Fluminense Football Club () is a Brazilian football club based in the neighbourhood of Laranjeiras, in Rio de Janeiro, being the oldest football club in the state since its foundation in 1902. It competes in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, the first tier of Brazilian football, and the Campeonato Carioca, the state league of Rio de Janeiro. The word "fluminense" is the gentilic given to people born in the state of Rio de Janeiro.
Fluminense have won numerous titles throughout its history, including the Copa Libertadores in 2023 and the Recopa Sudamericana in 2024. The club has also claimed four Brazilian championships (1970, 1984, 2010, and 2012), the Copa do Brasil in 2007, and 33 Rio de Janeiro state titles. Other notable achievements include winning the 1952 Copa Rio – regarded by the club as a world title – and being the first football club to receive the Olympic Cup from the International Olympic Committee, in 1949, for its pioneering role in sports. In 2023, Fluminense also reached the FIFA Club World Cup final, finishing as runners-up to Manchester City. In 2025, Fluminense reached the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup semi-final, achieving notable victories against Inter Milan and Al-Hilal.
Fluminense's first home kit originally featured a shirt split in half vertically, with one side in white and the other in grey. However, due to the difficulty of sourcing these colours – particularly during a trip to England in 1904, where club members sought new kits – the club opted to change its colours. A vote was held, and Fluminense adopted its now-iconic home kit: a vertically striped shirt in burgundy, white, and green, with thinner white pinstripes flanked by broader burgundy and green stripes, typically paired with white shorts and white socks.
The club holds several long-standing rivalries with other clubs, most notably with Flamengo (Clássico Fla-Flu), Botafogo (Clássico Vovô) and Vasco da Gama (Clássico dos Gigantes). The Fla–Flu in particular is considered one of the greatest football derbies in Brazil and South America, to the point of having the highest attendance in a match between football clubs (nearly 200,000 spectators in the stadium of Maracanã).
Fluminense is recognized as the birthplace of the Brazil national football team, which played its first-ever match at the club's Estádio de Laranjeiras in 1914, during Fluminense's 12th anniversary celebrations. It was there that Brazil scored its first goal and won its first trophy. To this day, Fluminense ranks among the top contributors to the national team, having provided the fifth most players in Brazil's history.
History
Pioneering football in Rio
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).
In 1911, disagreement between Fluminense players led to the formation of Flamengo's football team. The so-called Fla-Flu is considered one of the biggest derbies in the history of Brazilian football. Three years later, in Fluminense's stadium, the Brazil national football team debuted, against touring English club Exeter City. It was also there that they won their debut title, in 1919.
By 1922, Fluminense had 4,000 members, a stadium for 25,000 people, and facilities that impressed clubs in Europe.
Construction of the Maracanã
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.
National achievements From the 1960s onwards, the first national championships were played in Brazil, so that the country could send representatives to the Copa Libertadores. Fluminense's first national title came in 1970; At that time, Brazil had the best players in world football, and they all played for Brazilian clubs. Its squad was among the main candidates of the season in Brazil, Fluminense won the Brazilian Championship overcoming other major opponents of the season in Santos, Palmeiras and Cruzeiro.
In the 1970s, Fluminense signed several famous players such as Carlos Alberto Torres, Dirceu, Gil, Narciso Doval, Pintinho and Roberto Rivellino. This team, called "Tricolor Machine", won the state championship in 1975 and 1976. In the national championship, Fluminense lost in the semifinals to Internacional in 1975 and Corinthians in 1976.
Fluminense became Brazilian champions again in 1984, playing in the final against Rio rivals Vasco da Gama. During the decade, they also won three state championships in a row, in 1983, 1984 and 1985, defeating their main rival Flamengo, in the final of the first two. These titles were won by great players such as Branco, Delei, Edinho, Ricardo Gomes, Romerito and the "Casal Vinte": Assis and Washington.
At the end of the 1980s, Copa do Brasil was created, inspired by cup tournaments played in European countries. Fluminense reached the final of the Copa do Brasil for the first time in 1992, but lost to Internacional in a penalty shootout, in a controversial match in Porto Alegre.
Double relegation and rapid return A disastrous campaign led to Fluminense's relegation from Brasileirão Série A in 1996. However, a set of off-field political manoeuvres not performed by the club allowed them to remain in Brazil's top domestic league, 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
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.
The club's 2008 Copa Libertadores campaign saw them reach the finals and included a remarkable 6–0 victory against Arsenal de Sarandí in the group stage, 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.
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. That, along with Fred's recovery from a serious injury and substantial support from the fans, allowed not only a sensational escape from relegation with five matches remaining, but also placed Fluminense in the Copa Sudamericana finals, having eliminated rivals Flamengo. 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. Eventually, the elimination helped the club, and that year, with Ramalho's effective defensive block conceding the fewest number of goals in the league, Fluminense won the Brazilian championship for the third time in their history after 26 years, securing it with a 1–0 victory at home to already relegated Guarani. It was also the fourth title for coach Ramalho in a decade: Ramalho had won the title three times in a row with São Paulo from 2006 to 2008. Darío Conca was named the Brazilian Championship's Player of the Season, playing all 38 league matches, while Fred, Washington, and Deco were decisive players in Fluminense's title-winning campaign.