Palmeiras

The Sociedade Esportiva Palmeiras (Sports Society Palmeiras), popularly known as Palmeiras, is a Brazilian multi-sport club from the Perdizes district of the city of São Paulo, capital of the state of the same name. It was founded by Italian immigrants on 26 August 1914 as Palestra Italia, but its name was changed to the current one on 14 September 1942 for political reasons. Its colours, present on the official crest and flag, are green and white. It currently plays in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, of which it is the record winner with 12 titles.

Its recognition and main achievements have come in professional football. Palmeiras is one of the most prestigious clubs in South America and worldwide on account of its titles. It was named the best team in the world in 2021 in the ranking of the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS), becoming the first Brazilian club to receive this distinction.

Palmeiras is the runner-up in the ranking of the CBF (Confederação Brasileira de Futebol). This ranking takes into account the titles and performance of clubs over the last 5 years, so it can be said that Palmeiras is one of the most nationally successful Brazilian clubs. In the last ranking of the confederation that took into account a broader historical period of Brazilian football and that was published in 2011, Palmeiras was the leader, with 2,366 points. With the conquest of the 2020 Copa do Brasil, Palmeiras reached 17 national titles and is, on its own, the club with the most titles in Brazil.

Palmeiras is the Brazilian team with the highest number of national titles, having won them 18 times, which includes 12 Campeonatos Brasileiros (a record), 4 Copa do Brasil titles, one Copa dos Campeões, and one Supercopa do Brasil; internationally it has won 3 Copa Libertadores titles, one Recopa Sudamericana and one Copa Mercosur, which makes it the seventh Brazilian club with the most international titles. It also won the Copa Internacional de Río in 1951, the first unofficial intercontinental championship. The club was also twice world runner-up (1999 and 2021), 3 times runner-up of the Copa Libertadores de América, 2 times runner-up of the Copa Mercosur and once runner-up of the Recopa Sudamericana. Palmeiras has won every national competition it has played in at least once, and for this reason it received the title of Brazilian Champion of the Century from the Federação Paulista de Futebol.

At regional level, Palmeiras is also one of the leading winners, with 26 titles in the Campeonato Paulista (the second-most successful champion behind Corinthians), two extra titles in the same competition and 5 interstate titles (Torneio Rio - São Paulo). In 1996, the alviverde won that year's state championship with the best record by a team in the professional era of this championship. On that occasion, it was champion with 83 points won out of a possible 90, a success rate of 92.2% of the points contested, and 102 goals scored in 30 matches played. Since then, this mark has never been reached by any other team in the competition.

It plays one of the most important derbies in the world and the most important derby in the state of São Paulo, the Derbi Paulista, against Corinthians, its greatest rival. It also has a strong rivalry with São Paulo and Santos FC, the other big teams in the state.

Palmeiras appears technically tied with São Paulo with an approximate number of 16 million (7%) supporters throughout Brazil, according to the Instituto Datafolha.

Polls presented to the public since the beginning of the 1990s show that Palmeiras and São Paulo alternate between third and fourth place and are technically tied, according to the margin of error.