Well, Santos is a team from São Paulo State, and is one of the brazilian teams which have more history and background and considered by many the best team in the history, and it is also the team which scored more goals in the history! First it is Pele's team, he played his whole career in Santos, only at the end of his career he went to Cosmos (USA)... Santos has 2 world titles won in 1962 and 1963 and 2 Libertadores titles won in the same years... has won 8 National championships, the last one was last year... until 2002 Santos was almost 19 years without wining a significant championship, and the team was running out of money so santos' president said that Leão (coach) would have to use the players from the youth team, so Leão brought some players... among these players were a 16 and a 17 years old players named diego and robinho.... and in the same year Santos made a revolution in present soccer, the team age average was 21 years old... the team rescued the beautiful soccer, and won the Brazilian League... in 2003 santos got in the libertadores final losing to boca... but santos is not just diego and robinho... is also fabio costa, 26 (a.k.a one of the best goalkeepers in brazil), alex, 20 (a.k.a the BEST brazilian defender), renato, 23 (a.k.a one of the best center midfield) and elano, 22 (a.k.a santos' ace), léo 28 (santos' engine), paulo almeida (the youngest captain to win a professional championship, 21 years old)... santos is still invest a lot in the youth team, many other great players might come!!! today santos is in the 3rd position in the world ranking of teams in front of real madrid!!!
Santos is very good canidate b/c they play a very attractive style of play and have a good history. Is it true that Santos is not very well supported in thier local area? Also isn't thier satdium have a small capacity?
actually by not winning a good championship for 20 years santos didn't get many supporters in this time, most of the supporters are older 'cause they got Pele's era, a great part of the supporters are also from the santos city... now the number of young supporters are increasing a lot because this new generation... about the stadium the capacity is 25.000 supporters, yes it's not big, but ask the opponents who play there... santos rarely loose there, the pressure is to big 'cause the space between the supporters and the field is no more then 2 meters.... some players say that it's the stadium with the biggest pressure in the world beating La Bombonera... I don't know about that, but I do know that the opponents fear there
Some basic information about Cruzeiro E.C - in topic format: Titles: 31 Minas Gerais state championships - 5 national tournaments (4 Brazilian Cups and 1 Taça Brasil - equivalent to Brazilian Championship in the '60's) - 3 regional championships (2 Sul-Minas Cups and 1 Centro-Oeste Cup) - 5 international titles (2 Taça Libertadores da América (the South American equivalent of Champions League), 2 Supercopa da Libertadores Cup and 1 Recopa) - Several minor international tournaments Founded in 1921 in the city of Belo Horizonte (brazilian 3th largest city) , the club was representative of the italian community in Minas Gerais State. It's name then was the 'Societá Sportiva Palestra Italia'. In 1942, because of WWII, the club was forced to change his name, and the name 'Cruzeiro Esporte Clube' was chosen (it means the Southern Cross constelation, the major brazilian symbol). The club experienced great development in the '60s, when it's team conquered several state titles, and beat the greatest team of these days - the legendary Santos of Pelé - in the final of Taça Brasil, by 6x2 in Minas and 3x2 in Sao Paulo. Cruzeiro is the greatest achiever of the brazilian football since 1990, conquering titles for 14 straight years (the world recorder is Real Madrid, 17 straight years), summarizing 18 titles, between state, regional, national and international achievements. The club is wealthy - a rarity even between brazilian major ones - and strongly structured. It's training center is one of the most advanced in the world (I'm not exaggerating). This is one of the reasons of the late successes. This year, Cruzeiro already conquer the Brazilian Cup and Minas Gerais state championship, and the team is the current leader of Brazilian Championship - the only trophy (along the European-South American Toyota Cup) that the club hasn't conquered yet. Cruzeiro's fan base is the sixth largest in Brazil (4.7 million supporters), alongside with Santos and Grêmio, according Placar magazine pool. It's greatest and fiercest rival is Atlético-MG. There's plenty of things left out, but this little report could give you an idea of what this club is about.
