, founder of Fluminense
Pioneering football in Rio , a notable Fluminense player Fluminense Football Club was founded on 21 July 1902, in the neighbourhood of
Laranjeiras, in the city of
Rio de Janeiro, by a group of young of brazilian aristocracy and football enthusiasts led by
Oscar Cox, an English citizen born in Brazil, who had come into contact with the sport whilst studying in
Lausanne, where he got acquainted with the practice of football. Cox was subsequently elected as the first president. Therefore, it was the first football club to be founded in the city, whose most popular sport at the time was rowing. The first official match was played against now defunct
Rio Football Club, and Fluminense won 8–0. The club's first title came in 1906, when Fluminense won the
state championship (Campeonato Carioca). Three years later, in Fluminense's stadium, the
Brazil national football team debuted, against touring English club
Exeter City. By 1922, Fluminense had 4,000 members, a stadium for 25,000 people, and facilities that impressed clubs in Europe.
Construction of the Maracanã , in 1956 The
1950 World Cup strengthened football in the country, and as a result, the country's biggest teams, which basically only competed in state tournaments, began to measure their strength in tournaments and matches against teams from other states. To hold the competition, the
Maracanã was built, the largest stadium in the world at that time, and which became the main stadium for Fluminense's games. In the context of the World Cup held in the country in 1950,
CBD, accompanied by
FIFA and
IFAB, decided to hold a competition that pitted the champion clubs from the main FIFA-affiliated countries against each other, thus creating the
International Champions Club Tournament, better known as
Copa Rio. The competition brought together the Champion clubs from countries in South America (Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) and Europe (Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland and Yugoslavia), its first edition was in 1951, being won by
Palmeiras. In 1951, Fluminense won the Carioca championship, which meant that the team qualified for the
1952 Copa Rio. The team had great players who represented the
Brazilian team, such as
Carlos Castilho,
Píndaro,
Pinheiro,
Didi,
Orlando Pingo de Ouro and
Telê Santana. In the first phase of the competition, the teams were divided into two groups, the first played their matches at Maracanã, and the second played their matches at
Pacaembu, Fluminense was in the first group and faced
Grasshopper (Switzerland),
Sporting Lisboa (Portugal) and
Peñarol (Uruguay), and qualified in first place. In the semi final they beat
Austria Wien (Austria), and in the final they defeated
Corinthians. From the 1950s, with the creation of the
Rio-São Paulo Tournament, the forerunner of what eventually would become the national championship, Fluminense established itself regionally by winning the tournament title in 1957 and 1960. only to be relegated the next year. Completely out of control, the club was relegated from
Série B to
Série C in 1998. In 1999, Fluminense won the Série C championship and were to be promoted to Série B when they were invited to take part in
Copa João Havelange, 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.
2000s: Copa do Brasil and first Libertadores final with Fluminense players, champions of the
2007 Brazil Cup. Fluminense had good campaigns in the 2000, 2001, and 2002 Serie A, finishing in the top four each of these times. Fluminense's first title of the 21st century was the 2002 Campeonato Carioca. In 2005, Fluminense won the
Campeonato Caroica and the Taca Rio, and finished fifth in the Brasileirao. Later that year, they reached the final of the
Copa do Brasil again, but lost to Serie B club
Paulista 2–0, marking one of the few times that a Serie B club won the Copa do Brasil. In
2007, Fluminense won the
Copa do Brasil beating Figueirense in the final, and was admitted to the
Copa Libertadores again after 23 years. In the
2007 Serie A, the club finished fourth, and Thiago Neves won the Golden Ball for the league's best player. winning both games against Colombian club
Atlético Nacional in R16, a comeback against
São Paulo in the QF, and disposing of defending champions
Boca Juniors in the SF with a 3–1 victory. Fluminense eventually finished runner-up, losing the
finals to
LDU Quito on penalties after a 5–5 draw on aggregate, despite a hat-trick from Thiago Neves in the second leg. Fluminense had already faced LDU in the group stage, winning 1-0 and drawing 0-0. The club finished fourteenth in the
Serie A that season, and only finished one point away from relegation, but curiously still qualifying for the following years Copa Sudamericana. before the
2008 Copa Libertadores final|left After signing 27 players and going through 5 different managers in 2009, Fluminense found themselves struggling to avoid another relegation from Série A. With less than one-third of the championship left, the mathematical probability of the club's relegation was 98%. At this point, manager
Cuca decided to dispense with some of the more experienced players and gave Fluminense's youngsters a chance. For the second year in a row, the club contested a continental cup. In a repeat of the previous year's Copa Libertadores, Fluminense lost the finals to LDU Quito.
2010s: Two Brazilian championships For 2010,
Muricy Ramalho replaced Cuca. His first task was in the
2010 Copa do Brasil quarter-finals against
Grêmio, where Flumiense were eliminated 5–3 on aggregate. However, this elimination was not considered a "failure", in part because with this elimination the club was not participating in any other competitions and could fully focus on the Brasileirao. Later that year, on 11 November, they won their fourth
Brazilian championship after defeating near-relegated
Palmeiras 3–2, with three matchdays left. Striker Fred was also the competition's top scorer, with 20 goals, and received the CBF Best Player award. Goalkeeper
Diego Cavalieri had a phenomenal season and won the Bola de Prata as the league's best goalkeeper, and Abel Braga was chosen as best coach.
