ZERAO - THE BIG ZERO

Have you heard of the stadium where the midfield line lies exactly on the equator, or so it is believed? One of the teams defending the Northern hemisphere, while the other the Southern. Estádio Milton Corrêa, usually known as Zerão, is a multi-purpose stadium located in Macapá, Brazil and is used mostly for football matches. In 1990, the work on Zerão was completed. It was named Estádio Ayrton Senna, after the Formula 1 driver. The inaugural match was played on October 17 of that year, when Independente beat Trem 1-0. The first goal of the stadium was scored by Independente's Mirandinha. The stadium's attendance record currently stands at 10,000, set on that match.In 1994, after Milton de Souza Corrêa's death, the stadium was renamed to its current name, Estádio Milton Corrêa. The stadium is nicknamed after the neighborhood where it is located, Marco Zero (the neighborhood is named Marco Zero ("mark 0" in English) as it is located on the Equator). Zerão means Big Zero, denoting the zeroth latitude - Equator.The name (and the fame) came from the circumstance that the stadium lies on the Equator - zero latitude. The midfield line is aligned with the nearby Marco Zero Monument, though it is about 2 seconds N in the World Geodetic System 84.