Clube Atlético Mineiro, also known simply as Atlético Mineiro or Atlético, is a club from Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The club's history starts in its founding, in 1908, up to present day. The team was founded on 25 March 25, 1908 by twenty-two students from Belo Horizonte, led by Margival Mendes Leal and Mário Toledo.
Since 1915, the club has competed in the Campeonato Mineiro, the state league of Minas Gerais, which it has won a record 43 times. In 1937, the club won its first title at national level, the Copa dos Campeões Estaduais. In 1950, Atlético went into a European tour, an important event in the club's history and, at the time, for Brazilian football itself. During that tour, the team was awarded the title commonly known as "The Ice Champions".
Since the inception of regular national club competitions in Brazil in 1959, the club has played in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, the top tier of the Brazilian football league system, throughout most of its history, and has won the competition once, in 1971, finished in second place in four occasions. In the 1970s, it also won the Copa dos Campeões Brasileiros in 1978.
Having taken part in international club competitions since 1972, the club's first title at that level was the 1992 Copa CONMEBOL, the inaugural edition of the competition, which it also won in 1997. After managerial and financial crisis originated in the 1990s, Atlético experienced relegation for the first and only time in its history in 2005, but returned to the first division in 2007. Since then, the club has won the Copa Libertadores in 2013, and the Recopa Sudamericana and the Copa do Brasil in 2014. In 2021, Atletico won both national titles: the Campeonato Brasileiro 2021 and the Copa do Brasil 2021. In 2022 they also won the Supercopa do Brasil 2022 against the 2021 Brasileirao runner-up flamengo.
Foundation and early years (1908–1949)
Clube Atlético Mineiro was founded on March 25, 1908 by twenty-two students from Belo Horizonte. The founding players were: Aleixanor Alves Pereira, Antônio Antunes Filho, Augusto Soares, Benjamin Moss Filho, Carlos Marciel, Eurico Catão, Horácio Machado, Hugo Francarolli, Humberto Moreira, João Barbosa Sobrinho, José Soares Alves, Júlio Menezes Melo, Leônidas Fulgêncio, Margival Mendes Leal, Mário Hermanson Lott, Mário Neves, Mário Toledo, Raul Fracarolli and Sinval Moreira. Three other young men were not present in the founding meeting, but are also considered as founders of the club: Francisco Monteiro, Jorge Dias Pena and Mauro Brochado. The founders decided that the club's name would be Athletico Mineiro Foot Ball Club.
Atlético's first match was against Sport Club Foot Ball, the biggest and oldest club in Belo Horizonte at the time. The match was played on 21 March 1909, and Atlético won 3–0; the first goal was scored by Aníbal Machado. Sport's board demanded that Atlético play a rematch the following week to get revenge, to which Atlético agreed, and won again, this time by 4–0. Despite having liberal, upper-class students, from an early age the club opened its doors to players from every social class, nationality or ethnicity, which earned it a "people's club" status in Belo Horizonte and in the state.
In 1913, the club officially changed its name from Athletico Mineiro Foot Ball Club to Clube Atlético Mineiro. The following year, in 1914, Atlético won its first championship, the Taça Bueno Brandão, the first competition ever held in the state of Minas Gerais, contested between Atlético, América and Yale. In 1915, the club won the inaugural edition of the Campeonato Mineiro, the state league of Minas Gerais, then organised by the Liga Mineira de Sports Athléticos, which would later become the Federação Mineira de Futebol.
América won the next ten editions of the Mineiro, and Atlético only won the league again in 1926, led by striker Mário de Castro. In 1927, forwards Said and Jairo joined Castro to form an attacking partnership nicknamed the Trio Maldito ("Unholy Trio"), which guided Atlético to another state league triumph. The team was headed by Hungarian coach Jenő Medgyessy. In 1929, the club played its first international encounter against Vitória de Setúbal. The team won 3–1 in a match played at the Presidente Antônio Carlos Stadium, which had opened earlier that year and which would be the club's home ground for the following two decades. Castro was the first Atlético played to be called up to the Brazilian national team, in 1929, but refused because the Brazilian Football Confederation indicated he was to serve as reserve to another player, with which he disagreed. Together, the Trio Maldito together scored more than 450 goals for Atlético.
Atlético won the state league in 1931 and 1932, before becoming a professional club in 1933. After another Campeonato Mineiro triumph in 1936, Atlético won its first title at national level in 1937. This was the 1937 Copa dos Campeões Estaduais, which was organised by the Federação Brasileira de Foot-Ball, the federation for professional clubs that would later merge into the Brazilian Sports Confederation (CBD). The competition was contested by the 1936 state league champions from Minas Gerais (Atlético), Rio de Janeiro (Fluminense), São Paulo (Portuguesa) and Espírito Santo (Rio Branco). Atlético defeated the latter 5–1 in the final match, played at the Antônio Carlos stadium. The main responsibles for the achievement were Zezé Procópio, goalkeeper Kafunga and Guará. The title was followed by two more Campeonato Mineiro victories, in 1938 and 1939.
