1.
Argentina
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Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a federal republic in the southern half of South America. With a mainland area of 2,780,400 km2, Argentina is the eighth-largest country in the world, the second largest in Latin America, and the largest Spanish-speaking one. The country is subdivided into provinces and one autonomous city, Buenos Aires. The provinces and the capital have their own constitutions, but exist under a federal system, Argentina claims sovereignty over part of Antarctica, the Falkland Islands, and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The earliest recorded presence in the area of modern-day Argentina dates back to the Paleolithic period. The country has its roots in Spanish colonization of the region during the 16th century, Argentina rose as the successor state of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, a Spanish overseas viceroyalty founded in 1776. The country thereafter enjoyed relative peace and stability, with waves of European immigration radically reshaping its cultural. The almost-unparalleled increase in prosperity led to Argentina becoming the seventh wealthiest developed nation in the world by the early 20th century, Argentina retains its historic status as a middle power in international affairs, and is a prominent regional power in the Southern Cone and Latin America. Argentina has the second largest economy in South America, the third-largest in Latin America and is a member of the G-15 and it is the country with the second highest Human Development Index in Latin America with a rating of very high. Because of its stability, market size and growing high-tech sector, the description of the country by the word Argentina has to be found on a Venice map in 1536. In English the name Argentina probably comes from the Spanish language, however the naming itself is not Spanish, Argentina means in Italian of silver, silver coloured, probably borrowed from the Old French adjective argentine of silver > silver coloured already mentioned in the 12th century. The French word argentine is the form of argentin and derives of argent silver with the suffix -in. The Italian naming Argentina for the country implies Argentina Terra land of silver or Argentina costa coast of silver, in Italian, the adjective or the proper noun is often used in an autonomous way as a substantive and replaces it and it is said lArgentina. The name Argentina was probably first given by the Venitian and Genoese navigators, in Spanish and Portuguese, the words for silver are respectively plata and prata and of silver is said plateado and prateado. Argentina was first associated with the silver mountains legend, widespread among the first European explorers of the La Plata Basin. The first written use of the name in Spanish can be traced to La Argentina, a 1602 poem by Martín del Barco Centenera describing the region, the 1826 constitution included the first use of the name Argentine Republic in legal documents. The name Argentine Confederation was also used and was formalized in the Argentine Constitution of 1853. In 1860 a presidential decree settled the name as Argentine Republic
2.
Club Atlético Boca Juniors
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Club Atlético Boca Juniors is an Argentine sports club based in the La Boca neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. National titles won by Boca Juniors include 31 Primera División championships, Boca Juniors also owns an honorary title awarded by the Argentine Football Association for their successful tour of Europe in 1925. Internationally, the Boca Juniors have won a total of 22 international titles, with 18 recognized by FIFA and CONMEBOL. According to that, Boca is ranked third in the world in terms of number of internationally recognized titles, together with A. C. Milan and behind Real Madrid and Egyptian side Al Ahly. Boca Juniors international achievements also include Tie Cup, Copa de Honor Cousenier, Boca Juniors is also one of only eight teams to have won CONMEBOLs treble. Their success usually has Boca ranked among the IFFHSs Club World Ranking Top 25, Boca was also named by the IFFHS as the top South American club of the first decade of the 21st century. Boca Juniors is also known to be the one of the most popular clubs in Argentina. Boca juniors is one of the most popular clubs in South America, Boca has always had a fierce rivalry with River Plate, as both clubs were established in La Boca. Matches between them are known as the Superclásico, and are one of the most heated rivalries in Argentina, Bocas home stadium is Estadio Alberto J. Armando, which is colloquially known as La Bombonera. In addition to football, Boca Juniors also has basketball and volleyball teams. Other activities held in the club are, athletics, futsal, artistic and rhythmic gymnastics, martial arts, on 3 April 1905, a group of Italian boys met in order to find a club. The house where the meeting was arranged was Esteban Bagliettos and the four people who attended were Alfredo Scarpatti, Santiago Sana and brothers Juan. This was possible when the Asociación Argentina de Fútbol decided to increase the number of teams in the league from 6 to 15, in 1925, Boca made its first trip to Europe to play in Spain, Germany and France. The squad played a total of 19 games, winning 15 of them, for that reason Boca was declared Campeón de Honor for the 1925 season by the Association. During successive years, Boca consolidated as one of the most popular teams of Argentina, with a number of fans not only in Argentina. The club is one of the most successful teams in Argentine football, having won 31 Primera División titles, second only to River Plate with 36. In South American and international football, Boca Juniors have won 18 titles. Those honors include 1919 Tie Cup,1920 Copa de Honor Cousenier and 1945 and 1946 Copa Escobar-Gerona, legend has it that in 1906, Boca played Nottingham de Almagro
3.
