🔭 Brazilian sport in 2025

Welcome back to the Brazil Sports newsletter! With 2024 coming to an end, this year’s final issue of Brazil Sports will look ahead to 2025, singling out some of the biggest events on the country’s sporting calendar over the next 12 months.

As always, if you have any questions about this newsletter, or topics you’d like to see covered in future issues, you can reach me at [email protected].

Have a great New Year, and I hope to see you all again in 2025.

Brazil's year in sports 2025

In Brazil, sports never take a back seat. From the kickoff of the beloved Copa São Paulo junior football tournament in January to the final whistle of the national championship in December, the 2025 calendar is packed with events that capture the nation's undying passion for competition. 

This year promises milestones like the return of Formula 1 with a full-time Brazilian driver, the debut of a revamped Club World Cup, and Brazil’s quest to dominate both football and gymnastics on the global stage. Here’s a look at what’s ahead in a year where sports take center stage.

January

Football never really takes a holiday in Brazil, and the 2025 season begins as early as January 2, with the opener of the Copa São Paulo junior tournament, affectionately known as the Copinha. While it may sound odd for an under-20 tournament, the Copinha is taken extremely seriously indeed by Brazil’s top clubs and their fans, and many of Brazil’s biggest talents got their start competing in the Copinha.

This year’s final will be held on January 25, the anniversary of the city of São Paulo, and will mark the official reopening of the historic and now privately owned Pacaembu stadium.

March

March 16 will see Brazil break an unwelcome streak of eight years without a full-time driver in Formula 1, as Gabriel Bortoleto represents Sauber at the Australian Grand Prix, the first race of the 2025 F1 season. The 20-year-old was the Formula 2 champion this year and is hotly tipped for a successful career. We’ll be looking at his rise to the big time in more detail in future issues of Brazil Sports.

Thanks to interruptions in the middle of the year (more below), the 2025 Brazilian men’s football championship will start earlier than ever, on March 29 — a shift that Brazil’s football confederation would like to make permanent.

June

Brazil’s domestic football league had little choice but to bring its start date forward, as play will be paused between June 15 and July 13, when four Brazilian clubs take part in the new-look mammoth Club World Cup.

We’ll examine this new format in future editions of Brazil Sports, explaining why the tournament will be taken far more seriously by its Brazilian entrants than their European opponents.

July

Brazil will host the women’s football World Cup in 2027, and the road to that tournament begins in July with the Copa América hosted in Ecuador. As hosts, Brazil’s spot in the 2027 competition is already secured, but the South American championship will determine the other regional World Cup berths.

Brazil has won eight of the nine editions of the women’s Copa América and remain firm favorites, but Colombia will be looking to spring an upset.

August

August sees the conclusion of the 2025 World Surf League, with the WSL Finals at Cloudbreak, Fiji. Of the nine World Surf League tours held since adopting its current format, Brazilians have won the men’s tournament six times.

Brazilian women have yet to win a title, yet Olympic silver medalist Tatiana Weston-Webb will be looking to change that.

September

The NFL regular season begins in September and, while yet to be confirmed, the biggest American football league on the planet is expected to bring another game to Brazil. In Week 1 of the current NFL season, the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Green Bay Packers at the Neo Química Arena in São Paulo.

In November, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodall said the league “expects to return to Brazil” in 2025.

October

Chile will be hosting football’s U-20 World Cup in October. Brazil has won the tournament five times in the country’s history, but the national team has struggled at the youth level of late, and there is no guarantee it will even qualify for the competition in Chile. First, Brazil will have to reach the South American U-20 Championship semifinals, held in Venezuela between the end of January and mid-February.

2024 was the year of Brazilian women’s gymnastics, with Rebeca Andrade’s vault gold and the women’s team bronze medals at the Paris Olympics. For 2025, the main event on the gymnastics calendar is the World Championships in Jakarta at the end of October. Andrade has already announced that she will no longer compete on all apparatus, but will be keen to add to her already impressive World Championship medal record. 

November

The 2025 Beach Volleyball World Championships are scheduled for November in Adelaide, Australia. Ana Patrícia and Duda Lisboa will be seeking to repeat their gold medal-winning success in the Paris Olympics — and avenge their 2023 World Championships final loss.

December

Remember when I said that Brazil’s football season never really takes a break? Well, after beginning on January 2 with the Copinha, the final round of the men’s national championship will be held on December 21. Since 2003, the Brazilian football league has been decided on the last day an impressive nine times. Will next year be number 10?