Brazilian Fixture Schedule

[HotPizza87]

Managing in England I've got a young Brazilian who needs game time but no European club wants him. Not ideal because I'd prefer he got Spanish nationality for increased saleability in Europe or more days in England towards English nationality. Anyway I'm in a January window and three Brazilian teams have come in for him.

I'm on FM18 so I can recall immediately and I did so after loaning this kid to Brazil when I had a look on their fixture list and saw that their next competitive fixture was in May! But later in the window the Brazilian teams are starting to play competitive fixtures.

Can someone please explain how the Brazilian football league works? Thank you.

[Fabio Araujo]

From February to April, Brazilian clubs play state competitions (each Brazilian state has its own state championship). The national league starts only in May.

In FM these state leagues are sometimes treated like pre-season competitions, but they are actual competitive leagues, even though not relevant as the national league or continental competitions.

State leagues usually have preliminary rounds between smaller clubs to decide which teams take part in the main competition, so their schedule is not complete until late January or sometimes even early February.

That’s why in FM it looks like Brazilian main clubs (which do not take part in these preliminary rounds) will only play competitive matches in May, but they start playing them in February.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_football_leagues_in_Brazil

Edited November 6, 2021 by Fabio Araujo

[rusty217]

Not sure exactly how it works in game (I believe there are licensing issues, hence the weird names).

But generally, Brazil has a super hectic schedule. Games start early-mid January for the state leagues. Worth mentioning that in my FM20 save at least the squad registration for that was pretty strict, as in you basically had to get players in before it started to register and play them in it. The Brazilian national league starts at the end of May after the state leagues finish, that runs until December (often keeps being played during international breaks too, simply too many games to have an actual break!). I assume when you looked it was showing the next national league fixture and the state league fixtures hadn't been decided yet (or perhaps the team you looked at didn't enter in the first stage of it or something).

Continental competition also starts in February and runs to the end of December. 12 teams from Brazil qualify for one of the 2 continental cups, so there's a decent change that whatever team you're loaning the player to will be in one of them.

Also, that player being Brazilian may be why no European club wants him. Most European leagues (including Spain) have pretty strict limits on non-EU players. Often only 2 or 3 allowed at the whole club.