Atletico-MG

In December 2013, Atlético Mineiro arrived at the Club World Cup as reigning champions of South America, only to be undone in the semi-final by Raja Casablanca, beaten 3-1 and left to settle for third place. The defeat sat oddly against the size of the occasion: eleven months earlier the same squad had lifted the Copa Libertadores, the club's first and so far only continental title, and followed it a year later with the Recopa Sudamericana.

The club known in Belo Horizonte as Galo was formed there in 1908 and has worn black-and-white vertically striped shirts ever since. Within Minas Gerais it has no equal for staying power: Atlético holds the record for Campeonato Mineiro titles, a run of state championships stretching back to the 1910s and still being added to a century later.

The national stage has been harder won. Atlético has been champion of the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A three times, its title in 1971 followed only much later by another in 2021. The Copa do Brasil has come twice, in 2014 and 2021.

Since 2023 home games have been played at Arena MRV, which holds 44,892, a move away from the Mineirão that had served the club for generations. For all that has been won at state, national and continental level, the world title has stayed out of reach — Raja Casablanca saw to that in the one match that mattered most.