Campeonato Brasileiro Série A

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Campeonato Brasileiro Série A
Country	Brazil
Confederation	CONMEBOL
Founded	1971
Number of teams	20
Relegation to	Série B
Level on pyramid	Level 1
Domestic cup(s)	Copa do Brasil
CONMEBOL cup(s)	Copa Libertadores Copa Sudamericana
Current champions	São Paulo (2007)
Website	Campeonato Brasileiro Série A home page
Campeonato Brasileiro Série A 2008

The Série A (informally called Brasileirão) is the highest division of Brazilian football. It is presently composed of 20 teams; currently, the bottom four teams in Série A are relegated and the top four teams in Série B are promoted.

Due to its large continental size and historical peculiarities, Brazil has a short history of national competitions, with the modern Campeonato Brasileiro having started only in 1971, supported by the then military regime and just became possible due the changes and evolution in in civil aviation and air transport. Therefore, unlike other football nations, every state of Brazil has its own state competition which are generally regarded as important as the national competitions.

Controversies apart, the CBF until today don’t "officially recognize" the preceding national tournaments from 1959 to 1970, the Taça Brasil and Torneio Roberto Gomes Pedrosa to be count as national title, although these 2 tournament had teams from all regions from Brazil.

[edit] Format and competition rules

Since 2003, the Série A has been contested in a double round-robin format, with each team plays against each other home and away, and the team with most points is declared champion. There is no final match, which is a very controversial subject. Prior to 2003, the Brazilian championship has traditionally been decided with some type of playoff format (most commonly the "Octagonal", where the top 8 regular season teams comprise a single elimination tournament), rather than the European model of points accumulation over a season. Although some purists complain that this system lacks the dramatic scenes of playoffs and finals, the competition has so far shown to be well balanced, without a small number of clubs dominating the league, a phenomenon often found in many European leagues.

All the big clubs from São Paulo, except Palmeiras, withdrew from the 1979 competition. They protested against the odd system of tier qualification which made their rivals Palmeiras and Guarani, previous-year finalists, enter only in the final phase, and asked for the same privileges. Indeed oddly enough, Guarani finished in the top 12 playing only 3 games and Palmeiras finished third despite playing only 5 games, in a tournament with 96 entrants.

In 1984, Juventus, a small club from São Paulo, managed to qualify for the Série A. Participants of that year could be promoted from and relegated to Série B in the middle of the tournament. Juventus thus started the tournament in the premiership, was relegated in the middle of the tournament but eventually managed to clinch the Série B title. Despite this the team was not promoted to Série A in the following year and failed to qualify to it from the state championship.

In 1999, an averaging relegation system similar to the one used in the Primera División Argentina was adopted. The two clubs with the worst point results in the first stage of the two previous seasons were to be relegated. However, this system only lasted for a single season.

In 2005, each team played 42 games, 21 home and 21 away, for a total of 462 games. The champion and runner-up automatically qualified for the 2006 Copa Libertadores. The third and fourth placed teams may also represent Brazil in the Libertadores by defeating foreign clubs to be determined by CONMEBOL in pre-tournament trials. The champion and 5th through 11th placed teams also win the right to represent Brazil in the Copa Sudamericana, another South American championship of lower stature. The four last ranked teams (19th, 20th, 21st and 22nd) were relegated to the following year's Série B.

Eleven matches of the 2005 competition were annulled due to a match-fixing scandal and had to be replayed.

For the 2006 season, the number of contestants was reduced to 20, and CBF claims it to be the "definitive" format. In 2006, a limit on the number of foreign players was set, such that no team can have more than 3 foreign players on the field or on the bench in a single match.

The seasons with the largest number of entrants of the competition were: 2000 (116 entrants), 1979 (94 entrants) and 1986 (80 entrants).

[edit] Statistics

The only club to win a championship undefeated was Internacional, in 1979, with 15 wins and 7 draws. Also, in a match between Goiás and Cruzeiro, in the same year, 14 players were sent off.

Roberto Dinamite is the player with most goals scored in Campeonato Brasileiro history. Dinamite scored 190 in 20 seasons (1971-1989).

As of 2007, only Cruzeiro, Flamengo, Internacional and Vasco participated in all editions of the Série A.

[edit] Teams currently playing Série A

Main article: Campeonato Brasileiro Série A 2008

There are 20 teams playing the Série A in 2008:

