S.C. Corinthians Paulista
is a
football
club which plays in
Brazil
.
Football (soccer)
had already established itself as the popular new sport in
Brazil
and when the dry season came and the fields dried out they were soon filled with lovers of the new game. Sao Paulo's sporting elite had formed several clubs,
Germania
,
Paulistano
and
Campos Eliseos
among them, but access to the game was still largely restricted to the city's well off.
So a group of working class fans - painter and decorators Joaquim Ambrosio, Antonio Pereira and Cesar Nunes; cobbler Rafael Perrone; driver Anselmo Correia; foundry worker; Alexandre Magnani: cook Salvador Lopomo; labourer Joao da Silva and tailor Antonio Nunes - decided to start their own team. Bataglia decided to get involved he was named the club's first president.
The new club needed a name.
Joaquim Ambrosio
suggested they call themselves after the
Corinthians Casuals Football Club
, the famous English team that was then on tour in Brazil. The press and fans in Brazil who were following the tour shortened the English club's name to Corinthian's Team and so the founders did away with the aopstrophe and the club won its elegant name Corinthians.
Corinthians is also known as
Big Team
,
Coringao
,
The Musketeer
and
Champion of the Champions
.
Finally, the club picked colours. The club's first strip was beige with black trim and had the distinctive letters "C" and "P" for Corinthians Paulista. However, when the strips were washed, the black bled into the beige. The directors could not afford to keep buying new strips every time the colours ran so they decided to change their colours. They swapped the beige for white. In present-day, the colours of Corinthians are Black and White.
The name of Corinthians´s stadium is
Arena Corinthians
, also known as
Itaquerao
and with a capacity crowd of 68,000.
The team from
Varzea Paulista
. Playing away from home in their first match, Corinthians were expected to lose heavily but they showed they were not there just to make up the numbers and they battled hard before narrowly going down by a goal to nil.
The defeat turned out to be a one-off. Four days later, Corinthians proved they would be a name to be reckoned with and beat Estrela Polar 2-0. The honour of scoring the club's first goal went to striker Luis Fabi, who wrote himself into the history books by grabbing the opener. They followed the match with an unbeaten streak that lasted two years.
They then won 1-0 away at
Minas Gerais
and then beat
Sao Paulo do Bexiga
4-0 at home. They had secured their place in the big league.
Things got even better the following year and in 1914 a dynasty took hold. In just their second Paulista Championship, Corinthians destroyed the competition and won all 10 games, scoring 39 times in the process.
Neco
ended the tournament's top goalscorer with 12 goals.
Corinthians picked up yet another Paulista Championship in 1922 but this victory had something special about it. The winner took the title not only of Paulista Champions but also of Centenary Champions, a title they would hold for at least the next 100 years.
By this time, winning the Paulista was becoming routine. The team won the league three years in a row in
1922
,
1923
and
1924
under the command of Neco, the club's first great idol, and would do so again in
1928
,
1929
and
1930
.
The great and only rival of Corinthians is
Sociedade Esportiva Palmeiras
. This is the most derbie and traditional rivalry in Brazilian football. The fans of Corinthians called Palmeiras as a
pig
and the fans of palmeiras called Corinthians as a
skunk
.
However, and between
1931
and
1934
a series of bad results left the team trailing. Corinthians lost to all their big rivals of the time and failed to make an impression in the league, never finishing higher than fourth.
The turnaround came in 1937, and for the rest of the decade there was only one team in the state. Corinthians won the Paulista Championship in
1937
,
1938
and
1939
to become the first team ever to win three back-to-back titles three times. Even today, no other team has managed to equal such a feat. The man who led the way was centre-forward
Teleco
. One of the club's greatest ever goalscorers, he topped the scoring charts in 1937 and
1939
. The former year he scored almost half the club's goals, while in the latter he got an amazing 60 percent.
The 100-goal attack made history not only for the club but also for the league. In 1951, a front line made up of
Carbone
,
Claudio
,
Luizinho
,
Baltazar
and
Mario
scored 103 goals in 30 games in the Paulista Championship, an average of 3.43 per game. The title was theirs, as was the trophy for top goalscorer, which went to Carbone, who got 30 of the team's goals.
In the years that followed, more titles were added to the growing trophy room at
Parque Sao Jorge
. In 1952, the
Timao
won the Paulista Championship for the second successive year, with Baltazar finishing top scorer. In
1953
, they took the Rio-Sao Paulo title and the
Little World Cup
- the club's first international title - and in 1954 they walked off with another
Rio-Sao Paulo
as well as the Paulista do IV centenario de Sao Paulo. In
1956
and
1957
, they won the
Invencible Trophy
, the cup given to the team that went the longest number of games undefeated.
In 1976, Corinthians almost won their first Brazilian League title and the club's fans played a starring role in one of the most memorable moments in footballing history. Corinthians were drawn against Fluminense in the semi-finals of the league play offs at the
Maracana
. More than 70,000 Corinthians fans made the six-hour trip up the motorway to Rio de Janeiro in a massive convoy that was christened the "Corinthians Invasion."
