Four years after considering the end, Red Bull has a team in the final of the Sudamericana

The year was 2018 and Red Bull, the multinational energy company, was considering the possibility of ending its operation in Brazilian football. Red Bull Brasil, 11 years after its foundation, seemed to be going nowhere.

The team had not won relevant titles. Based in Campinas, it had competition from Guarani and Ponte Preta, centenary institutions in the city, and did not captivate fans. He played games as principal always for semi-desert stands. It wasn’t in any national division.

There was the cultural issue too. The parent company complained about investments made in veteran players when the philosophy should have been to hire young people who could be sold later. The branch countered that older athletes were essential to compose the cast.

Almost four years later, Red Bull Brasil is called Red Bull Bragantino and may be on its way to becoming a football force in South America.

This Saturday (20), at 5 pm, at the Centenário stadium, in Montevideo, the team from São Paulo decides the title of the Copa Sudamericana against Athletico. The people from Paraná are looking for their second title in the tournament.

Once the conglomerate’s ugly duckling, Red Bull Bragantino is the company’s first football club to reach a continental final.

The match will be broadcast by Conmebol TV, a paid channel available on Sky, Claro/Net and DirecTV for R$ 39.90 per month. It will also be possible to watch it through the online platforms of these companies.

Everything changed when the multinational signed a partnership with Bragantino, in 2019, and moved to Bragança Paulista (93 km from São Paulo). The expense to take over the association, then dominated by the Chedid family for decades, was R$ 45 million.

Overnight, Red Bull had a team in the B Series of the Brazilian Championship. In the first year of the partnership, even if unofficially and still called only Bragantino, it gained access to the national elite. The Red Bull Bragantino name came into effect at the beginning of 2020.

“Whenever we play, someone asks about Red Bull Bragantino because they know how good they are. It’s a project different from all others in Brazil. It’s a team where there is patience for players to grow. It happened to me, it happened to the team Claudinho. The athletes who are out see the project’s success”, says defender Léo Ortiz, current captain of the team.

He was one of the three names at the club called up for the Brazilian team since the beginning of the agreement with Bragantino. The same happened with the forward Artur and the attacking midfielder Claudinho. The latter sold for 15 million euros (R$ 95 million in current values) to Zenit, from Russia, this year.

All three are examples of success in what has become the market strategy. Identify players who have had spells or are at big clubs, but are not used, and give them a chance to grow. Léo Ortiz was revealed by Internacional. Claudinho played for Santos and Corinthians and worked at Ponte Preta. Arthur was from Palmeiras.

“Red Bull set up a structure in which every player wants to play and can fight for titles,” said Claudinho, before the Olympics in Tokyo-2020, where he was part of the Brazilian gold medalist team.

The multinational became known, in addition to the energy drink, for its sports projects.

In football, there are also Red Bull Salzburg (AUT) and RB Leipzig (ALE), both in the Champions League, the New York Red Bulls (USA) and Red Bull Ghana (GAN). It keeps Red Bull Brasil active, in Campinas, to train new athletes or keep those who do not work at Bragantino in activity. Likewise, in Austria, second division FC Liefering serve as Salzburg’s reserve squad.

What was planned from the purchase of the club in the interior of São Paulo, so far, has worked out. The project was to move up to Serie A in 2019 and, in the following season, qualify for the Sudamericana. With the title in Uruguay, a place in the next Libertadores will be assured. The same can happen if he finishes in the top six at the Brazilian Nationals – he is currently 4th.

This is only less than predicted Ralf Rangnick, then football director of the company’s project (now at Lokomotiv Moscow, Russia). When visiting Brazil in 2019, when Bragantino was in Serie B, he watched the country’s first division games and commented to other managers that, in the following season, the team could be Brazilian champion.

The answer was that it was better to take it easy. One step at a time.