(1 Mar 2014) Hundreds of people filled Sao Paulo's Sambadrome in Brazil late on Friday, to celebrate the opening of the annual carnival parade.
Friday was the first night of the Special Group category of the parade, which was opened by the Leandro de Itaquera samba school.
Revellers from the school decided to dress up as football players, and decorated floats with football memorabilia, to mark the run up to Brazil's 2014 World Cup.
Brazilian model Andressa Urach, the school's Drum Queen, danced the samba and mingled with the crowd that had gathered to watch the show.
"I am very, very happy because I think it is an enormous responsibility to be Drum Queen, especially when you have to open the carnival parade," said Urach.
Organisers say their floats were decorated with a football theme, to show what they say is the "dream" of poor youth in Brazil who want to get ahead in life with football.
Organisers say the parade was a chance to showcase their talent ahead of the World Cup.
"We have five championships. We've won five championships, so we are going to show a little bit about our talent factory, which is a factory of football players," said Heitor Luiz, director of the Leandro de Itaquera samba school, referring to the football-themed decoration on the floats.
Revellers also showed support to football player Paulo C�sar Fonseca do Nascimento, commonly known as Tinga, by wearing masks of his face.
Tinga, who plays for Brazil's Cruzeiro team, suffered racist taunts from fans during a football match in Peru earlier in February.
Samba schools in Sao Paulo, a business-oriented city that some Brazilians say is too straight-laced to throw a proper party, are determined to show they know how to have fun by staging more parades.
Leandro de Itaquera samba school takes its name from a neighbourhood in the eastern side of the city.
It's the same neighbourhood where the Corinthians stadium is located, which will host the first 2014 World Cup match.
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