Académica da Praia

Associação Académica da Praia is a football club that plays in the Premier division of the Santiago Island League (South) in Cape Verde. It is played along with Praia's three other famous teams in Estádio da Varzea, the club also practices at the stadium and over a kilometer east in Achada Grande Frente (or Leite). Its current president is Kiki and manager is Janito Carvalho who coached Sporting Praia in the previous season. Académica Praia is one of the most successful football (soccer) club in the island of Santiago and the South Zone, having won about 11 official titles, 2 are national and the remaining 9 are regional titles. It won several championship titles before and after independence. The team never won any national championship titles since independence. It also had won five insular titles, three island cup title and a national cup title. Académica da Praia is an affiliate of the Portuguese club Académica de Coimbra. Its nicknames are "Mica", the short of Académica used in many of other Académica clubs around the world, "Briosa", which has recently become rarely used today and "Estudantes" which means students (students of the academy), used in several other Académica clubs elsewhere.

The club was founded on 15 December 1962 Later in 2009, the club as champion of the South Zone also advanced to the single island competition, as they are now two championships of the island, the edition featured only a single match where the club, winner of the South Zone challenged with Estrela dos Amadores, winner of the North Zone for 2009, Académica Praia won their last championship of all Santiago.

Estádio da Várzea is a multi use stadium in Praia, Cape Verde. It is currently used mostly for football matches. The stadium holds 8,000. The stadium has seat rows in the left and right sides and a small hill and a plateau lies to the west. It is played along with Praia's three other famous teams including Sporting Praia, Boavista, Desportivo Praia and CD Travadores in the same stadium. The club practices also at the stadium and at Sucupira just in the northwest corner of the intersection with Rua da Várzea. Académica once played as Sucupira Field before 2006, in the early 2000s, as the stadium was partly disused and went under renovations, the clubs played there.

Its logo is identical with Académica de Coimbra, the only difference is it has the letter P, the first letter of where the club is based.

Today's uniform has now added stripes and changed its home sock color to black.

Their only rivalry only at the regional level is with Sporting Praia. One of them is titled Praia derby.

Season Div. Pos. Pl. W D L GS GA GD PCupNotesPlayoffs20041B2421173+47Promoted into playoffs4th place20071B2531163+310WinnerPromoted into playoffs4th place20091A15410105+513Promoted into playoffsFinalist20181A1632164+211Advanced into the playoffsChampionTotal:2012532915+1411

Season Div. Pos. Pl. W D L GS GA GD PCupNotes200227185491625 9192002–0328183691221 9142003–04211814313818+3045Promoted into the National Championships200523178542619+7292005–06221814133313+2043200722181161258+1739WinnerAlso promoted into the National Championships2007–0823189364026+14302008–09211812424017+2340Promoted into the National Championships2009–1023/418 2010–1123188642411+13302011–1224188372624+2272012–1324188462822+6282013–1426184682126 5182014–1526188371618 2272015–16242213453218+14432016–17242213633319+1445Round of 82017–18212218224810+3856Quarter finalsPromoted to the National Division