Liga MX 1997

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.

In Their Own Story

The floodlights at the Estadio Jalisco hummed to life on a humid April evening. The air tasted of grilled corn and cheap beer, the kind that fogged the plastic cups in the lower tiers. A boy of maybe nine, perched on his father's shoulders, pressed his face against the railing and tried to see the pitch through the haze of 50,000 voices. The drums started—deep, rolling, almost geological—and the wave of red and white crested and fell, crested and fell.

Somewhere in the tunnel, a captain tightened his laces for the third time. He could hear them. All of them. The whole city, breathing through the stadium walls. He looked at the men around him, Mexican boys from Jalisco and beyond, and said nothing. You didn't need words. You just needed to walk out onto that grass and give them the ninety minutes they'd been waiting eight years to see. The floodlights caught the rojiblanco shirts, and for a moment, the whole stadium held its breath before the first drum hit like a heartbeat.

Reader's Guide

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, Carlos Vela and Carlos Salcido, among others. 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.