relacionamento dos torcedores do América com o clube

Abstract

In 2016, América Futebol Clube (RN), a traditional Northeastern Brazilian soccer team, with participation in the first division and champion of the Northeast Cup (1998), was demoted to the fourth division of the Brazilian Football Championship, bringing a long crisis unprecedented results in the club's history at the nation's premier soccer competition. In the first moment, we made a brief contextualization about the soccer in Brazil and the relation of the fans with the sport. Then we tell the story of América de Natal, as América Futebol Clube is known, pointing out its main victories and the moment of decay in which the team finds itself. After all this, we conducted an exploratory and qualitative study by conducting in-depth interviews with América fans in Natal to identify if this crisis of results caused changes in the relationship of the fans with the club. In the end, we realize that even in the face of so many failures and disappointments on the part of the fans, the love for América remains on the part of the fans selected for the research.