Forte U20

Serra is the name that comes up whenever Forte's senior side reaches the sharp end of a season, and 2025 was no exception: after Forte fought through to the semifinals of the Campeonato Capixaba Série B and then won promotion to the top flight, it was Serra who beat them in the final. That result sits at the root of why the U20 side, feeding off the same shirt and the same nickname, plays with a point still to prove — no state title has ever come back to Castelo.

The name on the badge has moved more than the club itself has. What is now Forte started out as Sociedade Esportiva e Recreativa Castelense, shifted address and identity to Rio Bananal as Forte Rio Bananal in 2021, then moved again to Governador Lindenberg before the Forte Futebol Clube name returned. Through all of it, "Leão" has stuck as the nickname, and the Estádio Municipal Emílio Nemer back in Castelo carries the matching tag of Toca do Leão — the Lion's Den.

For the under-20 side, home comforts are the exception rather than the rule. Its calendar runs through the Copa do Brasil U20 and the Copa São Paulo de Futebol Júnior, and the São Paulo tournament in particular means neutral grounds far from Espírito Santo — fixtures at the Estádio Municipal Manoel Francisco Ferreira in Bálsamo, a ground that holds 10,000.

It is a young age-group side built around a club whose own top-tier status is barely a year old, still working out what it means to be Leão away from Castelo.