União PR

The second-division title of 2019 gave União PR its second promotion inside four years. Three years earlier it won the third tier of the Paranaense championship. That absence lasted 23 years.

Francisco Beltrão, in the southwest of Paraná, had a founder and first president in Wolf Trentin, and through its first decade the club put up one of the larger sports complexes in the region while playing in the Liga Esportiva do Sudoeste do Paraná. It turned professional in 1967, a year after a split that left two bodies where there had been one: Clube Recreativo União and, under Osmar Brito, Clube Esportivo União.

The one season in the top flight of the state championship came in 1980. União went down again and did not return until 2018 — thirty-eight years, and by then the men who had watched the first attempt were old.

Estádio Anilado holds the home matches, and also the away ones: Francisco Beltrão Futebol Clube, the city rival, plays on the same pitch. There is no agreed name for the fixture. The blue of the shirt gave the club its nickname, Azulão, and around the town the side is simply the equipe azulina.

Nothing has been won above state level, and nothing in the first division of Paraná. What sits on the honours board is two second-division titles, 1979 and 2019, and the third-division win of 2016.

The ground takes 7,000.