Rio Branco-VN

Rio Branco-VN measures itself against Estrela do Norte, from Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, and there is no shared derby name attached to the fixture, no ritual built up around it — just two clubs from Espírito Santo's interior that keep meeting when it matters most.

The club grew out of Venda Nova do Imigrante in 1945 and did not formalise its registration until 1958, a gap that says something about how long it operated on local terms before entering organised football properly. Decades in the amateur ranks followed before Rio Branco-VN found any real success at state level.

That success has come in bursts. The Série B Capixaba title in 1993 marked an early high point, but professional football itself disappeared from the club between 1999 and 2016 — seventeen years away before Rio Branco-VN came back. The return paid off: in 2020 the club beat Rio Branco de Vitória 1-0 in the final to win the Campeonato Capixaba, and followed it years later with the Copa Espírito Santo. Reaching the second phase of the Copa do Brasil extended that run further than the club had managed in its previous spell in professional football.

The colours — white, green and red — gave the club its nicknames, Tricolor Serrano and Brancão Polenteiro. Estádio Olímpio Perim holds 2,100, modest even by the standards of Espírito Santo football, and matchday news travels mostly through the club's Instagram account rather than any official site.

What Rio Branco-VN has not built yet is consistency at the top.