📸 EC Bahia, Brazil football club: Photo Gallery (Photo: 24)

📄 Summary

EC Bahia

Brazil

Série A

1.7M @ecbahia EC Bahia Instagram

Esporte Clube Bahia (Portuguese pronunciation: [isˈpɔʁtʃi ˈklubi baˈi.ɐ]) is a Brazilian professional association football club based in Salvador, the capital city of the Brazilian state of Bahia. Known mainly as the Esquadrão de Aço (Steel Squadron), the club competes in the Campeonato Baiano, Bahia's state league, and the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, the highest division of Brazilian football league system.

Bahia has won the Brasileirão title twice: in 1959, where they defeated Santos' Santásticos with the likes of Gilmar, Mauro Ramos, Mengálvio, Coutinho, Pepe and Pelé in the final, and in 1988 over Internacional. They have appeared in the Copa Libertadores four times, reaching the quarter-finals in 1989 – their best-ever performance. After 22 years out of international competition, Bahia returned in 2012 when they qualified for the Copa Sudamericana, an achievement repeated seven more times, the last in 2021. The club has also won their state title a record 50 times. The club also has five titles in the Copa do Nordeste, in: 2001, 2002, 2017, 2021 and 2025.

Bahia had played its home games with 66,080 people capacity Estádio Fonte Nova since 1951 but after a section of the stadium collapsed in 2007, the Tricolor played at the Estádio de Pituaçu. With the reopening of the Fonte Nova stadium in 2013 as the Arena Fonte Nova, a modern arena built for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Bahia resumed playing its matches there. The club's home uniform consists of white shirts with blue shorts and red socks. It has a fierce long-standing rivalry with Vitória, known as Ba-Vi.

In December 2022, it was announced that City Football Group, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi United Group, had bought a majority stake of Bahia's SAF, after the takeover was approved in a voting session between club members. The acquisition was completed in May 2023, as CFG officially acquired 90% of the club's shares.

▤ Read more