Success continued in the 1940s, with a squad that included Bigode (international in the 1950 FIFA World Cup), Murilo Silva, Carlyle, Lucas Miranda, Nívio Gabrich and Kafunga. The club was dominant in the state as it won the league in 1941, 1942, 1946, 1947 and 1949. Although América had been Atlético's long-standing adversary, a new rivalry started to develop with Cruzeiro in the 1940s, as it became Galo's main challenger during this period.
European tour and the start of the Mineirão era (1950–1969) In 1950 the club's home moved from Antônio Carlos to the newer and larger Estádio Independência and Atlético had another Campeonato Mineiro triumph. It was also the year of the European tour, an important event in the club's history. The team played a series of friendly football matches in Europe, becoming the first club of Minas Gerais and also the first Brazilian at professional level to compete in the continent. Atlético Mineiro played ten matches from 1 November to 7 December, touring through Germany (where it took part in a Winter Tournament), Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. The team won six matches, lost two and tied the remaining, scoring 24 goals and conceding 18. At a time when neither national competitions in Brazil nor continental in South America exist, and in the wake of the traumatic Maracanazo, the tour and Atlético's results, many of which achieved under adverse weather conditions and snow, were seen by national sports media as a historic achievement for Brazilian football itself.
Upon the return of the club's delegation from the tour, the team was honored by the Brazilian Sports Confederation and received a standing ovation at the Maracanã before a Campeonato Carioca match. The team was welcomed by over 50,000 people upon its return to Belo Horizonte, in what was described as an "apotheotic" celebration in the city streets. Despite not having an unbeaten run, sports media lauded Atlético Mineiro's tour as a historical success for the country's football, which had suffered a major setback with the Maracanazo in the same year, and the results achieved under adverse conditions and snowy grounds led to the dubbing of the team as Campeões do Gelo (Portuguese for "Ice Champions"), a feat remembered in the club's official anthem.
The club's success in the state competition continued in the 1950s with five consecutive Campeonato Mineiro victories from 1952 to 1956, and another in 1958. In 1959, Atlético took part in the first edition of the Taça Brasil, an annual nationwide cup competition contested between state league champions, created by the CBD to select Brazil's entrants in the newly formed Copa Libertadores. Between the decades of 1940 and 1960, players of national relevance who played for Atlético included as Bigode (part of the Brazilian squad in the 1950 FIFA World Cup), Carlyle (the first Atlético player to play for the Brazilian national team in 1949), Nívio Gabrich, Murilo Silva, Lucas Miranda, Orlando Pingo de Ouro, Paulo Valentim, Mussula, Marcial de Mello and Djalma Dias.
In the 1960s, Atlético won the Campeonato Mineiro twice, in 1962 and 1963, but failed to advance to the later stages of the Taça Brasil. Mineirão, Belo Horizonte's new stadium, opened in 1965 and immediately became the club's home. It was in the mid-1960s that the rivalry with Cruzeiro became the biggest in the state, after this club won the first five state leagues of the Mineirão era. In 1967, another national-level competition was created by the CBD, the Torneio Roberto Gomes Pedrosa. It included more clubs than the Taça Brasil, but Atlético did not finish in the top-four in any of its editions in the decade. In the second half of the 1960s, highlights came in the form of friendlies against national sides. In 1968, Atlético, representing the Brazilian national team, defeated European Championship runners-up Yugoslavia 3–2 at the Mineirão. The following year, the Seleção itself, which would become champions of the 1970 FIFA World Cup, was defeated by Atlético 2–1.
National success and dominance in Minas Gerais (1970–1989)
With the arrival of Telê Santana as the club's manager in 1970, Atlético broke Cruzeiro's sequence and won its first state league title in the Mineirão, also finishing third in the last Roberto Gomes Pedrosa. In 1971, led by midfielder Oldair and World Cup-winning forward Dadá Maravilha, the club won the Campeonato Brasileiro. It was the first edition of the competition, also known as the Brasileirão, which replaced both the Taça Brasil and the Roberto Gomes Pedrosa as the new national championship. Atlético played a final group stage against São Paulo and Botafogo, defeating the former 1–0 at the Mineirão and the latter 1–0 at the Maracanã. The victory also secured the club's first participation in an official continental competition, the 1972 Copa Libertadores, in which it failed to reach the second round.