Copa MX 2004

Lore & Background

Founded in 1906 as Unión Football Club, the club changed its name to Guadalajara Football Club in 1908, and then changed to its current name in 1923. Nicknamed Chivas, it was one of ten founding members of the first professional and national league in Mexico, named Liga Mayor (current Liga MX). Guadalajara is one of seven Mexican clubs that have never been relegated. Chivas is the only football club in Mexico that does not sign foreign or naturalized players unless they are of Mexican descent. The team has historically relied on home-grown (cantera) players and has been the launching pad of many internationally successful players, including Javier Hernández and Carlos Salcido, among others.

In Their Own Story

The stadium hummed with a low, sustained roar — not the explosive noise of a goal, but the deep, tectonic vibration of ten thousand voices breathing in unison. The floodlights cut through the Guatemalan night air, throwing long shadows across the pitch. A Chivas midfielder, boots caked in clay, looked up from the centre circle and saw the red-and-white scarves already draped over the lower tier, a sea of colour that seemed to pulse like a living thing. The final whistle had not yet sounded, but the celebration had already begun in the stands. Somewhere in the crowd, an old man in a faded 1986 jersey wept openly, and his son, barely six years old, mimicked the wave of the scarf, not yet understanding that his father was remembering a different cup, a different night, a different generation of the same unbroken thread. The trophy would be lifted soon. But the real victory, the one that mattered, was already written in the faces of the people who had travelled three hundred kilometres to be here, who had passed down the red-and-white like a family name, who believed — as they always had — that this club was not just a team but a promise kept across decades.

Reader's Guide

Domestically, CD Guadalajara is one of the most successful Mexican clubs, winning twelve Liga MX titles, four Copa MX titles, seven Campeón de Campeones and one Supercopa MX, and also holds the league record for the longest winning streak at the beginning of a season, with eight consecutive wins in the Bicentenario 2010. Internationally, it has won two CONCACAF Champions Cup/Champions League titles, and also finished as runners-up in the 2010 Copa Libertadores.

Did You Know?

• According to a study of preferred football clubs in 2016, Guadalajara was the most popular Mexican club, with 44.2% of supporters in the country.
• In 2020, Forbes estimated that the club was the most valuable of the league, ranking sixth overall in the Americas, worth approximately $311.5 million.
• The club's last Copa MX title before the 2012 revival was in 1970 (Copa México 1969-70).
• Carlos Vela never played for Chivas' first team; he came through the youth system of Club América.