Fluminense

Full name	Fluminense Football Club
Nickname(s)	Tricolor carioca[1] Fluzão[2] Nense[3] Pó-de-Arroz[4]
Founded	July 21, 1902[1]
Ground	Laranjeiras[1] Maracanã[1]
Chairman	Roberto Horcades[5]
Manager	Cuca
League	Série A[6]
Home colours Away colours

Fluminense Football Club is a sports club based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Founded in the beginning of the 20th century as a single-sport institution,^[1] Fluminense is today an umbrella organization for several teams in more than 16 different sport activities.^[7] The most popular endeavour of Fluminense, however, continues to be football.^[8] This article concerns itself with Fluminense solely as a professional football club.

Contents 1 History 2 Honours 2.1 International 2.2 National 2.3 Regional 2.4 State 2.5 Friendly Tournaments 2.6 Others 3 Partners 4 People 4.1 Current Squad 4.2 Football Officials 4.3 Notable Former Players 5 Performance 6 Sponsors 7 Support 8 References 9 External links

[edit] History

Fluminense Football Club was founded on July 21, 1902 in Rio de Janeiro by Oscar Cox, a Brazilian of British heritage.^[1] Settled in the then aristocratic neighbourhood of Laranjeiras,^[9] Fluminense was formed by sons of the elite who had come into contact with football while studying in Europe.^[10] The first official match was played against now defunct Rio FC, and ended 8-0 for Fluminense.^[1] The first achievement came in 1906, when Fluminense won its first Campeonato Carioca.^[1]

In 1911, disagreement between Fluminense players led to the formation of Flamengo's football team,^[1] which remains the club's main rival.^[11] The so-called Fla-Flu derby is considered the biggest in the history of Brazilian football.^[11] Five years later, in Fluminense's stadium, the Brazilian national football team debuted.^[1] It was also there that they conquered their first title, in 1919.^[12] One year later, Afrânio Costa, a Fluminense shooting athlete, won the first medal for Brazil in the history of the Olympic Games.^[13][14]

By 1924, Fluminense had 4,000 members, a stadium for 25,000 people and facilities that impressed clubs in Europe.^[15] Nonetheless, Fluminense's long association with the rich tainted its history with racism.^[16] In an unfortunate event in 1914, a mulatto man playing for Fluminense decided to cover himself in cosmetic powder to disguise the colour of his skin. This ultimately led to one of the club's nicknames, pó de arroz, which is the Portuguese for white powder.^[16][17] After 1925, Fluminense began pressuring for the professionalization of football, so far restricted to club affiliates.^[8] But it wasn't before 1950 that the club started to accept black players in its squad.^[16]

The following years saw an expansion of the club's hegemony in Rio. Fluminense would remain unsurpassed in terms of state championships until 2009.^[18] International acclaim came in 1949 with the award of the Olympic Cup and was further fostered in 1952 with Fluminense's first intercontinental honour, the Copa Rio.^[19][1] The club established itself regionally with the achievement of two Torneio Rio-São Paulo cups in 1957 and 1960.^[1] National honours followed in 1970 and 1984, with Taça de Prata and Série A cups, respectively.^[1]

A disastrous campaign led to the club's relegation from Série A in 1996. A set of off-field political maneuvers, however, allowed Fluminense to remain in Brazil's main domestic league,^[20] only to be relegated again in the next year.^[21] Completely out of control, the club was relegated from Série B to Série C in 1998.^[22] In 1999, Fluminense won the Série C championship and was to be promoted to Série B when it was invited to take part in Copa João Havelange,^[23] a championship that replaced the traditional Série A in 2000. In 2001, it was decided that all clubs which took part in Copa João Havelange's so-called Blue Group should be kept in Série A,^[24] and so Fluminense Football Club found its way back to the top, where it has been ever since.

In 2007, Fluminense won the Copa do Brasil and was admitted in the Copa Libertadores again after 23 years.^[1][25] The club's campaign led it into the finals and included remarkable matches against Arsenal de Sarandí, São Paulo and Boca Juniors.^[26][27][28] Fluminense lost the cup to LDU Quito in a dispute of penalty shootouts.^[29]

[edit] Honours

[edit] International

• Copa Rio (International) (1):
  • 1952^[1]

[edit] National

• Campeonato Brasileiro Série A (1):
  • 1984^[1]
• Campeonato Brasileiro Série C (1):
  • 1999^[30]
• Copa do Brasil (1):
  • 2007^[1]
• Torneio Roberto Gomes Pedrosa (1):
  • 1970^[1]

[edit] Regional

• Torneio Rio-São Paulo (2):
  • 1957, 1960^[1]

[edit] State

• Campeonato Carioca (30):
  • 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1911, 1917, 1918, 1919, 1924, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1940, 1941, 1946, 1951, 1959, 1964, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1980, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1995, 2002, 2005^[1]