[edit] Champions of Série A

Year	Winner		Runner-up	Comments	Entrants
1971 Details	Atlético Mineiro  MG		São Paulo  SP	Three-team final stage. Botafogo eventually finished third.	20
Year	Winner	Score	Runner-up	Comments	Entrants
1972 Details	Palmeiras  SP	0 - 0	Botafogo  RJ	Palmeiras declared champions due to better season record	26
Year	Winner		Runner-up	Comments	Entrants
1973 Details	Palmeiras  SP		São Paulo  SP	Four-team final stage. Palmeiras drew São Paulo 0-0 on last stage match	40
Year	Winner	Score	Runner-up	Comments	Entrants
1974 Details	Vasco  RJ	2 - 1	Cruzeiro  MG	Four-team final stage. Extra tie-break match	40
1975 Details	Internacional  RS	1 - 0	Cruzeiro  MG		46
1976 Details	Internacional  RS	2 - 0	Corinthians  SP		54
1977 Details	São Paulo  SP	0 - 0	Atlético Mineiro  MG	São Paulo won 3-2 on penalties.	60
1978 Details	Guarani  SP	1 - 0 1 - 0	Palmeiras  SP		74
1979 Details	Internacional  RS	2 - 0 2 - 1	Vasco  RJ	Internacional became champions without losing one single game, a deed yet unmatched.	96
1980 Details	Flamengo  RJ	0 - 1 3 - 2	Atlético Mineiro  MG		104
1981 Details	Grêmio  RS	2 - 1 1 - 0	São Paulo  SP		88
1982 Details	Flamengo  RJ	1 - 1 0 - 0 1 - 0	Grêmio  RS		88
1983 Details	Flamengo  RJ	1 - 2 3 - 0	Santos  SP		88
1984 Details	Fluminense  RJ	1 - 0 0 - 0	Vasco  RJ		72
1985 Details	Coritiba  PR	1 - 1	Bangu  RJ	Coritiba won 6-5 on penalties.	40
1986 Details	São Paulo  SP	1 - 1 3 - 3	Guarani  SP	São Paulo won 4-3 on penalties.	80
1987(1) Details	Sport  PE	1 - 1 1 - 0	Guarani  SP	Four-team final stage turned home-and-away playoff	32
	Flamengo  RJ	1 - 1 1 - 0	Internacional  RS	Organized by Clube dos 13, dubbed Copa União, not recognized by CBF, but recognized by the Clube dos 13, most of the media and CND[1]	16
1988 Details	Bahia  BA	2 - 1 0 - 0	Internacional  RS		24
1989 Details	Vasco  RJ	1 - 0	São Paulo  SP	Second final-series match unnecessary as Vasco had a better season record and won the away match	22
1990 Details	Corinthians  SP	1 - 0 1 - 0	São Paulo  SP		20
1991 Details	São Paulo  SP	1 - 0 0 - 0	Bragantino  SP		20
1992 Details	Flamengo  RJ	3 - 0 2 - 2	Botafogo  RJ		20
1993 Details	Palmeiras  SP	1 - 0 2 - 0	Vitória  BA		32
1994 Details	Palmeiras  SP	3 - 1 1 - 1	Corinthians  SP		24
1995 Details	Botafogo  RJ	2 - 1 1 - 1	Santos  SP		24
1996 Details	Grêmio  RS	0 - 2 2 - 0	Portuguesa  SP	Grêmio declared champions due to better season record.	24
1997 Details	Vasco  RJ	0 - 0 0 - 0	Palmeiras  SP	Vasco da Gama declared champions due to better season record	26
1998 Details	Corinthians  SP	2 - 2 1 - 1 2 - 0	Cruzeiro  MG		24
1999 Details	Corinthians  SP	2 - 3 2 - 0 0 - 0	Atlético Mineiro  MG		22
2000(2) Details	Vasco  RJ	1 - 1 3 - 1	São Caetano  SP	Organized by Clube dos 13 on CBF's behalf, and dubbed Copa João Havelange	116
2001 Details	Atlético Paranaense  PR	4 - 2 1 - 0	São Caetano  SP		28
2002 Details	Santos  SP	2 - 0 3 - 2	Corinthians  SP		26
Year	Winner		Runner-up	Comments	Entrants
2003 Details	Cruzeiro  MG 100 pts / 46 matches		Santos  SP 87 pts / 46 matches	From 2003 onwards, regular season + play-offs system was substituted by full round-robin season	24
2004 Details	Santos  SP 89 pts / 46 matches		Atlético Paranaense  PR 86 pts / 46 matches		24
2005 Details	Corinthians  SP 81 pts / 42 matches		Internacional  RS 78 pts / 42 matches	A refereeing scandal led to refixturing of matches which turned the outcome of the original championship impossible to assert	22
2006 Details	São Paulo  SP 78 pts / 38 matches		Internacional  RS 69 pts / 38 matches		20
2007 Details	São Paulo  SP 77 pts / 38 matches		Santos  SP 62 pts / 38 matches	São Paulo becomes the first team to officially win five Brazilian championships.	20

[edit] Titles by team

Club	State	Titles
São Paulo	São Paulo	5 titles
Flamengo (1)	Rio de Janeiro	5 titles (including the 1987 edition, which is not recognized by CBF)
Corinthians	São Paulo	4 titles
Palmeiras	São Paulo	4 titles
Vasco(2)	Rio de Janeiro	4 titles
Internacional	Rio Grande do Sul	3 titles
Grêmio	Rio Grande do Sul	2 titles
Santos	São Paulo	2 titles
Atlético-MG	Minas Gerais	1 title
Atlético-PR	Paraná	1 title
Bahia	Bahia	1 title
Botafogo	Rio de Janeiro	1 title
Coritiba	Paraná	1 title
Cruzeiro	Minas Gerais	1 title
Fluminense	Rio de Janeiro	1 title
Guarani	São Paulo	1 title
Sport(1)	Pernambuco	1 title (officially recognized as the 1987 champion by CBF)

[edit] Titles by state

State	Titles
São Paulo	16 titles
Rio de Janeiro	11 titles(1) (2)
Rio Grande do Sul	5 titles
Minas Gerais	2 titles
Paraná	2 titles
Bahia	1 title
Pernambuco	1 title(1)