Botafogo

Botafogo Football Club, founded by a group of students on 12 August 1904, merged that day with the older Club de Regatas Botafogo, a rowing outfit dating to 1 July 1894, and the two histories became one.

Most of what people mean by Botafogo's history sits in the Campeonato Carioca, the Rio state championship the club has won 21 times, stretching from 1907 to 2018. National recognition came slower and later: the Campeonato Brasileiro was claimed in 1968 and 1995, then not again until 2024, the same year Botafogo added a first Copa Libertadores. A Copa CONMEBOL from 1993 sits in between as a quieter entry on the list.

The names attached to those years vary in weight. None of them, though, outscored Quarentinha, whose 313 goals for the club stand as the record.

Games are played at the Estádio Olímpico Nilton Santos, known locally as Engenhão, which has held 46,831 for home fixtures since 2007. Before that the club moved between the Caio Martins ground across the bay in Niterói and the Maracanã for its bigger nights.