Cerro Porteño

Cerro Porteño

Full name	Club Cerro Porteño
Nickname(s)	Azulgrana El Ciclón (The Cyclone) El Club del Pueblo (The People's Team) La Mitad Mas Uno (Half plus one)
Founded	October 1, 1912
Ground	General Pablo Rojas Stadium (La Olla), Asunción, Paraguay (Capacity: 32,000)
Chairman	Juan José Zapag
Manager	Mario Grana
League	Paraguayan Primera División
2010 Apertura	2nd
Home colours Away colours

Club Cerro Porteño is a professional Paraguayan football club, based in the neighbourhood of Barrio Obrero in Asunción. Founded in 1912, Cerro has won 28 Primera División titles and is one of the most popular football club in Paraguay.^[1] Its main rival is Club Olimpia and head to head matches are known as the Paraguayan football derby.

They play their home games at the General Pablo Rojas Stadium, also known as "La Olla" (the Boiler).

History

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

The club 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 19 January 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 led them to a great victory against the Porteños troops. That battle is known as the "Battle of Cerro Porteño" and is a highlight of Paraguayan military history.

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

Over the years the club has won a significant number of national championships. However, to date, it has not won any international tournaments despite a few good runs in the Copa Libertadores including semi-final appearances in 1973, 1978, 1993, 1998,1999 and 2011.

Osvaldo Ardiles joined the club as manager in May 2008 ^[2] but was sacked in August of the same year after a string of poor results and was replaced by Pedro Troglio^[3]

Nickname

The club's nickname "Ciclón" (Cyclone) comes from the national championship play-off in 1918 which was contested between Cerro Porteño and Club Nacional during which Cerro Porteño scored 4 goals in the last 20 minutes of the 3rd match to win the game 4–2. The flurry of goals saw the team referred to as 'the Cyclone'.

Stadium

The club's home stadium is officially called Estadio General Pablo Rojas, after the club president who was the main proponent of the work, but is better known as "La Olla Azulgrana". It has a capacity of 32,000. Originally, the stadium was supposed to be larger but the plan had to be scaled down due to a shortage of funds available to complete the work.

International Holdings

• Copa Libertadores: 34 appearances

Semi-Finals (6): 1973, 1978, 1993, 1998, 1999, 2011

• Copa Sudamericana: 6 appearances

Semi-Finals (1): 2009

Honors

• Primera División (28): 1913, 1915, 1918, 1919, 1935, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1944, 1950, 1954, 1961, 1963, 1966, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1977, 1987, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2009 Apertura
• Torneo República (3): 1989, 1991, 1995

Notable coaches

• Leonardo Astrada
• Gustavo Costas
• Mario Grana
• Gerardo Martino
• Néstor "Pipo" Rossi
• Javier Torrente
• Pedro Troglio
• Paulo César Carpegiani
• Valdir Espinosa
• Ferenc Puskás
• Salvador Breglia
• Sergio Markarián

Players

As of February 14, 2011.

First Team

Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 1 GK Sergio Valinotti 2 DF César Benítez 3 MF Alexis González 4 DF Pedro Benítez 5 DF Matias Corujo 6 MF Rodrigo Burgos 7 FW Juan Manuel Lucero 8 MF Luis Cáceres 9 FW Fredy Bareiro 10 MF Julio Dos Santos 11 FW Edgar Benitez 12 GK Diego Barreto 14 MF Javier Villarreal 15 DF Luis Cardozo

No. Position Player 17 MF Jonathan Fabbro 18 FW Nelson Cuevas 19 FW Roberto Nanni 22 DF Mariano Uglessich 23 MF Iván Arturo Torres 24 MF José Domingo Salcedo 25 GK Pablo Gavilán GK Rahmanuddin DF Teodoro Paredes MF Jorge Rojas MF Francisco Garcia MF Néstor Ramírez FW Ángel Romero FW Zikri Akbar

On loan

Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player DF Alfredo Rojas (at Sol de America until December of 2011) DF David Mendoza (at Rubio Ñú until December of 2011) MF Ernesto Cristaldo (at Sol de America until December of 2011)

No. Position Player FW Victor Ferreira (at Sol de America until December of 2011) FW Pablo Noguera (at Sol de America until December of 2011) FW Digno Gonzalez (at Rubio Ñú until December of 2011)

References

1. ^ (Spanish) http://www.abc.com.py/nota/mayoria-piensa-que-cerro-porteno-es-el-club-mas-polular/%7C Most people believe that is the most popular
2. ^ http://www.geofutbol.com/2008/04/29/osvaldo-ardiles-dirigira-a-cerro-porteno/%7C Osvaldo Ardiles will lead to Cerro Porteño
3. ^ http://www.sportsya.com/futbol/paraguay/torneo_clausura_2008/home/noticia.php/Pedro_Troglio_reemplazara_en_Cerro_Porteno_al_despedido_Osvaldo_Ardiles.html?id_estruc=396&id=184925%7C Troglio replace Ardiles

External links

• Cerro Porteño Web Site
• Foro de Cerro Porteño Site
• La Plaza Site
• Cerro Official Site