Clube Atlético Mineiro

Clube Atlético Mineiro (), commonly known as Atlético Mineiro or Atlético, and colloquially as Galo (, "Rooster"), is the largest professional football club based in the city of Belo Horizonte, the capital city of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. The team competes in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, the first level of Brazilian football, as well as in the Campeonato Mineiro, the top tier state league of Minas Gerais.

Atlético Mineiro is the oldest active football club in Minas Gerais, founded on 25 March 1908 by twenty-two students from Belo Horizonte. Despite having upper-class founders, the club immediately opened its doors to players of every social class, establishing itself as a "people's club", and becoming one of the most-supported clubs in Brazil. The club's mascot, a rooster, has been strongly associated with Atlético since its introduction in the 1930s. Over the years, the word ''Galo'' (Portuguese for "rooster") became a common nickname for the club itself. The team's regular home kit comprises black-and-white striped shirts, with black shorts and white socks.

Atlético has won the Campeonato Mineiro a record 47 times. At the national level, the club has won the Campeonato Brasileiro twice and has finished second on five occasions. It has also won two Copa do Brasil, and the Supercopa do Brasil, the Copa dos Campeões Estaduais, and the Copa dos Campeões Brasileiros once each. In international club football, Atlético has won the Copa Libertadores and the Recopa Sudamericana once each, and a record two Copa CONMEBOL; the team has also reached three other continental finals. The club has also competed in other sports throughout its history, with the futsal department becoming especially notable.

Atlético plays its home matches at the estádio Mineirão, the club has a long-standing cross-city rivalry with Cruzeiro, with matches between the two teams referred to as the Clássico Mineiro. The club also holds a local rivalry with América Mineiro, and an interstate one with Flamengo. Atlético has the eighth most valuable brand in Brazil, worth million (€143 million) as of 2016, and ranks seventh in the country in terms of turnover, generating R$244.6 million (€62.2 million) in 2015.

Atlético is currently building a new stadium, the Arena MRV, which will have a capacity of over 48,000 spectators. Its inauguration is scheduled for the first quarter of 2023.

History

Early years and achievements (1908–1949)

Atlético Mineiro was formed on 25 March 1908 by a group of twenty-two students from Belo Horizonte, who decided the club's name would be ''Athletico Mineiro Foot Ball Club.'' The club's first match was played against Sport Club Futebol on 21 March 1909; Atlético won 3–0, with the first goal scored by Aníbal Machado. In 1913, the club's name was officially changed to ''Clube Atlético Mineiro'', and in the following year Atlético won the Taça Bueno Brandão, the first competition ever held in the state of Minas Gerais. In 1915, the club won the inaugural edition of the Campeonato Mineiro, the state league of Minas Gerais. The competition was then organised by the ''Liga Mineira de Sports Athléticos'', which would later become the Federação Mineira de Futebol.

América won the next ten editions of the Mineiro, and Atlético only won the league again in 1926, led by striker Mário de Castro. In 1927, forwards Said and Jairo joined Castro to form an attacking partnership nicknamed the ''Trio Maldito'' ("Unholy Trio"), which guided Atlético to another state league triumph. In 1929, the club played its first international encounter, against Portuguese club Vitória de Setúbal, winning 3–1 in a match played at the Presidente Antônio Carlos Stadium. The ground had opened earlier that year, and would be the club's home for the following two decades.

Atlético won the state league in 1931 and 1932, before becoming a professional club in 1933. After another Campeonato Mineiro triumph in 1936, Atlético won the Copa dos Campeões Estaduais in 1937, its first title at national level. The competition was organised by the ''Federação Brasileira de Foot-Ball'', a federation for professional clubs that would later merge into the Brazilian Sports Confederation (CBD). The Copa dos Campeões Estaduais was contested by the 1936 state league champions from Minas Gerais (Atlético), Rio de Janeiro (Fluminense), São Paulo ( Portuguesa) and Espírito Santo ( Rio Branco). Atlético defeated the latter 5–1 in the final match, played at the Antônio Carlos stadium. Guará rose as the club's top player during that period, and the interstate title was followed by two more Campeonato Mineiro victories, in 1938 and 1939.

Success continued in the 1940s, with a squad that included Carlyle, Lucas Miranda, Nívio and goalkeeper Kafunga. The club was dominant in the state as it won the league in 1941, 1942, 1946, 1947 and 1949. Although América had been Atlético's long-standing adversary, a new rivalry started to develop with Cruzeiro in the 1940s, as it became Galo's main challenger during this period.

European tour and the Mineirão era (1950–1969)

In 1950, the club's home moved from the Antônio Carlos to the newer and larger Estádio Independência. The season saw another Campeonato Mineiro triumph and the club's first European tour, in which it played ten games in five countries. The excursion happened at a time when there were neither regular national competitions in Brazil nor continental ones in South America, and followed soon after the traumatic Maracanazo. The tour and Atlético's results, many of which achieved under adverse weather conditions and snow, were seen by national sports media as a historic achievement for Brazilian football itself. The team, captained by Zé do Monte, was dubbed the ''Campeões do Gelo'' ("Ice Champions"), a title that is remembered in the club's official anthem. The club's success in the state competition continued in the 1950s, a decade that saw the rise of forward Ubaldo and five consecutive Campeonato Mineiro victories from 1952 to 1956. After another state league title in 1958, Atlético took part in the inaugural edition of the Taça Brasil in the following year, reaching the third round. The tournament, the country's first annual nationwide competition, was a cup contested between state league champions, originally created by the CBD to select Brazil's entrants in the newly formed Copa Libertadores.

In the 1960s, Atlético won the Campeonato Mineiro twice, in 1962 and 1963, but failed to advance to the later stages of the Taça Brasil. Mineirão, Belo Horizonte's new stadium, opened in 1965 and immediately became the club's home. It was in the mid-1960s that the rivalry with Cruzeiro became the biggest in the state, after this club won the first five state leagues of the Mineirão era. In 1967, another national-level competition was created by the CBD, the Torneio Roberto Gomes Pedrosa. It included more clubs than the Taça Brasil, but Atlético did not finish in the top-four in any of its editions in the decade. In the second half of the 1960s, highlights came in the form of friendlies against national sides. In 1968, Atlético, representing the Brazilian national team, defeated European Championship runners-up Yugoslavia 3–2 at the Mineirão; the following year, the ''Seleção'' itself, which would become champions of the 1970 FIFA World Cup, was defeated 2–1.

National success and state dominance (1970–1989)

With the arrival of Telê Santana as the club's head coach in 1970, Galo broke Cruzeiro's sequence and won its first state league title in the Mineirão, also finishing third in the last Roberto Gomes Pedrosa

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