[edit] Friendly Tournaments

• Kirin Cup (1):
  • 1987^[31]
• Teresa Herrera Trophy (1):
  • 1977^[32]

[edit] Others

In 1949, Fluminense Football Club was awarded the Olympic Cup by the International Olympic Committee.^[19] The official 2009 kit features the Olympic Cup as a 60th year celebration.^[33]

[edit] Partners

Companies and institutions that Fluminense Football Club currently has partnership deals with include:^[34][35][36]

• América Football Club
• Ituano Futebol Clube
• Traffic Group

[edit] People

[edit] Current Squad

As of September 24, 2009.^[37][38]

No. Position Player GK Fernando Henrique GK Rafael GK Ricardo Berna DF Augusto DF Cássio DF Dieguinho DF Digão DF Edcarlos DF Gum DF João Paulo DF Luiz Alberto DF Mariano DF Ruy DF Wellington Monteiro MF Carlos Eduardo MF Darío Conca MF Diguinho

No. Position Player MF Diogo MF Ezequiel González MF Fabinho MF Fábio Neves MF Marquinho MF Maurício MF Patricio Urrutia MF Paulo César MF Radamés MF Tartá FW Adeílson FW Alan FW Fred (captain) FW Kieza FW Leandro Amaral FW Maicon FW Roni

[edit] Football Officials

As of September 2009, Fluminense Football Club was undergoing serious political turmoil, with no clearly defined chain of command.^{[39][40][41][42]}

[edit] Notable Former Players

The most notable players for Fluminense Football Club so far have been:^[43]

Assis Branco Carlos Alberto Torres Castilho Didi Edinho Gérson Marcos Carneiro de Mendonça Pinheiro

Preguinho Renato Gaúcho Rivelino Romerito Romeu Telê Tim Valdo Welfare

[edit] Performance

Fluminense Football Club took part in 36 of the 38 official Serie A championships organized in Brazil since 1971.^[44] Since the number of participating teams has changed considerably over time, any accurate performance measurement must take this variable into account. In the two tables below, the performance field for a given position p in a universe of n teams was calculated using the formula:

This allows for an asymptotic limit of 100%, since p will never be zero.

Year	Position	Participants	Performance	Year	Position	Participants	Performance
1971	16	20	20%	1981	11	44	75%
1972	14	26	46%	1982	5	44	89%
1973	23	40	42%	1983	18	44	59%
1974	24	40	40%	1984	1	41	98%
1975	3	42	93%	1985	22	44	50%
1976	4	54	93%	1986	6	48	87%
1977	26	62	58%	1987	7	16	56%
1978	22	74	70%	1988	3	24	87%
1979	52	94	45%	1989	15	22	32%
1980	11	44	75%	1990	15	20	25%

Year	Position	Participants	Performance	Year	Position	Participants	Performance
1991	4	20	80%	2001	3	28	89%
1992	14	20	30%	2002	7	26	73%
1993	28	32	12%	2003	19	24	21%
1994	15	24	37%	2004	9	24	62%
1995	4	24	83%	2005	5	22	77%
1996	23	24	4%	2006	15	20	25%
1997	25	26	4%	2007	4	20	80%
2000	3	25	88%	2008	14	20	30%

Fluminense Football Club has an average performance of 56% in Série A, with a standard deviation of 28%.

[edit] Sponsors

Companies that Fluminense Football Club currently has sponsorship deals with include:

• Adidas - Official Partner.^[45]
• Unimed - Main Partner since 1999.^[46]

[edit] Support

The supporters of Fluminense Football Club are usually related to the upper classes of Rio de Janeiro.^[47] However, the popularity of the club reaches beyond the city limits. Recent polls have estimated the number of supporters to be between 1,4% and 3,7% of the Brazilian population.^[48] Considering a universe of 185 million people,^[49] that would account for numbers between 2.6 and 6.8 million.

The best attendance ever observed in a match of Fluminense was registered on December 15, 1963 in a rally against Flamengo. On that day, an impressive amount of 194,000 people showed up at the Maracanã stadium.^[50] This occasion remains as the stadium's record for a match between clubs.^[51]

Notable supporters of Fluminense include composers Cartola and Chico Buarque,^[52][53] FIFA president of honour João Havelange,^[11] musician Ivan Lins,^[54] poet and actor Mario Lago,^[55] journalist and songwriter Nelson Motta^[56] and dramatist, journalist and writer Nelson Rodrigues.^[56]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Fluminense Football Club

Look up Fluminense in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Official Website (in Portuguese)
• Statistics on major competitions (in Portuguese)
• Statistics on all matches between 1902 and 2006 (in Portuguese)
• Statistics on the ongoing Série A 2009 championship (in Portuguese)
• Daily news (in Portuguese)

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