Club Athletico Mineiro vs. Societá Sportiva Palestra Italia

Club Athletico Mineiro (1908) and Societá Sportiva Palestra Italia (1921) were founded at a time when football was booming in Brazil. Although originally disparate, Atlético Mineiro and Palestra Itália would win the hearts of the people of Belo Horizonte and soon become popular clubs. Over time, we see in the pages of local newspapers the emergence and intensification of the rivalry between them in each of their matches and, in parallel with this, we notice the decline of América Futebol Clube, the team with the most achievements in the early years of football in the capital of Minas Gerais. Between friendly and official matches, we found records of 79 games between the first teams of Atlético Mineiro and Palestra Itália. And, observing the events that most marked the history of these games, it was possible to identify four groups of games that best characterised the period: 1921 to 1925 (eight games), still an amateur period; 1926 to 1933 (17 matches), the semi-professional period; 1934 to 1937 (23 matches), the professionalisation of football; and 1938 to 1942 (31 matches), Atlético's hegemony and the emergence of Cruzeiro Esporte Clube in place of Palestra Itália.