Grêmio FBPA
Grêmio Foot-Ball Porto Alegrense, commonly known as Grêmio, is a Brazilian professional football club based in Porto Alegre, the capital city of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The club plays in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, the first division of the Brazilian football league system, and the Campeonato Gaúcho, Rio Grande do Sul's top state league. The club was founded in 1903 by businessman Cândido Dias da Silva and 32 other men, mostly from the large community of German immigrants of Porto Alegre.
Grêmio's home stadium is the Arena do Grêmio, which the team moved to in 2013. With a capacity of over 55,000, the stadium is one of the most modern venues in South America and the eight-largest of its kind in Brazil. Prior to that, Grêmio played at Estádio Olímpico Monumental since 1954. Grêmio usually plays in a tricolor striped shirt, black shorts, and white socks, which originated the team's nickname.
In 1983, Grêmio became champions of the Intercontinental Cup after defeating Hamburger SV 2–1. Additionally, Grêmio is tied with São Paulo, Santos, Palmeiras, and Flamengo for the most Copa CONMEBOL Libertadores de América titles among Brazilian clubs, having won a total of three each.
In 2017, Grêmio was ranked first in the CBF club rankings and is listed by Forbes as the third most valuable football club in the Americas with an estimated value of $295.5 million. Grêmio has won 43 Campeonato Gaúcho, 2 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, 1 Campeonato Brasileiro Série B, 1 Supercopa do Brasil, 1 Copa Sul, and 5 Copa do Brasil. Internationally, Grêmio has won 1 Intercontinental Cup, 3 Copa Libertadores de América, 2 Recopa Sudamericana, and 1 Sanwa Bank Cup.
Grêmio has a long-standing and intense rivalry with Internacional, widely regarded as one of the fiercest in Brazil, and around the world. Matches between the two clubs are known as Grenais, or Grenal in singular form.
History
The beginning and professionalism at the club
On 7 September 1903, Brazil's oldest football team, Sport Club Rio Grande, played an exhibition match in Porto Alegre. An entrepreneur from Sorocaba, São Paulo, named Cândido Dias was besotted with the sport and he went to watch the match. During the match, the ball deflated. As the only owner of a football in Porto Alegre, he lent his ball to the players and the match resumed. After the match, he talked to the local players about how to start a football club. On 15 September 1903, 32 people, including Cândido Dias, met at Salão Grau, a local restaurant and founded "Grêmio Foot-Ball Porto Alegrense". Most of the founding members were part of the city's German community. Carlos Luiz Bohrer was elected as first president.The club's first match took place on 6 March 1904, against Fuss Ball Porto Alegre, the first of two matches played that day. Grêmio won the first match 1–0. Unfortunately, the name of the player who scored the club's first goal is lost to history. The trophy Grêmio won that day, the Wanderpreis, is still displayed at the club's museum. Within 5 months the club had inaugurated the Baixada, its first home.
On 18 July 1909, Grêmio beat Internacional 10–0 on the latter's debut game. Grêmio's goalkeeper Kallfelz reportedly left the field to chat with fans during the match. Even now this victory is remembered with pride by Gremistas. The match was the starting point for a rivalry that rages on to this day. Grêmio was one of the founding members of the Porto Alegre football league in 1910, and in 1911 won the league for the first time. On 25 August 1912, in a city league match, Grêmio beat Sport Clube Nacional of Porto Alegre 23–0. Sisson scored 14 goals in the match to record Grêmio's biggest ever win. In 1918, Grêmio became a founding member of the Fundação Rio-Grandense de Desportes, a federation that organized the first state championships in Rio Grande do Sul. The first championship was scheduled for 1918, but the Spanish flu epidemic forced the event to be postponed until 1919. In 1921, a year after the arrival of legendary goalkeeper Eurico Lara, Grêmio won its first state championship.
On 7 July 1911, Grêmio beat Uruguay's national team 2–1. In 1931, Grêmio became one of the first teams in Brazil to play matches at night after installing floodlights at Estádio Baixada. On 19 May 1935, Grêmio became the first team from Rio Grande do Sul to beat a team from the state of São Paulo by defeating Santos 3–2. Grêmio was also the first club outside Rio de Janeiro state to play at the Maracanã Stadium, defeating Flamengo 3–1 in 1950.
During this period, Grêmio started to earn a reputation abroad. In 1932 it played its first international match in Rivera. In 1949, the match against Uruguay's Nacional ended in a 3–1 win for Grêmio and the players received a hero's welcome on their return to Porto Alegre. In that same year, Grêmio played for the first time in Central America. Between 1953 and 1954, Grêmio travelled to Mexico, Ecuador and Colombia, a tour dubbed "the conquest of the Americas". On 25 February 1959, Grêmio defeated Boca Juniors 4–1 in Buenos Aires, becoming the first foreign team to beat Boca at La Bombonera.
In 1961, Grêmio went on its first European tour playing 24 games in 11 countres: France, Romania, Belgium, Greece, Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Denmark, Estonia and Russia. The Gremistas were growing in number. 1946 saw the first appearance of the club's motto "com o Grêmio onde o Grêmio estiver", which was later written into Grêmio's official anthem. An anthem penned by Lupicinio Rodrigues, a samba-cancao composer who became one of the most famous and revered Grêmio fans. The anthem celebrates the Gremistas reputation for attending all Grêmio matches, regardless of the difficulties and obstacles they might have to overcome to see their club. In the late 1950s, Grêmio joined the Taça Brasil, as the Brazilian league was known at the time. The team reached the Taça Brasil semi-finals in 1959, 1963 and 1967. In 1968, the team won its first international title in a friendly cup with teams from Brazil and Uruguay. In 1954, Grêmio inaugurated what was at the time the biggest private stadium in Brazil, the Olímpico Stadium. In 1971, the Taça Brasil championship was replaced by the Campeonato Brasileiro with the first goal ever scored in the Campeonato Brasileiro coming from Grêmio's Néstor Scotta, an Argentine, in a match against São Paulo at Estádio do Morumbi. Grêmio maintained a series of respectable results in Campeonato Brasileiro, usually achieving a top half finish.
