A national club competition
The Campeonato Brasileiro de Futebol, also called Campeonato Brasileiro Série A or the Brasileirão, is Brazil’s leading professional football league for clubs. Série A sits at the top of the country’s league system and is organized by the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF). It brings together 20 teams and belongs to a structure with four divisions: Série A, Série B, Série C and Série D.
“Brasileirão” is a popular name for the championship. Série A specifies the top division and distinguishes it from the other tiers. The competition is played in Brazil and is not the Italian Serie A, despite the similarity in their names.
Format and movement between divisions
The 20 Série A clubs play a round-robin season with home and away fixtures: each team meets every other team twice, once at home and once away. Results determine the standings over the course of the competition, rather than deciding the title through a series of knockout ties. The format described for the league includes promotion and relegation between Série A and Série B, so a club’s season performance affects whether it remains in the top division or moves down.
In short, the Brasileirão Série A is Brazil’s top-tier professional men’s club football championship, decided through league play across the season. The name can also be used more broadly for the Campeonato Brasileiro, but the 20-team competition discussed here is the Série A.
A history of changing names and formats
A regular national competition was established in 1959, when the Taça Brasil was created. At the time, state championships were the main competitions, and Brazil’s large territory made regular nationwide tournaments difficult. Over the decades, the national championship appeared under different names, including Taça de Prata, Campeonato Nacional de Clubes, Copa Brasil and Taça de Ouro. The Copa João Havelange was held in 2000; the name Campeonato Brasileiro Série A returned from 2001, and the CBF also began using Brasileirão Série A on its official website in 2018.
The competition’s history is therefore not one of an unchanging name or format. Earlier editions included knockout and mixed systems, while the Série A format described today is a home-and-away league. That history helps explain why the championship is widely treated as a national tradition even though its organization and names have evolved.