Brazilian Football Clubs

Last modified: 2003-03-01 by joe mcmillan
Keywords: brazil | football | soccer |
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• National Team
• Football Club Flags Generally
• Bahia Clubs
• Minas Gerais Clubs
• Paraná Clubs
• Pernambuco Clubs
• Rio de Janeiro Clubs
• Rio Grande do Sul Clubs
• São Paulo Clubs
• Other Clubs
• Index of All Clubs
• Pennant Exchanges
• A note on names

See also:

• Index of Brazil Pages
• Brazil

National Team

Unofficial Flag

In an attempt to raise the theme amongst us, I'm posting today a (not so good) Brazilian fan flag, from a photograph I found somewhere. The flag is horizontally divided green-yellow-blue-yellow-green in proportions 1:1:2:1:1, all in dark shades, with the blue stripe charged with a horizontal line of three white stars at the hoist and the word "BRASIL" in big letters in the fly. What would the stars mean? Three World Cups. (Are there now four?)
Jorge Candeias, 27 April 1998

The national team doesn't have a specific flag and there are no official team supporter flags.
Lucosta, 12 January 1999

Index of Brazilian Football Clubs

• ABC Natal
• América Mineiro
• Atlético Mineiro
• Atlético Paranaense
• Bahia
• Botafogo
• Ceará
• Corínthians
• Coritiba
• Cruzeiro
• Figueirense
• Flamengo
• Fluminense
• Goiás
• Grêmio
• Internacional
• Juventude
• Naútico
• Palmeiras
• Paraná
• Portuguesa
• Portuguesa Santista
• Santos
• São Caetano
• São Paulo
• Sport Recife
• Vasco da Gama
• Vitória

Football Club Flags Generally

It seems like some of these are inspired by Brazilian state flags [e.g., Corínthians and Bahia]. When it comes to sport clubs, I think there is a general tendency that there is a wide range of more or less official supporter flags. Supporter clubs might have their own set flags, e.g.
Elias Granqvist, 13 March 2002

I've noticed that many Brazilian clubs [e.g., Atlético Mineiro, Flamengo, and Naútico] like the horizontal-stripes-and-canton-with-badge design. There is also a real fondness for about two or three color combinations that show up over and over: black and white, green and white, and red and black. In addition, I think I've found four categories of Brazilian club flags that I can identify:

1. Official flag of the club, often described in the club statute.
2. Flags of officially sanctioned supporters' organizations, clubs that are called in Brazilian Portuguese torcidas. Some clubs seem to have several such torcidas appealing to different groups of people.
3. Licensed flags for use by supporters, such as the Flamengo flag with red and black stripes and the club monogram in white on the red canton.
4. Unofficial flags made up by anyone who wants to do so.

Pre-Game Pennant Exchanges

As a diehard football (soccer) fan, I remember a Brazilian custom of teams' exchanging small flags before matches. It used to be done by the teams' skippers in the center of the pitch just before the coin toss and kick off. They would hold the small flag with the left hand, shake hands with the right hand and then take the small flag from the opposing skipper. It was then given to someone to be taken away. I remember this was done for local derbys and interstate and international matches. In Portuguese these pennants are known as flâmulas. I think they had something related to the match written on them along with the team's logo or symbol.
Fernando, 7 August 2002

Flâmula is the Brazilian word. In Portugal these banners are called galhardetes, and the action Fernando describes is so noticeable and usual that it got into the everyday speech as an idiomatic sentence. We use the term troca de galhardetes (literally, "pennant exchange") as a way to describe a somewhat tense exchange of (sometimes double-edged) compliments between rivals.
Jorge Candeias, 8 August 2002

A note on names

Many Brazilian football clubs are named some variant of clube de regatas, or regatta club. This is because the clubs began as rowing clubs and only later took up football. That is also why the flags of Flamengo and Corinthians, among others, have crossed oars or anchors as part of their badges.