Coritiba Foot Ball Club, commonly known as Coritiba and colloquially referred to as the Coxa, is a Brazilian football club based in Curitiba, Paraná. It plays it home matches in Estádio Couto Pereira, built in 1932, with the capacity of 40,000 spectators. Competes in the Campeonato Paranaense, the Paraná premier state league, and in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, the top-tier of Brazilian football.
Founded in 1909 by German immigrants, it is the oldest football club and the club with the most titles in the state. The club has won the state league 39 times. Coritiba was the first club from Paraná to win the Brazilian league in 1985, breaking the hegemony of teams from São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul and Minas Gerais that had lasted since the 1960s. It has also won three Campeonato Brasileiro Série B titles, in 2007, 2010 and 2025.
Its main rivalry is with Athletico Paranaense, with whom it plays the Atletiba derby, one of the great rivalries in Brazilian football, also competing in the derby Paratiba, which is disputed with Paraná Clube.
In June 2023, Treecorp Investimentos completed the purchase of 90% of the club's SAF, in a deal valued at 1.1 billion reais.
Overview Coritiba is the first club from southern Brazil to have won a national title, the 1973 Torneio do Povo, and is also the first southern club to have competed in both main continental competitions, the Copa Libertadores and the Copa Sudamericana.
It was both the first club from Paraná to have won the Série A (the main title in Brazil), and to reach the semi-finals in the second main competition in the country, the Copa do Brasil, in 1991, 2001, 2009, and to reach the finals in 2011 and 2012.
The only one to have six consecutive Paranaense titles, between 1971 and 1976, Coritiba is also the club with the most appearances in this championship. With more than 30,000 members, it is currently ranked #1 in the FPF, 14th place on the CBF ranking, 83rd place on the Conmebol ranking and 125th on the international IFFHS ranking. The club has more than 30,000 members.
As of 2013, it has partnerships (including loans and exchanges of youth players) with Porto and Benfica of Portugal, Chivas Guadalajara of Mexico, Daegu of South Korea and VVV-Venlo of the Netherlands.
The club still holds the record for the most consecutive victories, 24 (twenty-four), in official competitions, and the longest streak among Brazilian teams, having played more than 4,800 games in its history.
Coritiba is the first football club in the south of Brazil to begin to embrace American football. Coritiba Crocodiles is an American football team formed by the merger of Coritiba (American football) and the Barigui Crocodiles, being three times Brazilian champions, nine state champions and twice in the southern conference.
History Foundation
In 1909, a group of young men met in the Clube Ginástico Teuto-Brasileiro Turnverein (German-Brazilian Gymnastics Club Turnverein – "Turnverein" being the German word for gymnastics club), where the German immigrant community of Curitiba gathered to play a variety of sports. In July of that year, a prominent member of the club, Frederico "Fritz" Essenfelder arrived with a leather ball in hand. He explained to his friends that it was a football and he explained the rules of this new game. Fritz and his friends within the club started organizing matches in the field of the Quartel da Força Pública (Public Force Headquarters).
Later, an invitation came to play a match against a club of workers, many of them British, from the Ponta Grossa railway. On 12 October 1909, Fritz called a meeting in the old Theatro Hauer (Hauer Theatre) to arrange the first match. A decision was made to form a football club, and he would call it Teuto-Brasileiro. Teuto-Brasileiro would be the first football club in the state of Paraná.
The First Match
On 23 October 1909, in Ponta Grossa, the club had its first official match. The opponents were Clube de Foot Ball de Tiro Pontagrossense, made up of employees from the South American Brazilian Engineering Company. The match was won by Tiro Pontagrossense, with a 1–0 scoreline, the goal being scored by Elias Mota.
Coritiba's team for the first match was: Arthur Iwersen, Erothildes Carlberg, Leopoldo Obladen, Arthur Hauer, Alfredo Labsch, Alfredo Hauer, Walter Dietrich, Teodoro Obladen, Carlos Schleker, Roberto Juchks, Fritz Essenfelder, Johann Maschke, Waldemar Hauer, Alvin Hauer and Rudolf Kaastrup.
Club Foundation
After the match in Ponta Grossa, the club's founders and members were excited by the new game, and decided to dedicate their club exclusively to football. There were already more than 50 players, many of them not of German descent, yet the Clube Ginástico Teuto-Brasileiro Turnverein did not allow non-German members; this led to the formation of a separate club (after many discussions held at Teatro Hauer throughout December 1909). Finally, on 30 January 1910, the independent Coritibano Foot Ball Club was formed. The name was chosen as this is what the team had played as at their first match in Ponta Grossa.
The first club meeting was held 21 April 1910, after they had acquired all of the rules of the sport (from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo). During this meeting, the first Board of Directors was formed, naming João Viana Seiler as president, Arthur Hauer as vice-president, José Júlio Franco and Leopoldo Obladen as first and second secretary respectively, and Walter Dietrich and Alvim Hauer as first and second treasurer respectively. Fritz was named captain of the team. It was also during this meeting that the name of the club was changed, this time to Coritiba, after the old name of the capital of Paraná. This was to avoid confusion with a social club in the city called Coritibano. The foundation of Coritiba Foot Ball Club effectively launched organized football in the state of Paraná.
