Ituano

Itu sits in the interior of São Paulo state, and Ituano grew out of something more local still: railway workers on the Estrada de Ferro Sorocabana line put the team together, calling it Associação Atlética Sorocabana.

The club took its biggest jump in 2002, when the state championship went ahead without São Paulo's traditional heavyweights, tied up that year with the Rio-São Paulo tournament instead. Ituano beat the odds it was handed and won the Campeonato Paulista. Twelve years later it did it again, and this time there was no gap in the draw to explain it — the final went to penalties against Santos, and Ituano held its nerve.

What the club is really known for is what it sends out rather than what it wins. Junior went through the academy from 1990, later lifted the World Cup with Brazil in 2002, and came back to Itu in 2009 as sporting director. A year after that, still registered as a player, he scored the goal that kept the club up against Portuguesa, then hung up his boots on the spot. Roque Júnior, another academy product and World Cup winner from the same Brazil squad, returned in 2010 at Junior's invitation and later managed the team himself. More recently it was Gabriel Martinelli's turn: he came through the youth ranks between 2015 and 2017 before Arsenal paid around 30 million reais for him in 2019, one of the largest fees the club has ever taken in.

Home games are played at the Estádio Municipal Doutor Novelli Júnior, known locally just as Novelli Júnior, in front of a crowd that, on the biggest nights, still remembers a city team beating Santos on penalties.