Independiente F.B.C.

Did You Know?

• The club won its first Primera División promotion in 2010 as runner-up, and its second promotion in 2016 as champion of the División Intermedia.
• The club has won the Third Division title four times: in 1962, 1975, 1980, and 2001.

History

Independiente Foot-Ball Club, also known as Independiente de Campo Grande or Independiente CG, calls the Salvador del Mundo neighborhood of Asunción home. This area was once called Campo Grande. The club was founded on September 20, 1925, by local young people, with Marciano Romero serving as its first president. The name "Independiente" was chosen to break free from the heavy influence political parties had on football at the time. After the Chaco War ended and football tournaments in the capital started up again, the team competed in the Federación Paraguaya de Deportes championships. During the 1940s and 1950s, when the promotion and relegation system was brought back in the divisions of what is now the Asociación Paraguaya de Fútbol (APF) and the Tercera División was created, the club joined and has been playing in APF competitions ever since. After dropping to the lowest division, they won the Tercera División title again in 1975. Following another promotion and relegation, they repeated as Third Division champions in 1980, picking up their third title in what was then called the Segunda de Ascenso. The club spent several years in the Segunda División, then known as the Primera de Ascenso, until 1997. That year, the APF restructured its divisions, creating the División Intermedia as the new second division and expanding Paraguayan football from three to four levels. Independiente was not chosen for the new División Intermedia, so in 1997 they returned to the Tercera División, now called the Primera de Ascenso, while the old Segunda de Ascenso became the fourth division. In 2001, they won the Tercera División title for the fourth time, their first under the name Primera de Ascenso. This earned them promotion to the División Intermedia, but they could not stay up and were relegated again in 2002. From 2003, they played in the Tercera División until the 2008 season, when they finished as runners-up and earned a playoff spot for promotion against the runner-up of the Nacional de Interligas. After winning both matches against Deportivo Capiatá, the club returned to the División Intermedia. In the 2009 Intermedia season, they finished sixth in the middle of the table, securing their place in the division. The 2010 season saw them finish as runners-up, which gave them a direct promotion to the Primera División for the first time in club history. They managed to stay in the top flight for two seasons. After the 2012 season, the team had the worst average in the table at 0.977, leading to relegation back to the División Intermedia. The club competed in the Intermedia from 2013 through 2015, putting together campaigns that kept them safe from relegation. Then, in the 2016 season, with four games left in the championship, they secured promotion to the Primera División for the second time, this time winning the División Intermedia title. In December 2016, the club began preparing for its return to the top division, and they started the 2017 Torneo Apertura with good results. During the final stretch of the 2018 Primera División season, they finished seventh in the aggregate table, qualifying for the 2019 Copa Sudamericana. However, they also placed second-from-bottom in the relegation table and were sent down to the División Intermedia. This made them the first Paraguayan second-division team to qualify for an international competition. Since 2019, the club has been playing in the División Intermedia with average results.