Stade Malien Bamako

Djoliba AC is the other name in every conversation about Bamako football, and the Derby de Bamako has run since the two clubs were founded. The rivalry says as much about the city as about either side.

The club itself came out of a merger in 1960, the year of Malian independence, joining two existing sides, Jeanne d'Arc du Soudan and Espérance de Bamako. Jeanne d'Arc's white shirts, inherited from the White Fathers missionaries who had backed the club, stayed on as the new side's colours and gave it the nickname Les Blancs. In 2007 a group of supporters split away and revived the old name as a separate club, Jeanne d'Arc FC.

Twenty-three league titles and twenty-three Coupe du Mali wins put Stade Malien at the top of the domestic honours list. The best of it, though, came abroad: in 2009 the club beat Algeria's Entente Sétif to win the CAF Confederation Cup, the first continental trophy any Malian club had taken. It followed a run that had already reached one African final decades earlier, in 1964–65, lost to Oryx Douala.

Salif Keita remains the name attached to the club abroad, while Karim Abdul Razak's spell in charge in the early 2000s coincided with one of the club's strongest domestic runs. The training base built in Sotuba in 2006 now feeds the youth sides that keep the squad turning over.

Under Mauril Mesack Njoya the club reached the quarter-finals of the CAF Champions League in 2024–25, on top of a league title the same season, which leaves Stade Malien again chasing continental football to match its record at home.