Asociación Atlética Argentinos Juniors
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Asociación Atlética Argentinos Juniors is an Argentine sports club based in La Paternal, Buenos Aires. The club is known for its football team, which currently plays in the Primera B Nacional. It is one of the eight Argentine first division teams that won the Copa Libertadores, the continental trophy was won in the clubs first entry to the contest, in 1985. The club was founded in the Villa Crespo neighbourhood of Buenos Aires on 14 August 1904, after several moves in its first few years, the club settled in Villa Urquiza. In 1920 Argentinos played a playoff with El Porvenir but it lost 3–2 on aggregate. In 1921 the team secured promotion to the Primera, making its debut in the 1922 season, the club endured a terrible season in 1925, but they followed it up in 1926 with a 2nd-place finish behind champions Boca Juniors. In 1927 the two football associations were reunified and Argentinos played in a massive 34 team league. Later, the league was expanded to 36 and Argentinos managed to keep its place until 1930, in 1931 Argentinos joined 17 other clubs in forming a breakaway professional league, a move that marked the beginning of the professional era of Argentine football. In 1934 the amateur league was broken up and Argentina once again had a unified first division, Argentinos Juniors played on but finished bottom of the league with only 2 wins from 39 games. Argentinos was allowed to keep its place in the Primera, in 1943 Hector Ingunza made his first appearance for the club, and went on to become the top scorer in the clubs history with 143 goals in official games between 1943 and 1946. In 1948 Argentinos suffered another injustice at the hands of the AFA and they had qualified to the end of season playoff for promotion to the Primera and were top of the league after 7 of the 11 rounds when a players strike interrupted the competition. AFA eventually abandoned the playoff and gave automatic promotion to the teams that had been relegated in 1946 and 1947 instead, in 1954 Argentinos finished in 2nd place in the league having scored 88 goals in the league, making it the highest scoring team by far. In 1955 the team secured promotion back to the Primera after 18 long years. Argentinos returned to top competition in 1956 and after finishing near the bottom of the table that year. In 1960 there was an overhaul of the Argentinos Juniors team. The new team performed well and it was only on the last game of the season that they missed out on the championship, Argentinos finished in 3rd place, only 2 points below the eventual champions Independiente. Although the team didnt win the championship, it is remembered by those old enough to have seen them play. In the following years the team did not live up to expectations,1967 saw the introduction of the Metropolitano and Nacional system, Argentinos struggled to adapt and only just survived relegation from the Metropolitano in the inaugural season
4.
