America Football Club

America Football Club, known around Rio as America-RJ or just America, has called the northern neighborhood of Tijuca home since 1904. The club was founded on 18 September of that year and built its identity in red shirts, white shorts, and red socks. Today it plays in the Campeonato Carioca Série A2, the second tier of Rio de Janeiro state football, with its home matches at the Estádio Giulite Coutinho, a ground that holds 16,000. The club's history runs deeper than its current division suggests. America competed in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A on multiple occasions and has won the state championship seven times, a haul that places it among the traditional names of Carioca football. Its mascot is a devil, a choice that gives the club one of the more distinctive visual identities in Brazilian sport. Support has come from some unexpected places. Lamartine Babo, the composer behind some of Brazil's best-known football anthems, followed America. The club also fields a beach American football team, the America Red Lions, an unusual side project that keeps the name active beyond the eleven-a-side game.[edit]