Referencia U20

Referencia U20 keeps meeting the clubs it is built to feed. In the 2025 Campeonato Paulista Sub-20 the run ended in the last sixteen against Palmeiras, and in the Copa São Paulo de Futebol Júnior in 2026 the exit came the same way, against Fluminense, on penalties. Both are among the sides Referência regularly deals with off the pitch as much as on it — Palmeiras, São Paulo, Athletico Paranaense, Flamengo, Cruzeiro and Atlético Mineiro all take players out of Embu das Artes.

That is the business the club was set up to do. Referência Futebol Clube fields no senior side in the professional divisions; it runs as a Sociedade Anônima do Futebol, a football company whose product is the Sub-20 squad itself. More than 700 players have gone through the academy, and somewhere between 50 and 70 have been sold on to Serie A and Serie B clubs. Lucca Gentil left this way, and so did Kauan Bueno, who moved on in 2022 and later played for Água Santa.

Home games are played at the Estádio Municipal Hermínio Espósito in Embu das Artes, a ground that holds 5,048. The press has taken to calling the side Orange Referencia, after the shirt colour, and an eagle serves as the club's mascot. No cup sits in the cabinet yet — the club's currency has always been the players who leave, not the ones lifted for medals.

Referência was registered as a company on 2 April 2018, built from the start around player development and sale rather than a first team chasing promotion. Everything since — the academy intake, the Paulista and Copinha campaigns, the deals with the bigger clubs — has run off that original idea.