Although originally a rowing club and then a multi-sport club, Vasco is mostly known for its men's football team, which currently competes in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, the top tier of the Brazilian football league system, and in the Campeonato Carioca, the state of Rio de Janeiro's premier state league.

Its youth academy, which has brought up international footballers such as Romário, Philippe Coutinho, Hilderaldo Bellini, Roberto Dinamite and Edmundo, is well known for its socio-educational methodology.

[10] At the national level, Vasco da Gama has won four Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, three Torneio Rio–São Paulo and one Copa do Brasil.

With fans worldwide, Vasco da Gama is one of the most widely supported clubs in Brazil, the Rio de Janeiro state and the Americas.

At this time, four young men – Henrique Ferreira Monteiro, Luís Antônio Rodrigues, José Alexandre d'Avelar Rodrigues and Manuel Teixeira de Souza Júnior – who did not want to travel to Niterói to row with the boats of Gragoatá Club, decided to found a rowing club.

Inspired by the celebrations of the 4th centenary of the first sail from Europe to India, the founders named the club in honor of Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama.

Vasco won its first top-division title with the 1923 Campeonato Carioca, becoming champion with a team including whites, blacks and "mulatto" players of different social classes.

[citation needed] As a result, the former President of Vasco, José Augusto Prestes, responded with a letter that became known as the Historic Response (Resposta Histórica),[11][12] which revolutionized the practice of sports in Brazil.

Vasco would also beat Athletic Bilbao (Spanish League and Cup champions in the previous year) by winning the Teresa Herrera Trophy with a 4–2 scoreline, and Barcelona (Spanish Cup champion a week earlier) inside Les Corts, with a historic scoreline of 2–7, the second worst defeat ever suffered at home by the Catalan team, and largest in international matches.

[17] Benfica (Portuguese champion and Latin Cup runner-up) was also a victim of Vasco on this tour, losing to the Brazilian club with another impressive result, 5–2, in Lisbon on 30 June 1957.

[18] In early 1958, just before the World Cup, Vasco won the Rio-São Paulo Tournament, the most important championship in Brazil at the time, which included legendary teams such as Pele's Santos, Garrincha's Botafogo, Zagallo's Flamengo, and Tele Santana's Fluminense.

In an epic competition against Zagallo's Flamengo and Garrincha's Botafogo, which ended in a three-way tie on 32 points and required two extra tiebreaker tournaments to decide the champion, Vasco became the 1958 Campeonato Carioca "super-superchampion".

[20] The 1960s were a difficult period for the club, having only average performances with the exception of 1965 and 1966; in the 1965 Campeonato Brasileiro (known as Taça Brasil at the time), Vasco reached the final, losing to Pele's Santos 1–6 on aggregate.

Since there was no tiebreaking criteria, a quadrangular involving Botafogo, Corinthians, Santos and Vasco should have been played, but due to the preparation of the Brazil national team for the 1966 FIFA World Cup, the CBD decided to proclaim all four clubs as champions.

In 1970, under star players Roberto Dinamite and Edgardo Andrada, Vasco won the Campeonato Carioca for the first time in 12 years.

By winning the Copa Libertadores title, Vasco da Gama earned a berth in the 1998 Intercontinental Cup, where they faced the 1997–98 UEFA Champions League winners Real Madrid and lost 2–1.

As a result of their Copa Libertadores title two years prior, Vasco earned a berth for the inaugural 2000 FIFA Club World Championship held in Brazil.

They beat Manchester United of England, Necaxa of Mexico, and South Melbourne of Australia in the group stage to reach the final.

In the 2001 Copa Libertadores, Vasco became the first team to win all six group games, which included big victories (0–3 and 4–1), against Colombian champions América de Cali.

Despite suffering relegation, Vasco had a respectable run in the Copa do Brasil, making it al the way to the semi-finals where they were eliminated by eventual champion Sport Recife on penalties.

Vasco had a poor start to the 2011 season, losing four consecutive games in the Guanabara Cup, which led to the sacking of Paulo Gusmāo and the appointment of Ricardo Gomes.

Vasco qualified for the 2012 Copa Libertadores as Brazilian Cup champion, marking a return to the top South American competition after 12 years.

[41][42] In the Brazilian Championship, the team set the record for 54 consecutive rounds in the top 4 (continuing from the 2011 and 2012 seasons), although they ultimately finished in fifth and missed out on qualifying for the Libertadores the following year due to poor form, losing six of their last ten games.

[45] On 22 February 2022 it was announced that 777 Partners, a Miami-based private investment firm founded by Steven W. Pasko and Josh Wander, bought a controlling stake in Vasco da Gama.

Vasco da Gama's first kit, used in rowing, was created in 1898, and was primarily black, with a left white diagonal sash.

Vasco's first football kit, created in 1916, was completely black, and was easily identified because of the presence of a white tie and a belt.

[53] There is another official anthem, created in the 1930s, called "Meu Pavilhão" (meaning My Pavilion), whose lyrics were composed by João de Freitas and music by Hernani Correia.

[62] In April 2023, CNN carried out a survey that revealed that Vasco is the team with the most fans considered "fanatics" in the Southeast Region clubs and among the G-12 (Big Twelve), in addition to being the third in the country.

[63][64] Vasco's first trophy was the 1923 Campeonato Carioca, during the club's debut season in the state's first division, won by a squad in which the majority of players were black and which greatly influenced the fight against racism in Brazilian football.

For a large portion of fans, the club's most important honour is not a trophy, but rather the Resposta Histórica, a letter sent in 1924 refusing the discriminatory order of the Rio de Janeiro league, which wanted to ban Vasco from its competitions if it did not disaffiliate twelve of its players (all black).