History of a great club Early in 20th Century, three young men from São Paulo who had recently arrived in Porto Alegre wanted to play soccer. But were not admitted at any club in town, because they are newcomers in Porto Alegre so they decided to found their own club. On the night of Monday, April 4, 1909, in the basement of a house, and driven by three man (brothers Henrique and José Poppe Leão, and Luiz Madeira Poppe) 40 young men (twice more people than expected to attend the reunion) founded Sport Club Internacional. On the foundation minute, it was stated that the new club would not accept race, religion or economical discrimination. The most popular soccer club in Rio Grande do Sul was born there. The Gigante da Beira-Rio stadium, the home of Internacional, was inaugurated on a clear afternoon of Sunday, April 6, 1969 with the Internacional 2-1 victory against Benfica of Portugal. Inter supporters collaborated as they could to build the stadium, like as bringing cement, nail boxes, iron bars or some bricks. The people's effort helped a lot for the construction of the imponent Gigante da Beira-Rio. In early times, the stadium has capacity for more than 90,000 spectators, and now, with the modern regulations by FIFA, the correct capacity is about 56,000 supporters. Inter has not only a great stadium, but also owns the Beira-Rio Sportive Complex, including auxiliary training fields, Gigantinho Sportive Gymnsasium and the Nautical Complex. A few soccer clubes in the world have such a great privilege: all teams from every categories work together and players have close relationships with their professional superstars and idols since the youth divisions. The Gigante complex also has restaurants, headquarters for players, physical training rooms, shops, museum, rooms for the Directors Board, management, marketing, telephony, parking and bank. They also has the most beautiful dressing room of the Brazil, one of the most complete and luxuous in the world, inaugurated in 2004. Gigantinho is the largest sportive gymnasium owned by a club in the country, having 18,000 people capacity and perfect safety, acoustical and luminosity conditions for all kind of events, like as music shows or public concurses. In 1975, Internacional was the first club of Rio Grande do Sul to win the Brazilian Championship, making the state soccer to overpass the frontiers with a historical 1-0 victory against Cruzeiro from Minas Gerais. Where? At the Gigante da Beira-Rio, of course. It was also at Beira-Rio stadium that Inter became two-times brazilian champions, in 1976 against Corinthians, winning by 2-0 goal margin. And, in 1979, Internacional becomes the first and only club ever to win the Brazilian Championship without a single defeat at all campaign, with the last game against Vasco da Game by 3-1 score. And, as expected, the title of Brazilian Cup against Fluminense in 1992 was again at Beira-Rio stadium, by the smallest margin 1-0. A Factory of Aces Sport Club International has one of the best structures for the formation of Brazilian soccer young talents. It offers a complete infrastructure for the development of soccer players ranging from 7 to 20 years old. Today it has about 1.120 boys in soccer pratice, 320 of them engaged in championships teams and the others playing soccer for pleausure at the youngest teams. The club also offer to these boys: coaches, physiotherapists, psychologists, social assistants, doctors, nutritionists and dental care. Having invested a lot in youth teams, Inter has developed an overwhelming numbers of aces athlets in all of this 95 years. Some of the greatest soccer players on Earth started playing at Sport Club Internacional. Players like as Paulo Roberto Falcão, who starred at World Cup 1982, goalkeeper Taffarel and midfielder Dunga, the first fundamental to win the World Cup 1994, and the second the brazilian skipper who received the champions trophy in the same tournament. Anothers players who enjoyed large success in European Football was the centre-back Lúcio, world champion in World Cup 2002, defender Aloísio, who played at Barcelona and Porto at 90's, midfielder Batista, who played in World Cup 1982, and the central midfielder Fábio Rochemback, now playing at Sporting Lisbon. 26 porto alegre champions 36 times Rio Grande do Sul state champions Three times Brazilian Champions in 1975, 1976 and 1979. Once champions of Brazilian Cup in 1992. # Base of the Brazilian National Team when winning the 1956 Pan-American Games, at Mexico City. # Base of the Brazilian National Team when winning the Silver Medal in 1984 Olympics Games, at Los Angeles. # Four-times Brazilian Under-20 champions at São Paulo Cup, in 1974, 1978, 1980 and 1998. 2 place libertadores 1980 SC INTERNACIONAL Falcao taffarel dunga