This Saturday, in Lima, no one will enter the field just to play ball. Enter to defend a decade full of certainty. Because, deep down, Flamengo and Palmeiras have more in common than they admit: they are the most demanding fans in the country. Whatever the emotional tone – one is super Carioca and more theatrical, the other is São Paulo very much and more methodical – both treat victory as an obligation and defeat as a failure of the universe, the kind that can only be resolved in a series of fifteen tweets or at a bar table that lasts until Tuesday. No one there takes losing well. This is how the red and black soul lives, this is how the red and white soul lives.
The difference is only the shipping method. The Flamengo player does so with such a nature that you would think that on Saturday, at 8:01 p.m., he already had the championship belt on his chest. A native of Palmeiras, with the precision of someone who knows that there are opportunities for glory, but only if the map of everything that can go wrong is well studied. But they are fans demanding the same thing. Very same thing. It is this extremely high standard that has built the showdown hosted by the Libertadores: five such titles (including the title in 2025) since 2019, and the showdown that will decide who becomes the first Brazilian four-peat. It’s as if the past seven years have been a parallel tournament between them – and tomorrow is the final of this secret tournament.
They say Lima actually feels this energy. At the airport, you can easily tell who’s coming from where, but everything blends with the same electric feeling in the end. There is the man in red and black who is actually preparing a barbecue in the street and the man who is asking about the exchange rate, but they both walk with the same shallow breathing of someone who knows that he is living one of those days that have become a reference in life. In a taxi that always costs 20 soles more than it should, on the edge of the Pacific or in the elegant streets of Miraflores, it’s the same emotional cinema, filmed by two fans who think they’re completely different, but feel exactly the same anxiety.
Because Flamengo fans know this road to Lima. The Palmeiras native knows by heart the path to the final against Flamengo. One looks back at 2019 as if remembering a summer love that worked. The other looks at the year 2021 as if remembering a well-defended thesis. And they both know that Tomorrow is the definitive soundtrack to the past seven years. Monumental doesn’t even know how much history it will take there: Arrascaeta, Veiga, Pedro (or lack thereof), Vitor Roque (or longing for Deyverson), the ghost (companion?) of Andreas Pereira, Felipe Luis trying to be a hero in a way that is not in the manual, and Abel trying to prove that the manual is his own.
In the dressing room, both sides arrive with stories that football loves to write. Flamengo, with its aesthetics that every fan chants like a slogan: “If Arasca touches the ball three times, something will happen.” Palmeiras, with strong logic, even when they doubt him, he wins. It is the game between great improvisation and perfect execution, risky talent versus determined talent. Each fan sees his team through the filter of his own identity: red and black await the inevitable brilliance; Palmeiense, the gear that starts out slow and ends up getting run over.
But deep down there is not much favoritism. It doesn’t matter who says he is “more prepared”, because no one is ever ready to decide a quarter of the Libertadores Cup. It’s a game to change your metabolism. The truth is that both fans come to believe and distrust in equal measure. The flamingo player pretends to be calm; The man from Palmeiras pretends not to be worried; But they both know exactly where they will celebrate if all goes well.
On 11/29, which will be an eternity, Lima’s giant archaeological museum will seem small. It will bring together the most winning, the most suffering, the most requested and the most celebrated fans in Brazil in recent years. It’s not just a final, it’s the signing of an era.
It’s rare to see a new Brazilian champion in the Libertadores. It is not every Saturday that a club climbs alone in a classification that usually moves at the speed of a procession. Even more so when we talk about the position that was previously the preserve of Pele, the Tilly dynasty, the legacy of Renato Gaucho.
To remember how little these changes have been – and the scale of what is at stake today – this timeline is worth it, which is almost a history of Brazilian football in short chapters:
The greatest Brazilian Libertadores champion
- 1962 – Santos (1 title)
- 1963 to 1993 – Santos (two titles)
- 1994 – Santos and Sao Paulo (two titles)
- 1995 to 1996 – Santos, Sao Paulo and Gremio (two titles)
- 1997 to 2004 – Santos, Sao Paulo, Gremio and Cruzeiro (two titles)
- 2005 to 2010 – Sao Paulo (3 titles)
- 2011 to 2016 – Sao Paulo and Santos (3 titles)
- 2017 to 2020 – Sao Paulo, Santos and Gremio (3 titles)
- 2021 – Sao Paulo, Santos, Gremio and Palmeiras (3 titles).
- 2022 to 2024: Sao Paulo, Santos, Gremio, Palmeiras and Flamengo (3 titles)
- 2025 – ? (4 titles)
In other words: the top has changed four times in more than 60 years. Today things could change again, with Flamengo or Palmeiras alone writing a new phrase in history.
The coolest things to read in GLOBO SPORTS this week
An exhilarating (and, for some, terrifying) story: After just three years in journalism, reporter Davi Ferreira is covering his third Copa Libertadores final on site. Three years of career. Three endings.
If this is not the concept of “hot feet”…
In 2023, he was a member of Fluminense and watched the Gloria Eterna tricolor of the Maracanã. In 2024, he was selected for Botafogo and witnessed the black and white’s conquest of Buenos Aires in the unexpected title of the decade after being sent off in the 30s of the match. Now, in 2025, he has moved to Flamengo, and is in Lima for another continental season: and it has started well already, with that wonderful story of how fans followed the Brazilian league round in the midst of flights, communications and eternal check-ins.
Here’s a tip: Follow his coverage. It’s not just talent, the stats are in its favor as well. And if he appeared in the Monumental with a four-leaf clover on his credentials, no one would doubt it.