Rooster goes to church as Atletico celebrate centenary

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Atletico Mineiro, one of Brazil's most popular clubs, celebrated their centenary on Tuesday with a special mass in which the priest blessed the club's shirt and held aloft a rooster.

Festivities in Belo Horizonte, Atletico's home city, began at midnight with around 3,000 supporters closing off the road in front of the club's headquarters to dance and sing.

Fireworks were let off in various parts of the city, Brazil's third largest, accompanied by a cacophony of car horns.

In the morning, hundreds of people, including former players, gathered at the city's cathedral for a special mass.

Pictures showed club flags draped around the cathedral while most members of the congregation wore Atletico's black-and-white striped shirt.

At the end of the service, the priest blessed an Atletico shirt and held up a rooster, the club's symbol.

Roosters also featured heavily elsewhere, including a muscular inflatable one placed by the cathedral entrance.

Atletico's centenary was celebrated despite the club being in financial difficulty.

Last week, around 700 members of a supporters' club known as Galoucura (Rooster Madness) marched through the centre of Belo Horizonte, demanding new players and an external audit of the club's finances.

Atletico won the inaugural Brazilian championship in 1971 and have finished runners-up three times since then. They also won the extinct South American Conmebol Cup twice.

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