This Wednesday (28), eight games open an edition of the Brazilian Championship designed to span the four seasons of the year, coexist with two transfer windows, suffer pauses and adjustments imposed by other tournaments and only end in the first week of December.
Current champions, Flamengo debut against São Paulo, at 9:30 pm (Brasília time), away from home (GE TV, Globo and Premiere show the duel). Earlier, runner-up Palmeiras faces Atlético-MG, at 7pm (Brasília time), also as a visitor (SporTV and Premiere broadcast).
Extended by the new calendar drawn up by the CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation) for the four-year period 2026–2029, and with an exceptional break between June and July because of the 2026 World Cup, the Brazilian Championship will have its 38 rounds distributed from January to December.
Considering the start and end dates of the competition, there will be ten months and four days of ball rolling, which makes Brazil the country with the longest running national league among the main ones in the world.
In Europe, only the Czech Republic’s championship — the tenth best placed in the UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) rankings — will have such an extensive journey.
Most leagues on the continent last around nine months, as shown in the calendars of the five main European competitions: England (nine months and nine days), Italy (nine months and one day), Spain (nine months and nine days), Germany (eight months and 25 days) and France (nine months and one day).
These leagues, however, will not be affected by the World Cup, as the 2025/26 season ends before the national team tournament.
In Brazil, the schedule defined by the CBF includes a 50-day break between the 17th and 18th rounds due to the World Cup. The Brazilian Championship will be suspended from June 1st to July 22nd, resuming just three days after the World Cup decision.
The new distribution of rounds also caused changes in the transfer market. Starting this season, the number of games an athlete can play for a club before transferring to another in the same division has increased.
Previously, a player could only change teams if he had played in a maximum of six matches. Now, the limit is now 12 games. The change seeks to keep the national market warm and facilitate the management of squads in the face of a longer competition.
Clubs will continue to have two signing windows throughout the year, both during the Brazilian Championship period. The first runs from January 5th to March 3rd, and the second, from July 20th to September 11th.
During the first window, teams will still be competing for state championships. The two matches that define the São Paulo champion, for example, will be on March 4th and 8th.
When the second window opens, in the post-World Cup period, the Brazilian will be much more advanced, close to the 19th round, the milestone that ends the first round of the competition.
The 2026 edition of the national event will also be the first with an important change in the distribution of places for the Copa Libertadores. Until 2025, the top four placed guaranteed a direct place in the group stage of the tournament, while the fifth and sixth placed teams went to the preliminary stages.
Now, Série A will allocate only one place for the phases that precede the formation of groups. The change occurs because the CBF decided to transfer the second place to the Copa do Brasil. From this year onwards, in addition to rewarding the champion with a direct place, the knockout tournament will also give the runner-up access to the continental tournament, in the preliminary stages.
