Campeonato Brasileiro Série A
The Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, commonly referred to as the Brasileirão, the Série A or the Brazilian Série A, is a professional association football league in Brazil and the highest level of the Brazilian football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the Campeonato Brasileiro Série B. In 2021, the competition was chosen by the IFFHS as the strongest national league in the world.
Due to historical peculiarities and the large geographical size of the country, Brazil has a relatively short history of nationwide football competitions. The main and most prestigious competitions were the state championships, run in each of the Brazilian states, with occasional inter-state tournaments, such as the Torneio Rio–São Paulo. In 1959, advancements in civil aviation and air transport and the need to appoint a Brazilian representative to the first edition of the Copa Libertadores, led to the creation of a regular nationwide tournament, the Taça Brasil, a knockout tournament. In 1967, the Torneio Rio-São Paulo was expanded to include teams from other states, becoming the Torneio Roberto Gomes Pedrosa. The first tournament explicitly organized to be a national championship and league by the CBF was only in 1971, won by Atlético Mineiro, although it was only referred to as "Campeonato Brasileiro" starting in 1989.
One of the historical characteristics of the Brazilian Championship was the lack of standardization in the competition system, the rules and the number of participants, which changed almost every season. Because of this, in several seasons there was no promotion and relegation system to the Second Division, and sometimes there were not different tiers. Number of clubs also fluctuated, with the 1979 edition reached its peak, with 92 participants. The various formats already adopted include a knockout tournament system and a mixed system with a group stage followed by playoffs. In 2003, the league transitioned into a double round-robin system, initially with 24 teams and 46 matches for 2003 and 2004, and 22 teams and 42 matches in 2005. Since 2006, the format has been one with 20 clubs and 38 matches, with all teams facing each other in home and away games.
In 2010, the champions of national tournaments from 1959 to 1970—Taça Brasil and Torneio Roberto Gomes Pedrosa—have been declared official winners of the Brazilian championship or champions of Brazil by the Brazilian Football Confederation. In August 2023, the CBF declared the 1937 Torneio dos Campeões retroactively a Brazilian championship as well. The titles of old tournaments, cited in the Brazilian championship history, are equated to the title of Série A, but the tournaments are cataloging with their original name in the statistics.
The Campeonato Brasileiro is one of the strongest leagues in the world; it contains the second-most club world champions titles, with 10 championships won among six clubs, and the most Copa Libertadores titles, with 25 titles won among 12 clubs. The IFFHS ranked the league fourth in strength for the 2001–12 period after the Premier League, La Liga, and Serie A. The Campeonato Brasileiro is the most-watched football league in the Americas and one of the world's most exposed, broadcast in 155 nations. It is also one of the world's richest championships, ranked as the sixth most valuable with a worth of over US$1.43 billion, generating an annual turnover of over US$1.17 billion in 2012.
Since 1959, a total of 156 clubs have played in the Campeonato Brasileiro. Seventeen clubs have been crowned Brazilian football champions, thirteen of which have won the title more than once. Palmeiras is the most successful club of the Campeonato Brasileiro, having won the competition twelve times, followed by Santos and Flamengo with eight titles each, and Corinthians and with seven titles. Santos' Os Santásticos won five consecutive titles between 1961 and 1965, a feat that hasn't been repeated since. The state of São Paulo is the most successful, amassing 34 titles among five clubs.
History
Early competitions and attempts to create a national championship (before 1959)
introduced Brazil to football association rules to Brazil in 1894 upon his return from England, where he attended college and discovered the sport, and it soon became popular in the country. In 1902, Miller helped to organize the Liga Paulista de Foot-Ball, currently the Campeonato Paulista, Brazil's first football league and oldest-running competition in the country. This league only consists of teams based in the state of São Paulo. Due the size of Brazil, economic and geographical challenges, and lack of transport infrastructure, the creation of a fully national league or championship was almost impossible. Instead, the rest of Brazil followed São Paulo's example and founded state football leagues for each of the Brazilian states and the then Federal District, Rio de Janeiro, whose state championship started in 1906. The state leagues remained the main and most prestigious championships for decades, and were therefore considered the equivalent of national leagues in other countries.As the sport grew in popularity, the local state federations and the recently created Confederação Brasileira de Desportos, aka CBD, which became CBF in 1979, started to organize a number of different interstate and regional tournaments. The most popular form of competition in a national level was the Campeonato Brasileiro de Seleções Estaduais, a tournament formed by Seleções, teams formed by the best representatives from each state of Brazil. Originally the nomenclature "Brazilian Championship" belonged to this tournament. While the most prestigious club tournament outside the state championships was the Torneio Rio–São Paulo, organized jointly by the Federação Paulista de Futebol and Federação Carioca de Futebol and competed between clubs from the Campeonato Paulista and Campeonato Carioca. Since the two championships had the best teams of Brazil at the time, this tournament was considered sometimes a de facto Brazilian championship, for example, in 1951 the Spanish newspaper El Mundo Deportivo called the Rio-São Paulo Tournament the "unofficial Brazilian championship", stating that the two states had the best teams in Brazil.
