Santa Cruz RJ

Mention Santa Cruz to a football follower outside Rio de Janeiro state and the picture that comes to mind is usually wrong. Santa Cruz FC of Recife, founded in 1914 and one of Pernambuco's biggest clubs, owns the badge most people find when they search the name — the crest widely shared online under it belongs to that older, more famous side, not to this one. The Rio club spends more time correcting that confusion than trading blows with any rival on the pitch.

This Santa Cruz — full name Santa Cruz Futebol Clube — was founded on 1 October 2007, according to the club's own records and the Rio state federation; a claim tracing the name back to 1912 under a different title, Associação Desportiva Santa Cruz, appears on a sports museum site but has no backing from either body. The club is based in the city of Rio de Janeiro, though its home ground, the Estádio Eduardo Guinle, sits in Nova Friburgo, further inland. Its colours are green, red and yellow, and it plays under the nickname Carcará.

Youth sides carried the early silverware — the Mundialito de Conchal at under-18 level in 2010, the Campeonato Carioca Série C at under-17 level the year after — before the senior team won the Campeonato Carioca Série A in 2015, the state's top division.

That standing did not hold. By 2025, when Santa Cruz next lifted a trophy, it was the Taça Maracanã, contested within the Campeonato Carioca Série B2 — a lower tier than the one the club had topped in 2015.