Club Athletico Paulistano (basketball)

Lore & Background

Paulistano was the first professional team of point guard Marcelinho Huertas, who later became a long-time player and captain of the senior Brazilian national basketball team. In the NBB 2009–10 season, the club signed center Rafael 'Bàbby' Araújo, a recent Brazilian national league champion with C.R. Flamengo, but the team finished eleventh. The following NBB 2010–11 season was worse, with a twelfth-place finish.

Under head coach Gustavo de Conti in the NBB 2011–12 season, Paulistano finished seventh in the regular season. Led by young players Elinho Neto and Betinho Duarte, the team was defeated in the playoffs by Franca. In the NBB 2012–13 season, the club lost Betinho Duarte to Minas and Guillermo Araújo to rival E.C. Pinheiros. The club's greatest achievement came in 2018, when it won the NBB championship.

Reader's Guide

Club Athletico Paulistano's basketball section represents a traditional Brazilian multi-sports club and has competed in the top-tier NBB league. Its historical significance includes being the launching point for Marcelinho Huertas, a key figure in Brazilian basketball. The team's best NBB regular-season finish came in 2011–12 under Gustavo de Conti, with a seventh-place standing. Paulistano won its first national championship in 2018, adding to regional São Paulo State titles in 2017 and 2023. The club's history reflects the competitive landscape of Brazilian basketball, including player movements to rivals and the challenge of building a young core. Its honors also include a Brazilian Super Cup runners-up finish in 2003 and a Copa Brasil Sul title the same year.

Did You Know?

• Paulistano was the first team of Brazilian national team captain Marcelinho Huertas.
• The club won the NBB championship in 2018, its best finish to date.
• Paulistano won its only Brazilian Championship in 2018.

Pioneers of Brazilian Football

Club Athletico Paulistano traces its origins to 29 December 1900, when it was established in São Paulo's Jardim América quarter with the singular purpose of playing association football. From its earliest days, the club positioned itself at the forefront of the sport's development in Brazil. In 1901, alongside SC Internacional, AA Mackenzie College, and SC Germânia, Paulistano co-founded the Liga Paulista de Foot-Ball, recognized as the first football league in the country. The inaugural São Paulo championship in 1902 saw Paulistano finish as runner-up three times behind the São Paulo Athletic Club, but the breakthrough came in 1905 with the club's first title. A landmark moment arrived in 1907 when Paulistano appointed the Englishman John Hamilton as coach, widely regarded as the first professional trainer hired by a Brazilian side. Further titles followed in 1908 and 1913, cementing the club's reputation as one of the nation's leading teams around 1920.

The 1925 European Expedition

In March and April 1925, Paulistano made history as the first Brazilian club to tour continental Europe, a journey that still defines much of the club's folklore. Bolstered by Araken Patusca from Santos FC and three lesser-known players from Rio's CR Flamengo, the squad competed in France, Switzerland, and Portugal, winning nine of their ten matches. The most celebrated result came in Paris, where Paulistano demolished the French national side 7-1, an outcome that local journalists described as a revelation for Brazilian football. Arthur Friedenreich, already counted among the all-time greats of the sport, was dubbed le roi du football by the French press, while Araken earned the moniker Le Danger. Another standout was Anfilogino Filó Guarisi, who would later play in Italy and win the 1934 World Cup. Back home, Paulistano had already claimed the Taça Ioduran in 1918 and the Copa dos Campeões Estaduais in 1920, defeating Fluminense FC of Rio in both decisive encounters.

Amateur Defiance and the Birth of a Rival

When Brazilian football moved toward professionalization in the mid-1920s, Paulistano stood among the few clubs that resisted the shift. Under the club's leadership, the Liga dos Amadores de Futebol was established as a breakaway amateur competition. Fellow pioneers SC Germânia and AA das Palmeiras joined from the APEA, and together with five other clubs they contested the tournament from 1926 onward. Paulistano captured three of those early titles, though SC Internacional, which entered in 1927, claimed the 1928 championship. The experiment ultimately proved unsustainable, and with the league's formal dissolution in early January 1930, Paulistano shut down its football operations entirely. The aftermath was transformative: by the end of that same month, members, sympathizers, and players from both Paulistano and AA das Palmeiras—including the legendary Friedenreich—united to found São Paulo FC, initially called São Paulo da Floresta. That new club would go on to become one of the most prominent in Brazilian and South American football, making Paulistano's closure an unwitting act of creation.

From Football to Basketball and Beyond

With football abandoned in 1930, Paulistano gradually reoriented its identity, and basketball emerged as the club's leading sport. Today the men's basketball team competes in the Novo Basquete Brasil, the top Brazilian league, and carries the sponsorship name Paulistano/Unimed. The club's sporting portfolio, however, extends far beyond a single discipline. In Jardim América, departments for artistic gymnastics, badminton, basque pelota, boxing, chess, fencing, golf, martial arts, rowing, squash, swimming, tennis, track and field, volleyball, and waterpolo all operate under the Paulistano banner. Tennis has produced particularly notable figures: Nelson Cruz represented Brazil in the nation's first Davis Cup campaign, Armando Vieira pioneered international competition and foreign techniques for Brazilian players, Cecy Carvalho captained the elite team for thirteen straight years, and Laura Pigossi—who began her training at the club—won Brazil's first-ever Olympic tennis medal at Tokyo 2020 alongside Luisa Stefani.