Cruzeiro Esporte Clube (Brazilian Portuguese: [kɾuˈzejɾu esˈpoʁtʃi ˈklubi]) is a Brazilian professional football club, based in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. Cruzeiro is the greatest team of Minas Gerais. Although competing in a number of different sports, Cruzeiro is mostly known for its association football team. It plays in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, the top tier of the Brazilian football league system, as well as in the Campeonato Mineiro, the state of Minas Gerais's premier state league.

The club was founded on 2 January 1921, by sportsmen from the Italian colony of Belo Horizonte as Società Sportiva Palestra Itália. As a result of the Second World War, the Brazilian federal government banned the use of any symbols referring to the Axis powers in 1942. On October 7, 1942, club board members rebaptized the club with the name of a leading national symbol: the Cruzeiro do Sul's constellation. Cruzeiro play their home games at the Mineirão stadium, which currently holds up to 62,547 spectators. Cruzeiro's regular kit colors are blue shirts and white shorts with white socks.

Cruzeiro is one of Brazil's most successful clubs. It won the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A for the first time in 1966, after defeating Santos' Santásticos in the final series. Cruzeiro has won the Brasileirão again in 2003, 2013 and 2014, obtaining the best-ever campaign in the present format of the competition in 2003 with 100 points. Cruzeiro has also won record six Copa do Brasil titles and the Campeonato Mineiro 38 times. Cruzeiro won the defunct state competitions Taça Minas Gerais five times, the Copa dos Campeões Mineiros twice, the Copa Sul-Minas twice, the Torneio Início 8 times and the Supercampeonato Mineiro once. A Raposa also obtained many international laurels such as two Copa Libertadores, two Supercopa Libertadores, one Recopa Sudamericana, one Copa de Oro and one Copa Master de Supercopa. Cruzeiro is one of the two Brazilian clubs to complete the Domestic Treble, a feat accomplished in 2003 after winning the Campeonato Mineiro, the 2003 Copa do Brasil and the 2003 Brasileirão.

Cruzeiro hold a long-standing rivalry against Atlético Mineiro. It has contributed many key and famous players towards Brazil's FIFA World Cup squads such as Wilson Piazza, Tostão, Nelinho, Ronaldo, Luisão, Alex, Maicon, Cris, Dida, Jairzinho, Rivaldo and Edílson among many others, as well as towards other countries' FIFA World Cup squads, including Roberto Perfumo and Juan Pablo Sorín from Argentina, and Giorgian de Arrascaeta from Uruguay.