Deportivo Táchira Fútbol Club

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Deportivo Táchira

Full name

Nickname(s)

Aurinegro (Gold-and-black)

Founded

1974

Ground

Estadio Polideportivo de Pueblo Nuevo,
San Cristóbal, Venezuela

Capacity

28,000

Chairman

Miriam Martínez

Manager

Manuel Plasencia

League

Primera División Venezolana

2004/05

Primera División Venezolana, 3rd





Home colours





Away colours

Deportivo Táchira Fútbol Club, usually known as Deportivo Táchira, is a traditional ^[1] and a popular ^[2] Venezuelan football club. It was founded on 11 January 1974 by the initiative of Gaetano Greco. In its first national championship, the club finished in first place, originating the nickname El equipo que nació Grande (meaning the club which was born Big).

1 History
2 Titles
3 Stadium
4 Supporters
5 Derby
6 Colors
7 Famous players
8 References
9 External links

[edit] History

In 1970, Italian-born Gaetano Greco founded in San Cristóbal an amateur club called Juventus, named after the famous Italian club.

In 1974, Greco noticed that there was no professional football club in Táchira, so he decided to start a club based on the amateur Juventus club. On 11 January of that year, he and twelve other people founded the club, which was named Deportivo San Cristóbal. Most of the club's players came from the Juventus club. Initially, the club's colors were blue and white, like the Italy ones.

In January 1975, the club changed its colors to yellow and black, because those colors better represented the Táchira state and were the preferred colors of the Uruguayan manager José "Pocho" Gil, due to their likeness to Peñarol ones in Uruguay.

[edit] Titles

Primera División Venezolana (5 times): 1979, 1981, 1984, 1986, 2000
Primera División Venezolana runner-up (7 times): 1982, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1999, 2004
Copa Libertadores de América participations (11 times): 1980, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2001, 2004, 2005

Deportivo Táchira is the Venezuelan club with the most appearances in Copa Libertadores, and is also the club which has finished as Venezuela's league runner-up the most times. It has won five national championships.

The club's best Copa Libertadores participation was in 2004, when the club became the first team to qualify for the quarter-final of the competition without losing a match, playing against strong teams like River Plate (Argentina), Libertad (Paraguay), Deportes Tolima (Colombia), Nacional de Montevideo (Uruguay) and São Paulo (Brazil).

[edit] Stadium

Main article: Estadio Polideportivo de Pueblo Nuevo

The club's home stadium is Polideportivo de Pueblo Nuevo, located in San Cristóbal. It has a maximum capacity of 28,000 people.

[edit] Supporters

The supporters are known as los gochigans, or aurinegros ("gold-and-blacks").

There are two main organized groups of supporters, one of them is La Torcida and the other one is called Comando Sur. Actually the club is in Caracas and the supporters from here are named "Poder Aurinegro".

The aurinegros had already committed acts of violence at the stadium. One of the most tragic events took place on December, 17, 2000, when the club and Caracas drew 2-2, which gave the Copa República Bolivariana de Venezuela's title to the other side, and a mob of angry supporters burned a bus inside the soccer field ^[3].

[edit] Derby

The match between Deportivo Táchira and Estudiantes de Mérida is known as the Clásico de Los Andes (meaning Andes' Derby), but in recent years the match between Deportivo Táchira and Caracas FC has been known as the modern derby, because of the successful performance of both teams. Other classic rival was Marítimo de Venezuela (Caracas'club) in the 80's and earlier 90's.