Tesla

In Belém, a club took the field with players known by numbers instead of names, chasing what its own staff called "futebol quântico," a method built on physics, neurology and computer science rather than tradition. The slogan on the shirts read "energia infinita."

The experiment ran on the amateur rungs of Pará football, in the Campeonato Paraense Série B2, later rebranded Série A3. Tesla's best run came in 2024, when the side reached the semi-finals of the Série B2 before Amazônia Independente ended it. Ronaldo Carvalho owned the club through its Tesla years; in August 2023 he sold the majority of it, kept a 10% stake, and watched the name change to Futebol Clube Pará.

Matches were played at the Centro Esportivo da Juventude, on Campo 1, a ground that held close to a thousand people — smaller crowds than the concept ever drew in attention. Training took place away from the city, at CT Nikola Tesla in Acará, a name that made the physicist the club's patron as much as its inspiration.

It lasted from May 2022 to the sale the following year, long enough to turn a numbering system for footballers into the one thing anyone outside Pará remembered about a club from Belém.