Taça Guanabara
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Taça Guanabara, or Guanabara Trophy, is a football tournament organized yearly since 1965 by the Rio de Janeiro State Football Federation. It is the first round of the Campeonato Carioca, the state football championship in Rio de Janeiro.
Since 1982, and except for 1994 and 1995, the winner of the Guanabara Trophy plays the winner of the Rio Trophy to crown the champion of Campeonato Carioca.
The most successful team in the tournament is Flamengo, who has won the championship for 18 times.
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[edit] Format
Sixteen teams of the competition are divided into two groups, with the traditional four prestigious teams, namely, Botafogo, Flamengo, Fluminense and Vasco da Gama are seeded. Two of them would be in one group and the other two would be in the other. It is possible other teams are also be seeded in some ways, but the seeding criteria are not stated in the competition rules and has never been publicly available.
Each team play seven games in the group stage. Teams play against every team of the group, with the first two teams in each group qualify to the semi-finals. The top team in each group plays the semi-final with the second team from the other group in a single match knock-out format, with the winners of the semi-finals compete in the final of the tournament. The champion of the tournament qualified for the Campeonato Carioca Finals to play against the winner of Rio Trophy.
[edit] History
The first session of the tournament was held in 1965. At the time, the tournament was consider an individual competition unrelated to Campeonato Carioca. Not until 1982, the tournament became the first stage of Campeonato Carioca, but it has been considered a separate competition to certain extent, with a trophy being awarded to the winner of the tournament.
Historically, the current format was adopted, with the only notable format changes in 1994 and 1995 throughout the history.
In 1994, twelve teams were divided into two groups as the current system. However, in the group stage, teams not only played against teams from the same group, but they also played against teams from the other group in the second phase of the group stage, as the current Taça Rio. After the group stage, the first placed team in each group competed for the Taça Guanabara final directly without semi-finals. The final match of Taça Guanabara was played only in order to determine the champion of Taça Guanabara, but without any influence on the results of Campeonato Carioca. The top two teams of each group of Taça Guanabara, entered the final phase of Campeonato Carioca, which was not part of Taça Guanabara. Those four teams played a double round-robin tournament to compete for the champion of Campeonato Carioca[1].
In 1995, the number of teams increased to 16. Teams were divided into two groups of eight. As the 1994 edition, they played two phase of group stage, against teams from the same group and teams from the other group once respectively. After the group stage, the top team of each group competed in the Taça Guanabara final, with the winner being awarded one point in the final phase of Campeonato Carioca. The top four teams in each group then contested the final phase of Campeonato Carioca, not being considered part of Taça Guanabara, in a double round-robin tournament to determine the winner of Campeonato Carioca. It should be noted that the first placed team in each group after the first and second phase of group stage, as well as the winner of Taça Guanabara, would be awarded for one more point in the final phase[2].
Because of these format changes, Taça Rio was not held in these two years. Since 1996, the old format has been adopted again.
[edit] Finalists
[edit] Titles by team
- Flamengo 18 titles
- Vasco da Gama 11 titles
- Fluminense 8 titles
- Botafogo 4 titles
- América 1 title
- Americano 1 title
- Volta Redonda FC 1 title
[edit] Statistics
Since 1990, the winner of the Guanabara Cup has also won the State championship in 1992, 1994, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2007 and 2008.
Flamengo in 1996, and Vasco da Gama in 1998 have won both rounds of the Rio de Janeiro State championship.