One of the first experiences of organizing a club championship at national level was the , competed between the winners of the Campeonato Paulista, Campeonato Carioca and Campeonato Gaúcho. A second edition was done in the 1937 Torneios dos Campeões, won by Atlético Mineiro. It was the first with fully professional clubs. In August 2023, the Brazilian Football Confederation officially recognized the tournament as a Brazilian championship, thus conferring to Atlético Mineiro the status of first national champions of Brazil.
Taça Brasil and Torneio Roberto Gomes Pedrosa (1959-1970)
The Taça Brasil was introduced in 1959, and ran until 1968. The Taça Brasil was created to select a representative for the newly created Copa Libertadores de América, and it was intended to become Brazil's new national competition, replacing the Campeonato Brasileiro de Seleções Estaduais. The Taça Brasil was a pure knockout tournament, with the participants selected from the champions of the state championships. The first champion was Bahia which defeated Pelé's Santos in a remarkable underdog victory, breaking the Rio de Janeiro-São Paulo hegemony in national football.In 1967, the Federação Paulista de Futebol and Federação Carioca de Futebol decided to expand the Torneio Rio–São Paulo to include teams from other states of Brazil. Thus becoming the Torneio Roberto Gomes Pedrosa, nicknamed the Robertão by fans and media. Differently from the Taça Brasil, the Robertão was competed with a round-robin system, with two groups in the first stage, and a quadrangular with the two best teams of each group on the final stage. It was competed between 1967 and 1970.
In 1968, the delay in closing the 1968 Taça Brasil made CBD use the Robertão to determine the Libertadores representatives. The Confederation took over the organization of the Robertão, officially renaming it to the "Taça de Prata", and extinguished the Taça Brasil after the end of that year's edition. The Robertão remained the top Brazilian championship the following two years.
Because the Robertão and the Taça Brasil ran at the same time for two years, the 1968 season has two separate simultaneous Brazilian champions: the 1968 Taça Brasil was won by Botafogo and the 1968 Torneio Roberto Gomes Pedrosa was won by Santos. In contrast, the 1967 season saw Palmeiras champion of both competitions.
Both the Taça Brasil and the Torneio Roberto Gomes Pedrosa were recognized as Brazilian national championships retroactively on 22 December 2010, creating some controversy as there was a two-year period when both tournaments were held, thus Palmeiras had both 1967 titles recognized as separate editions of the Brazilian championship, and both Santos and Botafogo were recognized as champions in 1968 as each tournament was won by one of them.
The titles of old tournaments, cited in the Brazilian championship history, are equated to the title of Série A, but the tournaments are catalogued with their original name in the statistics.
Campeonato Nacional de Clubes and Copa Brasil (1971-1979)
Following Brazil's third world title at the 1970 FIFA World Cup, president Emílio Médici decided to better organize Brazilian football. The Brazilian military government had become heavily involved in football as a way to promote the legitimization of the military regime, national unity and patriotism, as well as part of the , which sought the geographical integration of Brazil. In a meeting with the CBD and the club presidents in October 1970, it was decided to create the following year a Brazilian championship contested by twenty teams, inspired by the national tournaments in the European nations. The first edition was named "Campeonato Nacional de Clubes", was held in 1971 and won by Atlético Mineiro. The top division was named "Divisão Extra", while a newly created second division earned the "Primeira Divisão" name. The second division was a fusion of the already existing Torneio Centro-Sul and the Copa Norte-Nordeste, with teams from regions with less expression in national football and weaker teams from the main footballing states of Brazil. The first champion was Villa Nova Atlético Clube, from the town of Nova Lima, Minas Gerais. There was not, however, a system of promotion and relegation. The clubs were instead selected to participate in either division according to their performances at their respective state championships.File:Guarani 1978.jpg|thumb|Group photo of the 1978 Guarani squad, from the city of Campinas, winners of the 1978 Campeonato Nacional de Clubes. Together with Santos, they are the only teams not belonging to a state capital to become national champions.
In the next few years, due to the influence of the military regime, the number of clubs that participated in the competition steadily increased. Each subsequent edition added teams to garner support to the military government, specially from regions were ruling party ARENA had less support. This was epitomized by a common aphorism at the time: "Onde a ARENA vai mal, mais um time no Nacional". The inaugural edition had 20 teams, the second edition in 1972 expanded to 26 clubs, and the 1973 edition saw the second division dissolved and its clubs were now participating in an unified national championship with 40 clubs. From 1975 onwards, the competition was officially named Copa Brasil. By the 1979 edition, won by Internacional the number of clubs participating peaked, with a total of 92 teams.