Orlando City will take on storied Brazilian club Esporte Clube Bahia on Saturday night at the Orlando Citrus Bowl. Learn a bit about the club before the match below!
Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman! Yes, Superman is flying in for a friendly against Orlando City SC Saturday at 7:30PM at Orlando Citrus Bowl. Well Esporte Clube Bahia’s mascot was “imported” from the U.S. The Man of Steel also originated the team’s nickname Esquadrão de Aço (Squad of Steel).
EC Bahia is celebrating 85 years this season. The club was founded back in 1931, two years before the Superman was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster in 1933. Bahia is name for one of the 26 Brazilian states. The team’s first kit matches Superman’s costume colors, which are also the ones on the State of Bahia’s flag.
There are no x-ray vision, flying superpower athletes on the record for Bahia. But a couple skillful players have helped the Squad of Steel pull the action off the comic books to the soccer pitch, winning two National Championships in 1959 and 1988 and attracting some 3,4 million very passionate fans according to a 2014 National survey conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics (Ibope).
Striker Hernane “Brocador” is the star of Bahia’s 2016 roster. 2013 all-competitions top scorer in the Brazilian territory, scoring 36 goals for Flamengo, 29 years old Hernane has just joined Bahia after stints with Saudi-Arabian Al-Nassr and Brazilian Serie A team Sport Club do Recife.
Bahia’s new Head Coach is Dorival Guidoni Júnior, or Doriva for short. That’s how Brazilian soccer lovers got to know him some 25 years ago. Doriva has been part of one of the best teams in the country’s soccer history, the early 1990’s São Paulo FC. The tough defensive midfielder helped the team beat Italian powerhouse A.C. Milan 3-2 in Tokyo, Japan, in 1993. They also amassed famed South American continental tournament Copa Libertadores da América that same year, as well as the Supercopa Libertadores and two Recopa Sulamericanas, in 1993 and 1994.
Doriva has returned to São Paulo FC
12 years later
as a coach. He also trained other local traditional clubs like Ponte Preta, Vasco da Gama, Atlético Paranaense and Ituano during the last 3 years.
Squad of Steel’s real life Metropolis is Bahia State's capital Salvador, one of the 2014 FIFA World Cup host cities. EC Bahia plays at Arena Fonte Nova, a 270 million-dollar (in 2014 dollars), 50,025 capacity state-of-the-art facility.
The match up between the Lions' attacking style of play and the competitiveness of the Squad of Steel is certainly going to be one of the most interesting of the season. And no kryptonite is going to make anyone’s lives easier
on Saturday
.
