What's new in the Copa do Nordeste and other regional cups

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·1 October 2025

What's new in the Copa do Nordeste and other regional cups

In an event held this Wednesday, the CBF announced the changes in the Brazilian football calendar for the next four years. The Northeast Cup was one of the tournaments that underwent the most changes, as the entity revamped all the regional competitions.

In addition to restructuring the Northeast Cup and the Green Cup, the CBF announced the creation of the South-Southeast Cup and proposed a standardization of format among the tournaments. All these competitions will guarantee a direct spot in the third phase of the Brazil Cup of the following year. The regional tournaments will start on March 25 and go until June 7.

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What changed in the Northeast Cup?

The main change is the exclusion of teams that participate in Conmebol competitions. That is, if the club competes in the Libertadores or the South American, it will not play any regional tournament, including the Northeast Cup.

In addition, the format will be standardized, with at least two spots per state in each regional tournament. Thus, each competition will have twice as many teams as the number of participating federations.

Northeast Cup: 9 federations
Green Cup: 12 federations
South-Southeast Cup: 6 federations.

Slot in the calendar that the regionals will occupy. (Photo: Reproduction / CBF)

New format

Thus, all tournaments will follow the structure of group stage and knockout in sequence. At least, each participant will play five matches and, if they reach the final, they will enter the field ten times.

Northeast Cup

20 teams (18 via state and 2 via ranking)
Four groups of five teams - single round games outside the group
Eight teams advance (first two of each group)
Quarterfinals in a single game
Semifinal and final in two legs.

New Northeast Cup proposed by the CBF. (Photo: Reproduction / CBF)

Green Cup

24 teams (20 via state and 2 via ranking)
Four groups of six teams, divided into North Cup (A and B) and Central-West Cup (C and D) - single round games within the group
Eight teams advance (first two of each group)
Quarterfinals in a single game
Semifinal in two legs, deciding the champions of the North Cup and Central-West Cup
Final in two legs, defining the winner of the Green Cup.

South-Southeast Cup

12 teams (all via state)
Two groups of six teams - single round games outside the group
Four teams advance (first two of each group)
Semifinal and final in two legs.

What was the reason for the change?

As the proposal of the new calendar is to alleviate the number of games of the main division teams and provide more matches for clubs without division or with reduced calendar, the teams that compete in Conmebol tournaments were "excluded" from the regionals.

Thus, the main claim of the Serie A clubs about the inflated calendar is met, while the regional tournaments remain in contention.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.