Valdir Espinosa and the Intercontinental Cup 1983
Grêmio's first dominant period in South American football began in the early 1980s. Propelled by the completion of their new stadium, the Olímpico Monumental.Grêmio won its first Campeonato Brasileiro on 3 May 1981, after defeating São Paulo at the Morumbi Stadium in São Paulo. The scores in the two-leg final were 2–1 at Olímpico and 1–0 for Grêmio at Morumbi. The winning goal was scored by striker Baltazar. Earlier, on 26 April 1981 Olímpico had its biggest attendance ever, when 98,421 fans watched Grêmio lose to Ponte Preta 0–1 in the Campeonato Brasileiro semi-final.
File:Libertadores1983Ida.png|thumb|right|250px|Grêmio squad that played the first 1983 Copa Libertadores Finals vs Peñarol in Montevideo
1983 was the most successful year in Grêmio's history. First, Grêmio won the South-American Copa Libertadores, after a consistent yet eventful campaign. One of the matches of the semi-final, the 3–3 draw against Estudiantes at Jorge Luis Hirschi Stadium, became legendary for its belligerence on and off the pitch and is dubbed the "Batalha de La Plata". In the finals, Grêmio beat the 1982 South America and World champions Peñarol from Uruguay, with a 1–1 draw in Montevideo and a 2–1 win in Porto Alegre. The winning goal was scored by César just before the end of the match. A year later, Grêmio was runner-up in the Copa Libertadores final, being defeated by Argentina's Independiente.
Also in 1983, Grêmio won the Intercontinental Cup after defeating Hamburger SV of Germany 2–1. Renato Portaluppi scored both goals. With Uruguayan defender De León and goalkeeper Mazaropi also earning club legend status on the back of their performances in the Copa Libertadores and Intercontinental Cup. Porto Alegre, was deafened by the gremista's chant of: "The Earth is Blue". Soon after winning the Intercontinental Cup, Grêmio beat America of Mexico in Los Angeles, and won the Los Angeles Cup.
In 1989, Grêmio won the first Copa do Brasil, a Brazilian knockout cup featuring football teams from all around the country. After humiliating Flamengo with a 6–1 win in the second leg of the semi-finals, Grêmio defeated Sport Recife in the final, with a 0–0 draw in Recife and a 2–1 win in Porto Alegre.
In 1991, after a poor season, Grêmio was relegated for the first time to the Brazilian Second Division but gained immediate promotion back to the Campeonato Brasileiro's elite the following season. After this return to form, 1994 saw Grêmio win its second Copa do Brasil, defeating Ceará in the two-leg final, the solitary goal scored by striker Nildo. This win kickstarted the club's Tokyo Project.
On 11 December 1994, due a bloated and extensive schedule, Grêmio had to play three matches in a single day at the Olímpico Monumental during the 1994 Campeonato Gaúcho. These matches began at 2 p.m., 4 p.m., and 8 p.m. against Aimoré, Santa Cruz, and Brasil de Pelotas respectively. They drew the first match and won the other two, using a total of 34 different players from the first team, reserves and academy. The matches had a small public attendance of 758 fans — 247 paying. The matches were also played in temperatures of in the summer heat of Porto Alegre.
Luiz Felipe Scolari and the Libertadores 1995
In May 1995, under head coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, Grêmio were runners-up in the Copa do Brasil, losing the final match to Corinthians 0–1 at Olímpico Monumental. In August, a few days after beating arch-rivals Internacional for the state title with a reserve squad, the club won the Copa Libertadores for the second time. Defeating Atlético Nacional of Colombia 3–1 in Porto Alegre and drawing 1–1 in Medellín. The tournament was marked by fierce matches against Palmeiras in the quarter-finals. Palmeiras had perhaps the best squad on the competition, with players such as Rivaldo, Cafu, Edmundo, César Sampaio, Antônio Carlos, Roberto Carlos and Mancuso. They were soundly beaten by Grêmio in the 1st leg in an epic 5–0 match with a hat-trick from Mário Jardel. Palmeiras beat Grêmio 5–1 in the return leg, with Jardel's lone strike proving enough to see Grêmio through to the Semi-finals.This qualified the club to the 1995 Intercontinental Cup where Grêmio pushed a talented Ajax into extra time and penalties despite being a player down. Early 1996 saw Grêmio win the Recopa Sudamericana, beating Argentina's Independiente 4–1.
On 15 December 1996, Grêmio won its second Campeonato Brasileiro, defeating Portuguesa in the final. Portuguesa won the first match at home 2–0, and therefore Grêmio was forced to win the final match at Porto Alegre by the same score or more. Grêmio got to 2–0, with midfielder Ailton scoring the second goal a few minutes before the final whistle. Grêmio won the title due to their higher finish in the league.
In 1997, Grêmio won their third Copa do Brasil title. In the finals against Romário's Flamengo, Grêmio won on away goals after a 0–0 draw in Porto Alegre and a 2–2 draw in Rio de Janeiro. Four years later, in 2001, Grêmio won their fourth Copa do Brasil, defeating Corinthians. The first leg of the final, in Porto Alegre, finished with the score of 2–2. The second game in São Paulo ended with a 3–1 Grêmio victory, in a match which is regarded as one of the finest in Grêmio's history.