In Brazil these stars do not have a unique meaning. Teams put them on uniforms for a variety of reasons. They are almost always used to remember great titles conquered, but there are also those that mark the foundation date of the club and even those that pay homage to athletes from other sports. To confuse things even more, some teams put stars on their uniforms one year and remove them the next, without giving further explanation to the fan. This lack of criteria that exists here is very different from what happens in Italy, for example. There, teams can only display a stella d’oro (“gold star”) above their shields when they win ten national championships – an honor achieved by only three clubs to date: Internazionale (which has 13 titles), Milan (16) and Juventus , the only one to use two stars, as it has 26 titles.
The idea of using the symbol for every ten Italian championships was born in 1958, after Juventus won its tenth national title. The decision was taken by Giuseppe Pasquale, then president of the Italian club league – the entity responsible for organizing the tournament. Despite having become a tradition in Italy, this standardization did not catch on elsewhere. If in Brazil teams fill their uniforms with stars without following any criteria, in other powers in the world of football, such as Spain, England, Germany and Argentina, nobody gives them much attention and the clubs prefer to keep their shirts with their crests clean, free from any constellation.
The symbol celebrates titles to the date of foundation of the clubsAtlético Mineiro
The golden star above the shield recalls the club’s only Brazilian championship title, won in 1971. Atlético also had two red stars on its uniform, between 1997 and 1999. They represented the team’s two titles in the Conmebol Cup (in 1992 and 1997), a South American tournament that no longer exists.
Botafogo
The four golden stars honor the fourth championship in Rio obtained by Botafogo in 1932/33/34/35. In the center of the shield, there is also the famous «lone star», which became the club’s nickname and appeared in 1942, when Botafogo Football Club merged with Club de Regatas Botafogo, which had a star as one of its symbols.
Corinthians
He started putting a constellation on his uniform from the 1990s onwards. The three smaller golden stars commemorate the titles of Brazilian champions won in 1990, 1998 and 1999. Above them, a golden star, but a little bigger, symbolizes the conquest of the World Cup of FIFA Clubs, in 2000.
cruise
His shirt is full of stars, but curiously none of them represent the team’s big titles. The five white stars are actually arranged like the constellation Cruzeiro do Sul, which, in addition to being one of the main symbols of Brazil, inspired the name of the club in 1942, when it ceased to be called Palestra Itália.
Flamengo
The four aligned stars can be red, on the white shirt, or silver, on the red-and-black shirt, and recall the four Rio de Janeiro championships that Flamengo won: 1942/43/44, 1953/54/55, 1978/79/79 (championship special) and 1999/2000/2001. The gold star above them is for the 1981 Interclub World Cup title.
Fluminense
The three golden stars refer to the team’s three championships in Rio, in 1917/18/19, 1936/37/38 and 1983/84/85. The curious thing is that Fluminense also has in its curriculum of glories a fourth championship in Rio, obtained on 1906/07/08/09, which, however, did not receive the same kind of honor.
Guild
The bronze star represents the Brazilian championships of 1981 and 1996. The silver one remembers the titles of the Libertadores Cup, in 1983 and 1995. Finally, the golden one is for the 1983 Interclub World Cup. The club still has a lone star on its flag, in homage to Gremista Everaldo, world champion for the Brazilian national team in 1970 and who died in a car accident in 1974.
International
The traditional club from Rio Grande do Sul has already won the Brazilian Championship three times: in 1975, 1976 and 1979. It also won the Copa do Brasil cup, played in 1992. These four great glories in national football are saluted by the constellation of golden stars above the International shield.
palm trees
It once had stars above the shield. In 2002, for example, there were four in honor of the conquests of the Brazilian championships in 1972, 1973, 1993 and 1994. This year, however, the shirt only has the shield, which in turn also has stars. There are eight, remembering the month of August, the eighth of the year and the one in which Palmeiras was founded, in 1914.
saints
The two gold stars are for the second Interclub World Cup, in 1962/63. The 2002 Brazilian Championship did not yield a new star for consistency. It’s just that Santos does not see this conquest as something unprecedented, considering itself a seven-time national champion because of the titles it has in the Brazilian Cup (1961/62/63/64/65) and the Silver Cup (1968).
São Paulo
The two-time Interclub World Cup in 1992/93 yielded the two red stars above the São Paulo crest. But what about the two golden ones? They have nothing to do with football. They are a tribute to Adhemar Ferreira da Silva, two-time Olympic champion and club athlete, for the two world records in the triple jump that he obtained in 1952 and 1955.
Basque
Four stars refer to the 1974, 1989, 1997 and 2000 Brazilian Championships. The fifth is for the 1948 South American Championship; the sixth, for the 1998 Libertadores Cup; the seventh, for the 2000 Mercosur Cup. The eighth star recalls the so-called “Land-and-Sea Championship” in 1945, when Vasco won the state football and rowing tournaments.
virtual shields
How would the badges look if there was a standardizationSince the teams do not agree on the use of stars, decided to propose a unification of criteria. Each Brazilian championship won would yield a bronze star on the uniform; each Libertadores Cup title, one silver; and each club world cup would be worth a gold star. If this standardization were accepted by the clubs and by the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF), the crests would look like this: