Cerro Porteño

Cerro Porteño
Full name	Club Cerro Porteño
Nickname(s)	Azulgrana and El Ciclón
Founded	October 1, 1912
Ground	General Pablo Rojas,; Asunción, Paraguay; (Capacity: 25,000)
Chairman	Luis Alberto Pettengill
Manager	Pedro Troglio
League	Liga Paraguaya
Apertura 2008	3rd
Home colours	Away colours
	Current season

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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).

[edit] 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.

Osvaldo Ardiles joined the club as manager in May 2008 ^[1] but was sacked in August of the same year after a string of poor results and was replaced by Pedro Troglio^[2]

[edit] Honours

[edit] National honours

Paraguayan First Division
- Winners (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-A
Torneo República
- Winners (2): 1991, 1995

[edit] International honours

Copa Libertadores: 32 appearances
- Semifinalists (5): 1973, 1978, 1993, 1998, 1999,
Copa Sudamericana: 4 appearances
- Quarterfinalist (1): 2004

[edit] Former players

Paraguay

Argentina

Sergio Goycochea

Bolivia

Lorgio Álvarez

Brazil

Cameroon

Colombia

Faryd Aly Mondragón

[edit] Notable coaches

[edit] Current first team squad

As of June 27, 2009

No.	Position	Player
25	GK	Roberto Fernández
13	DF	Alfredo Rojas
3	DF	Fidel Pérez
5	DF	Ivan Piris
6	MF	Jorge "Mono" Brítez
7	FW	César Ramírez
17	DF	Miguel Torren
21	FW	Erwin Avalos
8	MF	Luis Cáceres
11	MF	Celso Ortíz
	MF	Germán Castillo
12	GK	Paolo Ortíz
9	FW	Juan Manuel Sara

No.	Position	Player
14	MF	Javier Villarreal
4	DF	Diego Herner
15	MF	Walter Fretes
20	DF	Luis Cardozo
26	DF	David Mendoza
24	MF	Rodrigo Burgos
2	DF	Julio Irrazábal
27	FW	Pablo Noguera
26	FW	Digno González
23	DF	Carlos Báez
16	DF	Alcides Píccoli
1	GK	Ezequiel Medrán