2019 Clausura Final – Cruz Azul vs. Toluca

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. The club's formation is rooted in a working-class struggle: in 1931, 192 workers unionized and successfully sued to prevent the company's liquidation, eventually assuming collective ownership of the plant in 1932.

Between 1932 and 1943, Cruz Azul won 15 consecutive league titles in a local amateur league in Hidalgo. 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, and later the first club worldwide—and one of only five—to have won the continental treble twice.

Reader's Guide

Cruz Azul competes in Liga MX and plays home matches at Estadio Azteca. 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. The club maintains a long-standing rivalry with América, a fixture commonly known as the Clásico Joven.