Chivas vs Santos Laguna: El Clásico de los Clásicos

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, Carlos Vela and Carlos Salcido, among others.

In Their Own Story

The bus pulls into the stadium parking lot and the noise hits before the doors even open. A wall of sound—drums, horns, the guttural chant of ten thousand voices chanting the same four words in unison. You can feel it in your chest before you see the pitch. The tunnel is narrow, the concrete cold, and the players walk single-file into a cathedral of blue and white. The grass is perfect, the floodlights cutting through a thin haze of night air. On the other side, the green shirts are already stretching, their faces set with the particular calm of a team that knows they are the ones everyone wants to beat. The referee checks his watch. The crowd inhales. And for ninety minutes, two cities forget everything else that exists.

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 was founded in 1906 by a group including Edgar Everaert, who arrived in Mexico that year.