Valencia CF

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Valencia has won six La Liga titles and finished as runners-up six times, as well two Segunda División titles, eight Copa del Rey trophies, one Spanish Super Cup, and one Copa Eva Duarte. In European competitions, they have won two Inter-Cities Fairs Cups, one UEFA Cup, one UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, two UEFA Super Cups, and one UEFA Intertoto Cup. They have also reached two consecutive UEFA Champions League Finals in 2000 and 2001. The club was champion of the Small Club World Cup in 1966, and runner-up in 1955, despite not having FIFA world title recognition, and fourth in the Latin Cup of 1953. In 2004, the IFFHS named Valencia World's Best Club. Valencia were also members of the G-14 group of leading European football clubs and since its end has been part of the original members of the European Club Association. Five former members of the club have been inducted into the FIFA International Football Hall of Fame: Alfredo Di Stéfano, Mario Alberto Kempes, Romário, Jorge Valdano and Didier Deschamps. Valencia also has four personalities in the FIFA 100, its induction taking place in 2004. The club is the team with the most Zarra Trophy winners (5), the fourth in the Zamora Trophy (9) and fifth in the Pichichi Trophy (6) at the national level, at the international level it's the third Spanish team with the most FIFA World Player nominees (9) and the fourth in the Ballon d'Or (23), it has ten nominations for the Golden Boy Award, one for the 2019 Kopa Trophy with Lee Kang-in and one for the 2024 Yashin Trophy with Giorgi Mamardashvili. It has been included three times in the UEFA Team of the Year, with Santiago Cañizares and Kily González in 2001 and David Villa in 2010, the last repeating in the FIFPro World XI in the same year. Four Valencia players were part of the Spanish national team that won the 2010 FIFA World Cup: David Villa, Carlos Marchena, David Silva and Juan Mata. In addition, Raúl Albiol, who came up through the youth ranks, was also part of the world champion team. In 2026, three footballers who came through the Valencia youth system were part of the squad that won the World Cup: Ferran Torres, Alejandro Grimaldo, and Borja Iglesias. Seven of its members have managed to win Olympic Games medals: David Albelda and Miguel Ángel Angulo (silver in Sydney 2000); Fabián Ayala (gold in Athens 2004); Éver Banega (gold in Beijing 2008); Carlos Soler (silv

In Their Own Story

The away section hums with anticipation as the bus pulls into Mestalla. The green flags are unfurled against the sea of yellow. Inside the stadium, the air is thick with the scent of turf and history. A Betista veteran watches from the stands, recalling decades of battles here. The whistle blows, not for a derby, but for a war of wills between two proud institutions that refuse to back down.

Reader's Guide

The club maintains a youth academy, known as 'Acadèmia'. Products of the academy include players such as Miguel Tendillo, Ricardo Arias, Fernando Gómez, Andrés Palop, Javier Farinos, Raúl Albiol, David Albelda, Vicente Rodríguez, Gaizka Mendieta and David Silva. Current stars of the game to have graduated in recent years include Isco, Jordi Alba, Paco Alcácer, Juan Bernat, José Gayà, Carlos Soler, Ferran Torres, Lee Kang-in, Cristhian Mosquera, and Javi Guerra. Historically one of the biggest clubs in the world in terms of number of associates, with around 50,000 season ticket holders at their peak, the club began to decline in the mid-2010s. Singaporean billionaire Peter Lim acquired the team in 2014. The club was established on 5 March 1919 and officially approved on 18 March 1919, with Octavio Augusto Milego Díaz as its first president. The club played its first competitive match away from home on 21 May 1919 against Valencia Gimnástico, and lost 1–0. Valencia moved into the Mestalla Stadium in 1923, having played its home matches at the Algirós ground since 7 December 1919. The first match at Mestalla pitted the home side against Castellón Castalia and ended in a 0–0 draw. Valencia CF won the Regional Championship in 1923, and was eligible to play in the domestic Copa del Rey cup competition for the first time. The Spanish Civil War halted progress until 1941, when it won the Copa del Rey, beating RCD Espanyol in the final. In the 1941–42 season, the club won its first Spanish La Liga championship title. The club maintained its consistency to capture the league title again in the 1943–44 season, as well as the 1946–47 league edition. They would conclude their decade of success by winning the 1949 Copa del Rey. In the 1950s, Valencia failed to emulate the success of the previous decade. In the 1952–53 season, the club finished as runners-up in La Liga, and in the following season, won the Copa del Rey. In the early 1960s, Valencia had its first European success in the form of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, defeating Barcelona in the final of the 1961–62 edition. The following edition pitted Valencia against Dinamo Zagreb in the final, which the Spanish side also won. Valencia reached a third consecutive Inter-Cities Fairs Cup final in the following season, but were defeated 2–1 by Real Zaragoza. Former two-time European Footballer of the Year award winner Al

Did You Know?

• Valencia has won two Inter-Cities Fairs Cups, the forerunner to the UEFA Cup.
• The club's first president was decided by a coin toss.
• Valencia's first competitive match was a 1–0 loss to Valencia Gimnástico on 21 May 1919.
• Four Valencia players were part of Spain's 2010 World Cup-winning squad: David Villa, Carlos Marchena, David Silva, and Juan Mata.
• In 2026, three Valencia youth products—Ferran Torres, Alejandro Grimaldo, and Borja Iglesias—were part of Spain's World Cup-winning squad.