Esporte Clube Bahia
| Full name | Esporte Clube Bahia | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nicknames | Tricolor Bahiaço (mix of Bahia and aço, steel) Baêa Maior do Nordeste (Greatest in the Northeast) Esquadrão de Aço (Steel Squadron) | |||
| Founded | 1 January 1931 | |||
| Ground | Arena Fonte Nova | |||
| Capacity | 50,025 | |||
| SAF Owner | City Football Group (90%) Others (10%) | |||
| President | Emerson Ferretti | |||
| Head coach | Rogério Ceni | |||
| League | Campeonato Brasileiro Série A Campeonato Baiano | |||
| 2025 2025 | Série A, 7th of 20 Baiano, 1st of 10 (champions) | |||
| Website | www | |||
|
| ||||
| 2008 | Manchester City* |
|---|---|
| 2009–2012 | |
| 2013 | New York City FC§ |
| 2014 | Melbourne City* |
| Yokohama F. Marinos*§ | |
| 2015–2016 | |
| 2017 | Montevideo City* |
| Girona*§ | |
| 2018 | |
| 2019 | Shenzhen Peng City*§ |
| 2020 | Lommel* |
| Troyes* | |
| 2021 | |
| 2022 | Palermo*§ |
| 2023 | Bahia*§ |
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 the Brazilian football league system.
EC 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 with the team sealing the title at Beira Rio, Internacional's stadium. The team has 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 51 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 from 1951 to 2007, when a section of the stadium collapsed killing seven Bahia fans. The Tricolor played at the Joia da Princesa stadium in Feira de Santana in 2008, and from 2009 to 2013 at the Estádio de Pituaçu in Salvador. 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.