Gremio

In 2021 it dropped out of Brazil's top flight for the first time, and club president Romildo Bolzan stood up and called it the third such reckoning in the club's history, taking the blame himself rather than letting it pass as one bad season. Grêmio spent the following two years in the Série B before winning its way back up.

The other reckoning came in the other direction, in 1983, when a team from outside Brazil's south-eastern axis of Rio and São Paulo won the Copa Libertadores for the first time, beating Peñarol, then went on to beat Hamburg for the Intercontinental Cup. Renato Gaúcho played in that side; decades later he returned as coach and won the Libertadores again, in 2017, this time as the man in the dugout rather than on the pitch.

Founded in 1903 in Porto Alegre, Grêmio carries the nickname Tricolor for the blue, black and white that also give the club its Imortal Tricolor tag. Home games are played at the Arena do Grêmio, which the club moved into in December 2012 after six decades at the old Estádio Olímpico, and which holds 55,662. Across town sits Internacional, the opponent in the Grenal derby that defines the football calendar in Rio Grande do Sul more than anything played nationally; Juventude, from Caxias do Sul, supplies a second, smaller rivalry known as the Gre-Ju.

Within the state, Grêmio's dominance has been closer to routine than achievement: 44 Campeonato Gaúcho titles, the most recent in 2024. Nationally the collection includes two Brazilian championships, in 1981 and 1996, and a Copa do Brasil won five times. Everaldo, a defender through the 1970s, remains the reference point for the club's earlier era as the first Grêmio player to win a World Cup with the Brazil squad, in 1970.

Having re-established itself in the Série A after the 2022–23 spell in the second division, Grêmio's task now is simpler to state than it was after 2021: stay there.