Copa MX 2013

Lore & Background

Cruz Azul was founded in the late 1920s in Jasso, Hidalgo, where cement company Cooperativa La Cruz Azul fostered a connection with football. Carlos Garcés López, a footballer, athlete and dentist employed by the cooperative, advocated for football to become the company's official sport. After a referendum on 22 March 1927, football was selected, and the team was formally established on 22 May 1927, with Garcés López as its first manager. The club's working-class roots were solidified when workers took ownership of the cooperative in 1932 after financial difficulties. Between 1932 and 1943, Cruz Azul won 15 consecutive league titles in a local amateur league in Hidalgo. The club gained professional status in the early 1960s and earned promotion to the Primera División in the 1963–64 season.

Reader's Guide

Domestically, the club has won ten league titles, four Copa MX, four Campeón de Campeones, and holds the joint-record with one Supercopa de la Liga MX and one Supercopa MX. In international competitions, with seven titles, the club holds the joint-record for the most successful club in the history of the CONCACAF Champions Cup/Champions League. Cruz Azul also holds numerous distinctions, including being the club with the most league runner-up finishes (12), and the first team from CONCACAF to reach the final of the Copa Libertadores. In addition, the club achieved a continental treble in the 1968–69 season by winning the Primera División, Copa México and CONCACAF Champions' Cup, becoming the first CONCACAF club and third worldwide to accomplish this feat.

Did You Know?

• The club holds the joint-record for the most CONCACAF Champions Cup/Champions League titles, with seven, with its sixth title coming in 2013 and the seventh in 2014.
• Cruz Azul maintains a long-standing rivalry with América, known as the Clásico Joven.