Can someone explain Brazil's club system?

[ZeekLTK]

I see that teams compete in a national system AND a state system... how does this work?

For example I see Corinthians took 2nd in the São Paulo State League and won the Brasileirão in 2005.

Do the teams take part in both leagues at the same time then? How do they balance their schedule to do that?

And then how does promotion/relegation work for these systems?

Thanks!

[carl_os]

the state championships (paulista, carioca, mineiro,...) are older and have more tradition as the nationwide cs (huge country made it hard to travel for away games). they don`t pause in winter ( = summer in southern hemnisphere) and the state cs start in january and last `til may. afterwards the national cs starts (i think the first two leagues "brasileirao" and "brasileirao B" are nationwide) and last `til december. there also exists a nationwide "copa brasil" (from february to may) and some smaller state copas (eg for paulista C teams).
so - it`s futebol time the whole year - ótimo! but - the different schedule to euro leagues make transfers happen in the middle of brasil cs...

[sidis]

Carl_os say almost everything.

The Brasileirão (as the first division is called for us) have 3 divisions, and the 3rd division is the only that have teams from all states, that are qualified from state championships (if a state champion/runners up is already on 1st or 2nd division the next team goes to 3rd diivision) and from the 4 teams relegated from 2nd division.

The state leagues are more biased, with 2-4 same teams winning the league every year, there are teams clearly big and other clearly small.

The Brasileirão all teams are, at least, respectable and have behind him 10-40 state leagues and millions of fans. in 36 years/editions, we had 17 different winners.

[AcesHigh]

I see that teams compete in a national system AND a state system... how does this work?

For example I see Corinthians took 2nd in the São Paulo State League and won the Brasileirão in 2005.

Do the teams take part in both leagues at the same time then? How do they balance their schedule to do that?

And then how does promotion/relegation work for these systems?

Thanks!

Hello Zeek.

The CBF is a confederation. There are several smaller state federations, all subject to CBF, which is subject to CONMEBOL, which is subject to FIFA.

Because of Brazil´s size, before we had a national league, we had state leagues (since states in Brazil are the size of european countries). In 1920, it was pretty hard to travel 2000km for a football club.


Anyway, the brazilian national league has 3 divisions, A, B and C. Teams from all states can participate in any division, of course, as long as they are good enough to play them.

I will give a more solid example, which is based on my own knowledge. The Rio Grande do Sul state championship. It has a long tradition, being played since 1919. It has 2 divisions. There are 16 teams in each division.

From these 32 clubs, ONLY 3 play in the Serie A of the national league: Grêmio, Internacional and Juventude. Of course, all of them are in the first division of the state league (not a requirement, rather, logic :))

No clubs from the state are in the Serie B. A few clubs dispute the Serie C of the national league.


There was also a 3rd division in the RS state league during some years, to create more professional teams. But other clubs rejected the idea.


Qualification in state championships is independant of the brazilian league. But clubs well qualified in the 1st division state championships get a chance to play the Brazil Cup. The Brazil Cup is usually the only chance smaller state clubs have to play big clubs from other states. Usually, they only play against big national clubs if those clubs are from their own state, and are in the same division of the local state league.


Mind you, not all states have the same number of clubs and divisions. The São Paulo state has the most clubs and 3 divisions.

[ZeekLTK]

So basically the only way into the top national league is to qualify via State Leagues to the "C" league and then move up from there??

Basically the "pyramid" looks like:

Brasileirão A
|
Brasileirão B
|
Brasileirão C
|
All State Leagues

??



Okay, so in your example let's say Grêmio, Internacional, and Juventude finish top 3 in the State League.

Obviously none of them are going to "promote" to the Brasileirão C because they are already higher than that. So does the 4th place team then promote to the Brasileirão C? Is there a point where no one promotes (like the top 8 teams are already in Brasileirão A or B so no one gets to go to C? Or, in this case, does 9th place promote just because they are the highest that isn't already up there?)

Thanks for your responses! It seems like a very interesting system.

[sidis]

Basically the "pyramid" looks like:

Brasileirão A
|
Brasileirão B
|
Brasileirão C
|
All State Leagues

??



Okay, so in your example let's say Grêmio, Internacional, and Juventude finish top 3 in the State League.

Obviously none of them are going to "promote" to the Brasileirão C because they are already higher than that. So does the 4th place team then promote to the Brasileirão C?

exactly.
in some cases the state have 4 spots to serie C, in others have 3, 2 or 1 to serie C. (27 states for 60 spots plus the 4 teams relegated from serie B.)

Is there a point where no one promotes (like the top 8 teams are already in Brasileirão A or B so no one gets to go to C? Or, in this case, does 9th place promote just because they are the highest that isn't already up there?)

Thanks for your responses! It seems like a very interesting system.

There is no limit, but normally the state championships are created with, at least, the top teams in serie A and B plus the spots for série C plus relegation, to not permit a team from state second division get a spot in serie C.

then São Paulo State that have 4 teams In serie A, 8 in serie B and 4 spots to série C make a championship with 20 teams.
Rio de Janeiro have 4 in the serie A and no team in série B, then they make a league with 12 teams.

greetings

[rkleemann]

The state tournaments for a long time, even after the official establishment of a national tournament in 71, were more prestigious. Of course it would be great for a team to win the national, but in many cases fans actually favored winning the state, purely for rivalry reasons. There's a lot more rivalry in the state tournaments.

As an example, Sao Paulo has 20 teams in its state and Rio, a much smaller state, has 12. The Sao Paulo tournament is currently the most competitive/difficult state tournament. Rio has had a championship since at least 1907.

Serie C has a complicated access mechanism, I don't really know all the rules that gets a team into it other than relegation from Serie B.

Right now 4 teams move between the divisions... 4 fall from A to B, 4 fall from B to C, 4 rise from C to B and 4 rise from B to A

As already explained, the sheer size of Brazil made it impossible to have a national division. National tournaments actually started in the late 50's, but CBF only officially recognizes national champions since 1971. But prior to that, Santos had won the Taça Brasil some 5 times, Palmeiras also a few times, and Botafogo won it once, but those aren't officially counted.

But as already mentioned, proof of the balance is that in only 36 years, there have been 17 different champions.