I intend to reflect on some possible approaches on football from an ethnographic experience in a neighborhood located in the rural perimeter of São Bento do Sapucaí (SP), where I investigated the possible interlacements between associative forms and sociability around football and the universe of the community. By means of these interlacements I could verify the presence of certain dynamics in the local football contexts, where the actions to receive and to visit other teams imply intelligible duties and rules in a system of particular reciprocity. From the premise that heterogeneity exists of meanings and practices of the sport, I intent to discuss the dichotomic premises that fuel the debate involving, mostly, the uses of the concepts of sport and game, but also the ritualistic and the everyday aspects, keeping in mind that they are always interconnected.
anthropology of sport; football; game; rural neighborhood