1910s and 1920s
The search for a football ground began and the Hipódromo do Guabirotuba (Guabirotuba Horse Racing Track) was chosen. It was also the home of the Jockey Clube do Paraná until 1955. Bleachers were needed to accommodate spectators, and after the new stadium was retrofitted for football, it was named Prado de Guabirotuba. The inauguration took place on 12 June 1910, before a match against Ponta Grossa Foot Ball Club (the new name of Clube de Foot Ball de Tiro Pontagrossense). Coritiba won the match 5–3. It was the first football match in Curitiba and was viewed by 200 spectators. Coritiba went on to play at Prado de Guabirotuba until 1917.
In 1915, Coritiba started competing in both the Campeonato da Cidade (City Championship) and the Campeonato Paranaense state championship. Coritiba won both the city and the state championships the following year. On 2 July 1916, Coritiba defeated a club by the name of Spartano in the Campeonato Paranaense state championship by 7 goals to the opponent's nought. That year, star player José Bermudes – better known as Maxambomba – became the first player from a Paraná team to be selected for the Brazil national squad. Coritiba won the Torneio Afonso Camargo (Afonso Camargo Tournament) and, in 1917, the club started playing at their new stadium Parque da Graciosa in Juvevê, where they played until 1932.
In 1920, Coritiba won the Torneio Início and, in 1921, they won it again along with the Torneio da Cruz Vermelha and the Torneio de Tiradentes. On 15 August 1921, the club beat the São Paulo state team, the Seleção Paulista, 1–0. The São Paulo state team formed the backbone of the Brazil national side, so this victory put football in the State of Paraná on the national map. The forward Maxambomba and the midfielder Gonçalo Pena were both selected for the Brazil national team that played in the 1921 South American Championship (now called the Copa América).
In 1924, the great state rivalry between Coritiba and Clube Atlético Paranaense began. On 8 June of that year, Coritiba beat Atlético 6–3, with four goals by Ninho. On 7 November 1926, Coritiba beat Paraná Sports 13–1, the largest goal difference in the history of the Paraná state championship. Staco scored five goals for Coritiba. In 1927, with Antônio Couto Pereira as president, Coritiba soundly won the Campeonato Paranaense by winning eight of their nine matches. Staco scored seven goals in a 9–0 victory over Savoia. In the same year, the club won both the Campeonato da Cidade and the Taça Fox.
Hino eugenista de 1928
Em 1928, o Coritiba Foot Ball Club utilizava um hino cuja letra apresentava conteúdo associado ao pensamento eugenista e racista vigente no Brasil naquele período.
A composição trazia o verso:
> “Afirmação de nossa raça / Pela vitória da eugenia”
A referência à **eugenia**, movimento que defendia o suposto “aperfeiçoamento” da população por meio da seleção de características humanas e que esteve historicamente associado a ideias de hierarquia racial, tornou o hino um dos episódios controversos da história do clube.
Apesar de não fazer parte do hino oficial atualmente utilizado pelo clube, a composição de 1928 permanece como registro histórico de uma época em que ideias eugenistas e racistas circulavam no futebol e na sociedade brasileira.
1930s and 1940s
In 1930, Coritiba won the Torneio Início. On 23 November, Coritiba beat their arch-rivals Atlético-PR by 7–4, the highest scoring match in the competition. The following year, Coritiba won the Campeonato Paranaense and the Campeonato da Cidade. In the 1931 edition of the Campeonato Paranaense, history was made during a match against Palestra Itália.
Moaçir Gonçalves was a player-manager for Coritiba and he became the first black player for a team from the state capital. There were many black players in the 1930s in Brazil, but Curitiba was a city dominated demographically by German, Polish and Ukrainian immigrants so black players were rare. With his team trailing 3–1, Moaçir Gonçalves substituted himself in and Coritiba won 5–4.
Another notable character that season was Rei, a young ball boy for Coritiba nicknamed Rei dos Vagabundos (King of Bums) due to his lazy, laid-back attitude. During training for a Sunday match, the regular goalkeeper was late and the coach, Pizzatto, put the sixteen-year-old Fontana in the net. He astonished everyone with his performance and he was promptly registered as a player by the next match. He debuted against Atlético-PR in Baixada, and Coritiba won 1–0. José Fontana was selected as Man of the Match and went on to be known as 'The King'. He became the first goalkeeper from Paraná state to be selected for the national side.
In 1932, Coritiba won both the Torneio Inicio and the Torneio dos Cronista Esportivos. On 7 August 1932, Coritiba beat Atlético-PR 6–1, away from home and with a reserve team. On 19 November, Coritiba inaugurated its new Belfort Duarte stadium. The inaugural match was against América-RJ, a team from Rio who were the defending champions of the Campeonato Carioca, which is the state championship in Rio de Janeiro. Coritiba won 4–2 and began a long period of success, winning many titles including the city's championship, Campeonato da Cidade (1933, 1935 and 1939), the Campeonato Paranaense (1933, 1935 and 1939), the Torneio Arthur Friedenreich (1934) and Torneio Início (1939).