Valencia CF

Lore & Background

Valencia has won six La Liga titles and finished as runners-up six times, as well as 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, 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.

Reader's Guide

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. 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 (silver in Tokyo 2020); Cristhian Mosquera and Diego López (gold in Paris 2024).

The club maintains a youth academy, known as 'Acadèmia'. Products include Miguel Tendillo, Ricardo Arias, Fernando Gómez, Andrés Palop, Javier Farinos, Raúl Albiol, David Albelda, Vicente Rodríguez, Gaizka Mendieta, David Silva, 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.

Did You Know?

• Valencia won the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1961–62 and 1962–63, but lost the 1963–64 final to Real Zaragoza.
• The club's first competitive match was a 1–0 loss to Valencia Gimnástico on 21 May 1919.
• Valencia's first La Liga title came in the 1941–42 season.
• Mario Kempes was La Liga top scorer in 1976–77 and 1977–78.
• Valencia won the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1979–80, beating Arsenal in the final.