Dictionary Thesaurus Word Dynamo Quotes Reference Translator Spanish

Cerro Porteño

Club Cerro Porteño is a traditional Paraguayan football team, based in the neighbourhood of Barrio Obrero in Asunción. The club was founded in 1912 and is the team that has played the most Copa Libertadores games without ever having won the tournament. It plays its home games at the General Pablo Rojas Stadium, also known as "La Olla" (the Boiler).

History

Cerro Porteño was founded in October 1, 1912 by Susana Núñez, along with a group of young people excited to create a new football club. At that time Paraguay was living a tense situation with instability in the government caused by the fervent rivalries between the two leading political parties: Partido Colorado (Colorado Party) and Partido Liberal (Liberal Party). Because of the tensions, the founders of the club decided to use the colors of the rival parties, red and blue, as the team official colors (red being the color of the Colorado Party and blue of the Liberal Party) as a symbol of unity and friendship between Paraguayans. Later, white was used on the shorts to complete the Paraguayan flag colours.

It owes its name to the battle fought between the forces of Buenos Aires, Argentina (“the Porteños”) and the Paraguayan army, in the neighbourhood of the “Cerro Mbaé” (Mbaé Hill) - named after that battle as the Cerro Porteño (Porteño Hill) - on January 19, 1811. During that battle, the troops of Paraguay (at that time a Spanish colony) were abandoned by the Spanish Governor but continued to be led by the Paraguayan officials, who headed the great victory against the Porteños troops. That battle is known as the "Battle of Cerro Porteño" and is one of the greatest military victories of Paraguay.

Cerro Porteño is known in Paraguay as "el club del pueblo" (the common people's club) because most of the fans are from working and/or lower social classes, as opposed to the fans from rival club Olimpia whose fans are usually from upper classes. Because of this, it is said that Cerro Porteño has the biggest number of supporters in Paraguay.

Throughout the years, Cerro Porteño won a significant number of national championships, establishing it as a respected and traditional Paraguayan football club. However, to date, it has not won any international tournaments despite a few good runs in the Copa Libertadores, for instance in 1973, 1978, 1993, 1998 and 1999, in which the team reached the semi-finals stage.

Honours

National honours

Paraguayan First Division

Winners (27): 1913, 1915, 1918, 1919, 1935, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1944, 1954, 1961, 1963, 1966, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1977, 1987, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2001, 2004, 2005