2013: Close call In 2013, Fluminense was eliminated in the Copa Libertadores quarter-finals again, this time to Olimpia. In the
Série A, things took a turn for the worse when they lost six of their first nine matches, leading to the sacking of Abel Braga. Seven undefeated matches in September steered the club away from relegation, but an eight-match winless run put the club back into the fight for relegation, mainly due to the absences of stars
Deco, Fred, Thiago Neves,
Carlinhos and Wellington Nem, and in December 2013, a 2–1 victory away to
Bahia in the last round of the Série A had Fluminense mathematically relegated to Série B. However,
Portuguesa and Fluminense's main rivals
Flamengo fielded ineligible players in their matches against
Grêmio and
Cruzeiro respectively, thus losing 4 points after a verdict by STJD (Brazil's governing football jury). The points lost by Flamengo and Portuguesa allowed Fluminense to stay in Série A, with Portuguesa being relegated and Flamengo ending the championship as the lowest-ranked non-relegated club.
Since 2014: Rebuild In 2014, Fluminense brought back
Darío Conca, as well as
Walter and
Cícero. Coupled with Fred's and Carlinhos’ recoveries from injury, Fluminense spent the majority of the
2014 Série A in the top five and fighting for one of the berths at the
2015 Copa Libertadores, ultimately failing to reach its goal after an unstable final stretch and finishing 6th. In December, Fluminense ended its partnership with its main sponsor,
Unimed. For fifteen years, the health insurance company was the main investor in signing players, especially after the team won the 2007 Copa do Brasil, bringing to the club athletes such as Darío Conca, Deco,
Diego Cavalieri, Fred,
Rafael Sóbis, Thiago Neves and Washington. From 2015 onwards, Fluminense underwent a remodeling, with the departure of some of its main players. The club's youth categories became fundamental for its maintenance in the first division in the following years, and the sale of young players became the club's main source of income. In 2019, Fluminense hired
Fernando Diniz, a young coach with innovative ideas within Brazilian football, but political conflicts within the club forced him out. The following year, the club brought back Fred, one of the greatest idols in the club's history, and in the 2020 season qualified for the Copa Libertadores under
Odair Hellmann's tutelage.
2020s: Copa Libertadores title and FIFA Club World Cup finalist The team returns to compete in the
Copa Libertadores after eight years out of the competition, and with consistent campaigns in the Brazilian championship it manages to secure places in the competitions in consecutive editions of the Libertadores. However, after Odair's departure, the club has difficulty maintaining a coach, with
Marcão,
Roger Machado and
Abel Braga taking over the position. In 2022, after winning the Campeonato Carioca against rivals Flu, their first trophy in a decade, with Argentine striker
Germán Cano being the star of the team, and being eliminated from the Libertadores, Abel Braga retires from his coaching career, and Fluminense decides to give Fernando Diniz another chance. In 2022, Fluminense achieves its best place in the Brazilian Championship in the last ten years, a third place, with an offensive team that is noted for its fluidity and ball possession, and the team qualifies for the group stage of the
2023 Copa Libertadores. In the beginning of the season, the football played by the team is considered by many to be the best in South America, and the team reaches the Campeonato Carioca finals against Flamengo; in the first match the red-black team wins 2–0, but in the second game Fluminense achieved a 4–1 victory, winning the Campeonato Carioca for a second year in a row against its main rival, and Diniz clinching his first trophy with the club. In the 2023 Libertadores, Fluminense falls into group D, along with
River Plate (Argentina),
The Strongest (Bolivia) and
Sporting Cristal (Peru), despite being considered one of the most difficult groups in the edition, Fluminense ranks first, inflicting the biggest defeat in River Plate's history in the competition, 5–1 at Maracanã. In the final stage of the dispute, the opponents were
Argentinos Juniors,
Olimpia (Paraguay) and
Internacional, the team defeated all opponents without suffering any defeat. The Maracanã was previously chosen to be the stage for the final; on the other side the opponent would be
Boca Juniors, who sought to become champions of the competition for the seventh time, and with this become the greatest champion of the competition, tied to
Independiente. In the final, striker
Germán Cano opened the scoring for Fluminense, but Peruvian right-back
Luis Advíncula tied the match for Boca; the match then went into extra time, when youngster
John Kennedy, coming from the youth team, came off the bench and scored the team's second goal. The match ended 2–1 for Fluminense, who lifted the Copa Libertadores trophy for the first time. The Copa Libertadores win sent Fluminense to play in the
FIFA Club World Cup semi final, where they beat African champions
Al Ahly from Egypt 2–0, but lost 4–0 in the
final against
Manchester City. ==Season statistics==