Sergipe U20

Rowing came first: the club that would dominate Sergipe football began life in 1909 as a rowing outfit in Aracaju, only turning to the round ball in 1916. Youth football followed decades later, formalised into an organised section in 1937, and the U20 side that plays out of that structure today carries no separate birth date of its own — it is simply the academy wearing the parent club's red and white at Estádio João Hora de Oliveira, the ground known locally as "Caldeirão."

What the age group has produced matters more than what it has won, though it has won something: four state Under-20 titles, in 2002, 2005, 2008 and 2017.

The academy's real currency is who leaves it. Sandoval went on to Internacional, São Paulo and Coritiba; Elenilson moved through Bahia, Vitória and Fluminense; Leniton played for Bahia and Vitória as well. Names like Pedrinho and Yuri Pedral came through the same pipeline.