Avaí

Avaí turned 100 in 2023, and marked the anniversary from a courtroom: with debts reported at around 107 million reais, the club filed for judicial reorganisation the same year it had waited a century to celebrate.

The name goes back further than the trouble. Amadeu Horn founded the club on 1 September 1923 as Avahy Football Club, taking its name from the Battle of Avaí, an episode of the Paraguayan War. Based in Florianópolis, on Brazil's southern coast, Avaí plays in blue and white, carries the nickname Leão da Ilha — the Lion of the Island — and plays home matches at the Ressacada, formally Estádio Aderbal Ramos da Silva, which holds 17,800.

No club has won more Santa Catarina state titles than Avaí, a record that now stands at 19. Beyond the state, the shelf is thinner: a Série C title in 1998 remains the only national trophy, and a runner-up finish in Série B in 2016 is the closest the club has come to another. Between the two sits 2009, the first season back in Série A after thirty years away — Avaí finished sixth, still the best top-flight finish by any Santa Catarina club, and went on to play in the Copa Sudamericana.

Across the bay, Figueirense supplies the fiercest test, in the Clássico Ilha-Continente; Criciúma runs it close in the Clássico das Feras. The academy has sent out sharper exports than either rival can claim: Raphinha moved on to Leeds and then Barcelona, Gabriel Magalhães to Lille and Arsenal, and Jardel went on to become Portuguese champion with Benfica.

The most recent silverware has come quickly: the state title again in 2025, then the Recopa Catarinense and the Copa Sul-Sudeste in 2026.