Club Atlético San Lorenzo de Almagro
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Club Atlético San Lorenzo de Almagro, known as San Lorenzo de Almagro or San Lorenzo, is an Argentine sports club based in the Boedo, neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. It is best known for its team, which plays in the Primera División. San Lorenzo is also considered one of the big five of Argentine football by Argentine press, with Independiente, River Plate, Boca Juniors, San Lorenzo plays its home games at Estadio Pedro Bidegain, popularly known as Nuevo Gasómetro. The stadium and sports facilities are located in Bajo Flores, neighborhood of the city of Buenos Aires, Clubs previous stadium was the Viejo Gasómetro, located in Boedo neighborhood. After the match was played there in 1979, the Gasómetro was expropriated by the de facto Government of Argentina, the club currently has five headquarters, three in Boedo, one in Monserrat, and one at Bajo Flores, all of them in the city of Buenos Aires. San Lorenzo also plans to expand its main seat on La Plata Avenue, San Lorenzos historical rival is Huracán, located in Parque Patricios. The two clubs play one of the older derbies in Argentina, some supporters consider this derby as the third most important after Superclásico and Clásico de Avellaneda, in addition to being one of the most uneven derbies of Argentine Soccer. Other sports practised at the club are artistic roller skating, basketball, field hockey, futsal, handball, martial arts, roller hockey, swimming, tennis, some years ago, San Lorenzo had also opened a rugby union section, but it is no longer active. San Lorenzo gained international recognition in March 2013 with the election of Pope Francis, the players played with the Popes photo on their shirts during a league match against Colón de Santa Fe on 16 March 2013. The institution is known because of the actor Viggo Mortensen, supporter of the team. The roots of the institution can be found in a formed by a group of kids that used to play football in the corner of México. Due to the traffic in the city, playing football at the streets became a risky activity for the boys. Lorenzo Massa, the catholic priest of the church, saw how a tram almost knocked down one of the boys while they were playing in the streets. As a way to prevent more accidents, he offered the boys to play in the churchs backyard, on 1 April 1908, an assemble was held in the Almagro district of Buenos Aires with the purpose of establishing a club. During the meeting, several names were proposed, the first option was Los Forzosos de Almagro, which did not sound good to Father Massa. The other proposal was to name the club San Lorenzo as an homage to Massa, other founder member, Federico Monti, suggested to add the name of the neighbourhood, Almagro where most of the members lived in, which was accepted by the assemble. Due to the not having its own a stadium, San Lorenzo began to play its home games in a field property of the Club Martínez. The squad played its first match on 26 April 1914, and this title allowed San Lorenzo to dispute the playoffs in order to promote to the Argentine Primera División, which finally obtained after beating Club Honor y Patria by a score of 3–0
5.
Club de Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata
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Apart from football, GELP also hosts other activities such as athletics, basketball, fencing, futsal, gymnastics, field hockey, martial arts, tennis, roller skating and volleyball. The Club de Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata was founded on 3 June 1887 as a civil association, the club also claims to be the oldest football club in the Americas, despite other football clubs, such as Peruvian Lima Cricket F. C. have older foundation dates. Its foundation came barely five years after the creation of the City of La Plata in 1882, the first sports offered to its members were, as its Spanish name indicates, gymnastics and fencing. Clubs supporting these sports were common among the classes at the end of the 19th century. Later on, other disciplines were added, including track and field, football, basketball, the institution changed name a few times, from April to December 1897 it was called a Club de Esgrima because fencing was the only activity practised at that moment. On 17 December 1897 it returned to its name, Club de Gimnasia y Esgrima. From July 1952 to 30 September 1955, the club was named Club de Gimnasia y Esgrima de Eva Perón, because the city of La Plata itself had been renamed Eva Perón in 1952, after Eva Peróns death. The city returned to its previous name during the government of the Liberating Revolution, however, it remained unduly identified legally as Club de Gimnasia y Esgrima de La Plata, a mistake that was corrected on 7 August 1964 after the new statute was approved. Gimnasia y Esgrima was promoted to the first division after becoming champions of the División Intermedia of Argentine football in 1915, later, in 1929, the club won its first Primera División championship. During successive years, Gimnasia became champion of Primera B in 1944,1947 and 1952, additionally, the squad has been a runner-up in the Primera División on five occasions. The club has remained at the top level of Argentine football for 73 seasons, the Clásico Platense is the nickname given to the match between La Platas two main football teams, Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata and Estudiantes de La Plata. The first official derby took place as part of the Primera División season on 27 August 1916, on that occasion, Gimnasia won 1–0 over Estudiantes, with an own goal by Ludovico Pastor. The first derby of the era took place on 14 June 1931. Between 12 August 1932 and 9 September 1934 Gimnasia won five consecutive La Plata derbies, on 25 June 1963 Gimnasia obtained a 5–2 victory, this being the best result so far against Estudiantes. On the other hand, Gimnasias worst result was a 7–0 defeat on 15 October 2006, a curiosity among the derbies occurred on 5 April 1992, when Gimnasia won over Estudiantes 1–0 at the latters stadium. On that date, as the stands erupted and Gimnasias fans shouted in celebration at the goal being scored and that goal was scored by the Uruguayan José Perdomo on a freekick, and it has been known ever since as El gol del terremoto. Through more than 120 years of history, the Club de Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata has had 56 Presidents, many of them contributed to the growth of the club over the years. Some of them have remained vivid in the fans memory for their achievements or outstanding works
Ramón Díaz (14 goles)
