Newell's Old Boys

Newell's Old Boys

Full name	Club Atlético Newell's Old Boys
Nickname(s)	La Lepra ("The Leprosy")
Founded	November 3, 1903
Ground	Estadio Marcelo Bielsa, Rosario, Argentina (Capacity: 38,095)
Chairman	Guillermo Lorente
Manager	Diego Cagna
League	Primera División
2011 Clausura	19th
Website	Club home page
Home colours Away colours Third colours

Club Atlético Newell's Old Boys is an Argentine sports club based in Rosario. The club was founded on November 3, 1903, and is named after Isaac Newell, one of the pioneers of Argentine football. Newell's is best known for their association football team, that plays in the Argentine Primera División (top level of the Argentine league system).

Originally member of Rosario's Football Association, Newell's affiliated to the Argentine Football Association (AFA) in 1939. They have won AFA's Primera División five times throughout their history, the first being in the 1974 Metropolitano and the last in the 2004 Clausura. Newell's has also been twice Copa Libertadores runner-up (in 1988 and 1992).

The club's football stadium is the Estadio Marcelo Bielsa, named after the team's former player and manager Marcelo Bielsa (twice champion, and runner-up of one Copa Libertadores). Newell's plays the Rosario derby against Rosario Central, a club with which they have a huge historical rivalry.

Newell's is also notable for their youth divisions, being the club with most national titles in AFA's youth tournaments.^[1] Players from the club's youths who have represented Argentina at World Cups are Gabriel Batistuta, Américo Gallego, Jorge Valdano, Gabriel Heinze, Roberto Sensini, Mauricio Pocchettino and Maxi Rodríguez, among others. Lionel Messi also played in the club's youths, but left at a young age to Barcelona to seek treatment for his growth hormone deficiency, while Diego Maradona played briefly for the first team in 1993 (5 games).

History

The club was named by ex-pupils of the English High School of Rosario in homage to its director and football coach, English immigrant Isaac Newell. Newell's Old Boys has an historic rivalry with Rosario Central, the other club from Rosario.

The team colors are black and red, taken from the flags of England and Germany (Isaac Newell being English and his wife German). The team is often referred to as leprosos (lepers) because they played in a charity match to raise funds for a leprosy clinic back in the 1920s.^[2]

Newell's Old Boys have won the Argentine Championship five times (Metropolitano 1974, 1987/88, 1990/91, Clausura 1992 and Apertura 2004) and were the runners-up of the Copa Libertadores de América twice (1988 and 1992). The 1990/91 Championship was contested between the 1990 Apertura (Newell's) and 1991 Clausura (Boca Juniors) Champions, which Newell's won in home-and-away matches. Even though the 1990 Clausura was not considered official by itself, it is considered by Newell's supporters to be their "sixth" championship.

Newell's also won a friendly mini-tournament called the Little World Cup in 1988, against River Plate, Milan, Juventus, Real Madrid and Manchester United, and is, together with Boca Juniors, San Lorenzo and Racing one of the few Argentine clubs that made a long and successful tour over Europe (in 1941), in which they defeated several important teams such as Valencia, Borussia Mönchengladbach, Real Madrid and the Spanish National "A" Team. These are the only major international achievements of the club until now (although several minor international summer tournaments were won). So as yet the club have not won an official international championship.

Newell's Old Boys is one of a very few teams to have had all their players represent the National team in a single game (another is Queen's Park of Scotland whose first team represented Scotland in the very first International match against England), when they represented Argentina in a Pre-Olympic Tournament with their undefeated Reserva Team. It classified third all over America, after Brazil and Uruguay (references).

The team has also contributed an important number of players to the Argentina national team, and exported many players to Europe's top leagues, mostly to Italy and Spain. Among its great players were Gabriel Batistuta, Abel Balbo, Jorge Valdano, Américo Gallego, Mario Zanabria, Gustavo Dezotti, Roberto Sensini, Walter Samuel, Mauricio Pochettino, René Pontoni, Gerardo Martino, Ángel Perucca and several more. It has recently produced players like Argentine internationals Gabriel Heinze, Maxi Rodriguez and Lionel Messi.

El Coloso del Parque

The club's president is Guillermo Lorente who was recently elected.

