EC Novo Horizonte

Rudimar Marques Cardozo's own career ended with an injury, and what he built afterwards in Esteio. For years Novo Horizonte existed only in youth categories, until late 2015, when Gabriel — known around the club as "Pensador" — set up a management company, Futebol Pensador, and pushed the project into senior football. The club's stated priority has always paired the game with schooling.

The professional side made its debut that same year, in the Copa Metropolitana. A first real test of its ambitions came in 2017, in the Segunda Divisão of the Campeonato Gaúcho, where Novo Horizonte reached the quarterfinals. Two years later it went out of the same competition to Brasil de Farroupilha on goal difference alone. In between, in 2016, the club pulled out of that year's Segunda Divisão before a ball was kicked, and it returned to the competition again in 2021 and 2023.

Esteio never gave the club a ground to call its own. Home matches are played across the municipal line, at Arena Cruzeiro in Cachoeirinha, a venue holding around 16,500; before that, Novo Horizonte had used Estádio Cristo Rei, in São Leopoldo. It plays in green, yellow and black, and locally goes by Tricolor Esteiense.

No state title sits in the club's history yet, but Esteio's football has its own point of reference regardless: Grêmio Esportivo Sapucaiense. Games between the two are treated as the derby of the region.