Flamengo

Clube de Regatas do Flamengo. Flamengo. So, let’s #GetTheBadgeIn for one of Brazil’s most iconic clubs, born on the waters of Guanabara Bay in Rio and now a giant of South American football.

Flamengo was initially founded on 17 November 1895, not as a football team but as a rowing club, by a group of young men from the Flamengo neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro. At the time, rowing was considered one of the most prestigious and popular sports in Brazil. Like Botafogo—who also began as a rowing club—Flamengo’s identity was originally tied to the bay. The calm waters of Rio’s natural harbour made it a perfect place for competitive regattas, which were regular social events among the city’s middle and upper classes in the late 19th century.

In 1911, a group of players broke away from Fluminense Football Club (see here: https://www.getthebadgein.net/post/fluminense-fc)  and asked Flamengo rowing club to form a football team under their name. This they did (and the team today is still officially called ‘Flamengo Rowing Club’). The football team played its first official match in May 1912, winning 16–2 against Mangueira. Within a couple of years, Flamengo had claimed its first Rio State Championship, and the football side quickly became the dominant part of the club’s sporting identity. Their rivalry with their former parent, Fluminense is one of the most intense in world football, the so called ‘Fal-Flu Derby’. The only derby I know of that could be called a fratricide. Like two rival brothers – the passion is fierce.

As those footballers approached the rowing club looking to form a new team, they did so at a difficult time for Brazil. Between 1889 and 1930, Brazil’s Old Republic was controlled by wealthy landowners from São Paulo, which produced coffee, and Minas Gerais, known for dairy — a system called “café com leite” (coffee with milk) politics. Slavery had only just ended in 1888 – the last place in the Americas to ban it, and formerly enslaved people received little help or land, continuing to live in poverty. Most Brazilians, including women and the poor, had no right to vote or take part in politics. Although cities grew and immigrants arrived to work on farms and in towns, power stayed in the hands of a small, rich elite.

For many working class Brazilians from Rio, living in this unequal world of constraints, football looked like an exciting new symbol of European style growth and modernity. Fluminense had been founded by an Anglo-Brazilian who had learnt of the game when studying in Switzerland. They adopted a stylised Swiss badge with the initials wrapped around each other – Flamengo did the same, adopting the same lettering style and shield motif – but with a striking black and red adopted from the rowing team’s colours. The football shirt, sometimes called the Manto Sagrado (Sacred Mantle), has become one of the most recognisable in world football.

The club’s name and neighbourhood—Flamengo—has more unusual roots. The word comes from the Portuguese for “Flemish”, referring to Dutch sailors who were shipwrecked in the area during an attempted invasion in the late 16th century. At the time, Portugal and Spain were united under the Iberian Union, and the Dutch were at war with the Spanish Crown. Though the sailors never settled there in large numbers, the area retained the name. In later centuries, Flamengo developed into a quiet residential and seaside district, before becoming a fashionable and then densely urbanised part of Rio.

Flamengo’s rise matched the evolution of Rio itself. As Brazil’s capital throughout most of the 20th century, the city attracted waves of migration—from the northeast of Brazil, from rural areas, and from abroad. The club’s support base grew across social classes and regions. By the mid-20th century, Flamengo had become the most widely supported club in Brazil. Players like Zizinho, Dida, and later Zico became national icons. The club’s 1981 Copa Libertadores and Intercontinental Cup wins, particularly the 3–0 dismantling of Liverpool in Tokyo, cemented Flamengo’s place in global football history.

Today, Flamengo remains member-owned. The club’s Ninho do Urubu training centre is a state-of-the-art facility used by both the senior squad and its highly regarded youth academy. Home matches are played at the Maracanã, where Flamengo draws some of the largest crowds in South America. Recent years have seen further success: multiple Campeonato Carioca titles, national league championships, and another Copa Libertadores title in 2019, followed by a third in 2022. The club continues to be one of the wealthiest in Latin America, with a strong commercial structure, major sponsorships, and a large global following.

Flamengo’s badge is simple but it represents a long and layered story. A club that began by breaking away from what it considered the too strict bonds of the more bourgeois Fluminense, at a time when Brazil was still in the grip of an older, restrictive time period. Its fanbase grew as Rio grew. It reflects Rio’s diverse history, its social change, and its enduring obsession with football.