Stadium

Main article: Estadio Marcelo Bielsa

The Newell's Old Boys stadium has been in the Parque Independencia neighborhood of Rosario since 1911, and is commonly called El Coloso del Parque (the Colossus of the Independence Park). Capacity was increased from 30,000 to 38,095 in 1997. On December 22, 2009 the stadium was renamed to Marcelo Bielsa, in honor to the former player and coach of the team. ^[3]

Newell's Old Boys squad in 1974

Honours

National honours

• Argentine First Division: 5

Metropolitano 1974, 1987/88, 1990/91, Clausura 1992, Apertura 2004

Current squad

Current squad of Newell's Old Boys as of November 7, 2011 (edit)
Sources: Official website & Argentine Soccer

No. Position Player 1  ARG GK Nahuel Guzmán 2  ARG DF Alexis Machuca 4  ARG DF Hernán Pellerano 5  ARG MF Diego Mateo 7  ARG MF Lucas Bernardi 8  ARG MF Pablo Pérez 12  ARG GK Lucas Hoyos 13  ARG MF Leandro Torres 14  ARG FW Mauricio Sperduti 15  COL FW Carmelo Valencia 16  ARG MF Víctor Figueroa 17  PAR MF Marcos Riveros 18  ARG FW Ricardo Noir 21  ARG MF Leonel Vangioni 22  ARG GK Sebastián Peratta 23  PAR FW Víctor Aquino

No. Position Player 24  ARG MF Lorenzo Faravelli 25  PAR MF Néstor Camacho 26  ARG DF Cristian Díaz 27  ARG DF Santiago Vergini 28  ARG MF Martín Tonso 29  ARG MF Juan Vieyra 30  ARG DF Guillermo Ferracuti 31  ARG DF Jonathan Valle 32  ARG DF Marcos Benítez 33  ARG MF Raúl Villalba 34  ARG FW Maximiliano Velasco 36  ARG MF Marcos Pérez 37  ARG FW Maximiliano Urruti 38  ARG FW Federico Falcone 39  ARG FW Fabián Muñoz

Manager: Diego Cagna

Former players

To appear in this section a player must have made at least 50 appearances for the club

Julio Libonatti (1919-26) José Canteli (1940's) (1970-75) Andrés Rebotarro (1970-78) Jorge Valdano (1971-75) Santiago Santamaría (1971-75), (1980-85) Arsenio Ribeca (1971-76) Juan Ramón Rocha (1972-78) Carlos Picerni (1972-78), (1982-83) José Luis Pavoni (1973-77) Américo Gallego (1974-80) Ricardo Giusti (1975-78) Roque Alfaro (1975-83), (1987-88) Juan Simón (1977-83) Raul Miralles (1951-59) Sergio Omar Almirón (1977-89) Víctor Ramos (1978-84), (1987-89) Gerardo Martino (1980-90), (1991-94), (1995) Gabriel Batistuta (1981-87), (1996-97)

Norberto Scoponi (1981-94) Juan Manuel Llop (1981-94) Fabián Basualdo (1982-88), (1993-96) Gustavo Dezotti (1982-88) Jorge Pautasso (1982-90) Julio Zamora (1983-87), (1990-93), (1997-98) Jorge Theiler (1983-89), (1993) Juan José Rossi (1983-89), (1992) Ariel Cozzoni (1985-88), (1989-91), (1993) Roberto Sensini (1985-89) Darío Franco (1987-91) Mauricio Pochettino (1988-94) Eduardo Berizzo (1988-93) Fernando Gamboa (1988-93), (1999-00) Julio Saldaña (1989-93), (1996-02) Miguel Angel Fullana (1980's & 1990's) Fabián Garfagnoli (1990-96) Ricardo Lunari (1991-92)

Cristian Domizzi (1991-92), (2002-03) Gustavo Raggio (1991-96) Alfredo Berti (1992-95) Alfredo Mendoza (1992-95) Julio César Baldivieso (1994-97) Sebastián Cejas (1994-01) Aldo Duscher (1995-98) Gabriel Heinze (1996-97) Velko Iotov (1996-98) Damian Manso (1996-01), (2002-05) Sebastián Domínguez (1998-04} Maxi Rodríguez (1999-02) Mauro Rosales (2001-04) Fernando Belluschi (2002-06) Ariel Ortega (2004-06) Ignacio Scocco (2004-06) Hugo Colace (2004-08) Justo Villar (2004-08)

see also Category:Newell's Old Boys footballers

References

1. ^ "Newell's es el equipo récord en inferiores de AFA" in La Capital.
2. ^ Bell, Jack. "In Argentina, Banfield Wins First Title," Goal (The New York Times soccer blog), Sunday, December 13, 2009.
3. ^ http://www.latercera.com/contenido/688_195166_9.shtml

External links

• Official website (Spanish)