Corinthians won the first game but lost the second and so needed to win a third and deciding match to take the title. It was quite a struggle, with the match goalless until the 81st minute. Then, a Ze Maria free kick was directed onto the bar by Vaguinho. Wladimir headed the rebound back towards goal where Oscar was on hand to knock it off the line. The ball fell to Basilio in the area and he hammered it into the net and gave Corinthians the goal they so desperately wanted. The
1977
Paulista Championship was theirs.
The
Timao
was always one of the most important clubs in Brazil. But the Corinthians Democracy movement was unique in world football. Through organisation, team spirit and democracy, they did something no other team has managed before or since. When players as politically and socially conscientious as
Socrates
,
Wladimir
,
Casagrande
and
Zenon
get together then there are bound to be changes in the dressing room. Those four stars were the driving force behind the greatest ideological movement in the history of Brazilian football: Corinthians Democracy. And this in the middle of the country's military dictatorship. Corinthians Democracy did something that seemed impossible. Through football, the most popular sport in the country, they got people talking about all sorts of important and relevant questions concerning society, democracy and the end of
military rule
. In addition to that not inconsiderable feat, they showed that it was possible to create a society in which everyone's opinions are heard and respected and where democracy, through the imposition of the wishes of the majority, could prevail. They won the Paulista Championship in
1982
and
1983
, beating city rivals Sao Paulo both times. In 1982, they battled back after losing the first game 3-2 to take the next two matches 1-0 and 3-1 and lift the trophy. The next year they won again, thanks to a series of brilliant performances from
Socrates
. The good doctor scored all the team's goals in the semi-finals against
Sociedade Esportiva Palmeiras
(1-1 and 1-0) as well as in the final against
Sao Paulo Futebol Clube
(1-0 and 1-1). His four goals brought the team their 19th Paulista Championship.
The 1990s was to prove a glorious decade for Corinthians, who captured three Brazilian Championships (in
1990
beating
Sao Paulo Futebol Clube
, in
1998
beating
Cruzeiro
and in
1999
led the championship since the beginning at the finished and beating
Atletico Mineiro
at the final game), three State Championships (in
1995
beating Palmeiras, in
1997
beating Sao Paulo and
1999
beating Palmeiras again) and a Brazilian Cup (in 1995 beating
Gremio
) in quick succession.
In
2000
, Corinthians, who captured
FIFA Club World Championship
victory against
Vasco da Gama
(win 4-3 on penalties) at the
Maracana
Stadium. This match had attendance of 73,000 peoples. This is the most important title of Corinthians. Corinthians played the final game with Dida, Indio, Fabio Luciano, Adilson & Kleber; Vampeta (Gilmar), Rincon, Marcelinho Carioca & Ricardinho (Edu); Edilson (Fernando Baiano) & Luizao.
Coach: Oswaldo de Oliveira
The final months of
2004
marked a new era for the
Timao
and for Brazilian football. The partnership between
MSI
and Corinthians revolutionised the game and brought internationalists like
Carlos Tevez
,
Javier Mascherano
,
Roger
,
Carlos Alberto
and
Gustavo Nery
to the club. The future was bright for the club and fans could not help but feel optimistic they would enjoy many more triumphs in the coming years.
And so it proved, with success coming quicker than they could have hoped for. Led by Argentine star
Carlos Tevez
, the
Timao
had a sensational league campaign in 2005 and won their fourth
Brazilian League
Title in
2005
.
More new signings were made in 2006 with
Ricardinho
, Rafael Moura and goalkeeper Silvio Luiz coming to the club in a bid to strengthen a squad that would be competing for another Brazilian League title and the
Copa Libertadores
.
- 2
FIFA Club World Championship
: 2000, 2012.
- 1 Trophy Ramon de Carranza: 1996.
- 1 Trophy International Charles Muller: 1955.
- 1 Little World Cup: 1953.
- 6
Brazilian Championships
: 1990, 1998, 1999, 2005, 2011, 2015.
- 1
Brazilian Championship B
: 2008
- 3
Brazilian Cups
: 1995, 2002, 2009.
- 5 Rio-Sao Paulo Tournaments: 1950, 1953, 1954, 1966, 2002.
- 27 Sao Paulo State Championships: 1914, 1916, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1977, 1979, 1982, 1983, 1988, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2009, 2013.
- 1
Libertadores Cup
: 2012.
As July 24, 2012.
[1]
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under
FIFA eligibility rules
. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
Neco (1913-30), Teleco (1933-44), Servilio (1938-48),
Domingos da Guia
(1944-48), Claudio (1945-57),
Baltazar
(1947-58), Luizinho (1949-62 & 1964-67),
Gilmar
(1951-61),
Rivelino
(1965-74),
Socrates
(1978-84), Daniel Gonzalez (1982),
Dunga
(1984-85), Neto (1989-93),
Carlos Gamarra
(1998-99),
Dida
(1999-2001),
Marcelinho Carioca
(1993-97, 1998-2001),
Edilson
(1997-2000),
Luizao
(1999-2002),
Carlos Tevez
(2005-06),
Ronaldo
(2009),
Roberto Carlos
(2010),
Emerson Sheik
(2011-2012).